I consider myself rational when, for example, I say communist Romania was far worse than nowadays Romania — Eugen
USSR broke because its economy collapsed. — Eugen
I don't see the mind and the brain as different, just self on a spectrum. This is because I don't think 'physical' means anything other than 'real'. It used to mean something but no longer. They're both self and neither one is solid.What I'm saying is that indeed, in most cases people give up long before the mind is shattered. But in some cases, incredible people just won't give up until it's simply physically impossible to oppose. But when that happens, it is NOT the mind that takes the decision, but the reptilian brain. — Eugen
The fantasy is not that one can resist or does, it's that you can choose regardless.- no, to my mind those who resist for a good cause are pure heroes, nothing macho. — Eugen
I wouldn't want to act against all desires. More or less by definition.I think mind/consciousness + unconscious = brain. I also think free will is the capacity of the conscious brain (mind) to act against all instincts, desires (physical/biological/deterministic desires). — Eugen
But in the end it isn't bigger than that. I want to take care of me. That's a big priority. I don't want to sacrifice myself.for ideals. I would see it a bit like an animal that freezes and stops feeling when the lion is eating its guts out. Or, a pause that reduce the long term damage by giving in now. This need not be a mental conscious choice but an organismic one. Just as I would not fight physically in some situations with a swat team bearing down on me. Survive, live to (hopefully) later return to myself another day. I think the organism should make this turn. I am not even sure it is a giving up.But if free will does exist, then there's a fight between the unconscious brain who says "please make it stop!" and the mind who says "this thing is bigger than life, pain, mental state and everything else, so I will not give up!". — Eugen
Free will represents exactly the power to act against these desires when they're against your targets, principles or ideals. — Eugen
Well, that's what I mean. I mean, if your convincing cannot be stopped then it is forcing. But yes, my whole point is that the mind can be forced.But this is not convincing, this is simply forcing. — Eugen
Except they are alive and will contradict their previous belief. So, it's not like that.It's like killing someone and say " now he doesn't believe in God anymore". — Eugen
They might want to in the abstract, but if they are honest and know themselves and have decent introspection, they will know that they will not want this at a certain point. People have all sorts of fantasies and misconceptions about themselves. I mean, I have been through some shit in childhood that would have broken a lot of people. I am hardly a hedonist or an avoid painist. In fact I think I have at times had too high a tolerance for emotional pain. Physical pain, at least some kinds I am a wuss, other kinds, I can take a lot. Stick needles in my eyes, well, I am gonna talk. If you mind/brain is starved for what it must have, while also being forced to experience pain/horror and isolation those people break just like I would. There are sloppy torturers, but if you have a competent modern expert, they break everyone.Not you, some people would, there are plenty of examples out there. — Eugen
In short term decisions, sure. Dive in front of the bus to save someone else's kid. Rush into fire to save fellow soldiers. And of course resist torture up to a point in relation to ideals. I have made some very dangerous spontaneous choices that put me at great risk to help others. But none of this is like being tortured over a long time to where you barely know yourself and people can start putting shit in. It's not about having ideals and priorities. It's what one needs to be whole.They just don't give a damn about themselves in the biological sense when it comes to ideals. — Eugen
Oh, that I'm not sure of. Cause then ther person has to be functional. I think it is possible that if you systematically rape someone over long period of time while breaking down their minds in ways I have decribing and then build it up, that yes, everyone would be vulnerable to that. But I don't know. I have been arguing that anyone will give up secrets to end their suffering, regardless of the consequences - if the torturers have the time and know the tortures that do not risk killing the victim. Or that the person can be convinced they believe the opposite of what they do. To me that is different from being released to perform acts. I think it is possible we can all be Manchurian CAndidated. But I don't know.So assuming the mind will always decide, are you sure every human being, regardless of their personality, would rape, torture and burn their family alive if a torturer persuaded them to do so? — Eugen
Just because they have a cause doesn't make them fantasies. — Eugen
elaborate in structure or decoration.
"the furniture was very fancy"
If you want to lose weight it is generally, for example, because you desire to live longer or you desire to look more attractive. Desires. Since we are social mammals, our desires can have a lot to do with other people. They are still desires. Often about how we want to think of ourselves or feel ourselves to be.If the body asks for food and you don't eat, it doesn't happen because of another stronger instinctual impulse that oppose the former. — Eugen
I don't think so. You are viewing it as NOT BEING some specific claim by the torturer. For some reason you are focusing on the torturer, here, rather than, as I am, on the effects of torure. Like the torturer is really claiming to be charismatic or a great arguer and you don't think he is. I agree with you, and I am not saying that. It doesn't matter how the torturer might boast, in these inaccurate frames, about what he did. That's not what I'm focused on. I am not focused on any claims by the torturer. I am just saying the torturer can force X. Can make x happen. If he, and presumably most are a he, frames what he has done in the wrong way, this doesn't change what can or will happen to us if we experience skilled torture.You are right, I gave a wrong example. It is more like a rapist violating his victim and saying "now she wants me". — Eugen
In those final moments they will want to agree with the voice that offers water or sleep. They will want the pain to stop, they will want to say X is good and even believe it when they did not believe it before.That's very different from wanting. — Eugen
And I can't know for sure. But I think we can all be broken.And I don't know if that happened because of sloppy torture. — Eugen
in philosophy, generally, and for me, I find hunger as part of my mind, my experiencing of myself, part of the feelings and thoughts I have,. Rather than over here, in my mind, I have my desire for community connectedness and over there in my body I have my desire for food. Of course if you are distracted by your own words and think you are only logical, then anyone could not notice that their desire for, let's say, harmony with neighbors is also embodied. I have but one exeriencer, which is mind, which is me and it is embodied.but it can only act through mind. Cut the power of mind to act against hunger and you'll eat like a wolf. — Eugen
now my desire to end ain is body, not mind, not me. I find all of these things as one thing, me. I want the pain to stop. In my mind, as my mind. As a body, and in my body those feelings.These two will get in conflict and you're saying that in the end, mind will be nothing more than something that just observe what the body decides, — Eugen
Very rarely, though it does happen, and if we are talking about more grooming type rapes - rather than the stranger pulls you into the bushes one shot events - then the chances go up a lot that a woman may have an orgasm. I am not sure if the analogy to rape holds or not in as fitting my position. I don't really this part.To make another analogy, the victim despises her rapist, but still has an orgasm produced by her body. — Eugen
So I truly and objectively believe I am more objective than they are. — Eugen
I can only agree mind is also part of the brain. But hunger is not the same as wanting to lose weight. — Eugen
Sure, and I am not a determinist. But a parallel unpleasance comes from free will.Feeling of hunger vs Feeling of losing weight, moment of time t -> hunger chemicals vs losing weight chemicals, if, at the moment t, hunger chemicals > losing weight chemicals -> you'll eat and your conscious brain/mind will only witness — Eugen
To me it is just frontal lobes looking down on other parts. We are very smart nuanced mammals. I don't weigh in on the free will vs determinism for reasons I have taken up elsewhere, but I see your philosophy as a kind of taking the side of the frontal lobes and disidentifying with portions of yourself. Of course you can do this if you want, but I think it adds to splits and it goes against my desires, even, in the long run, have my frontal lobes realized that they don't want to disidentify with the limbic system the brain stem, etc. But it has taken CONTRAST for the lobes to get this. and also long noticing the problems with brain or self or mind factions.That information influences the unconscious brain and it makes it stay away from food. — Eugen
I also agree that "me" is more than mind. I am also my brain and my hands — Eugen
And I think what you are calling mind is the frontal lobes. still brain, still body. For a couple of thousand years at least we have been told that those lobes are good and the other parts are bad, problematic, need to be suppressed and controlled and so on. Yes, by religions, but also by the scientific and 'see-themselves as rational emotional phobic portions of the human race. Both ask for a disidentifcation, where one part of the brain says 'I am the person, the rest isn't really' and also with different ways we are supposed to suppress those other parts. One part of the self disengaging from, saying it superior to, other parts.it cannot act in times of hunger without the "what I call mind" part of the brain. — Eugen
Who uses it who is not determined? What wouldn't that person freely choose according to socio-biological desires? Do they freely choose to do things they do not desire? To me the whole free will thing is moot, in the context of what we are talking about, because I have no reason to go against my desires. Or in a sense, myself. I would only fight torturers and try not to reveal something because of my desire to fight them/protect something I care about etc. Desires motivate.I think free will is like technology: it represents a part of evolution and it was originally meant to improve lives, but use it in the wrong way and it will be much worse than not having it. — Eugen
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