Re: Freewill
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you dont have free will to control your emotions (and by this I will assume you include things like desires and motivations and preferences) then who really cares if its possible to choose C or !C? Your preferences dictate your choices, and you are at the mercy of your preferences.
[/ QUOTE ]
If you are raised by a worthless mother, who fed you at McDonalds, Burger King and Dunkin Donuts a good portion of childhood, and you were 60lbs overweight when you left home and learned about proper diet in college, you would now have free will to choose what you will eat.
Your mind will crave the junk, your desire to break the cycle, if strong enough, will win the battle. Just like an alcoholic, mentally & physically addicted, can free his mind of the desire to drink over time.
[/ QUOTE ]
Irrelevant. You are haggling over which of your uncontrollable desires makes your decisions for you, your desire for the alcohol or your desire to overcome your alcoholism. The end result is the same.
[/ QUOTE ]
I understand now. All this time, I've been thinking that my treating of my fellow man in a way that I would like to be treated, was a decision made on my own, since a good number of people do not do the same. Now it turns out, that my desire is nothing more than genetic.
[/ QUOTE ]
While that may very well be true (and probably is) its also irrelevant. I'm working within your framework here. If it isnt THAT desire, its some other desire. And we cant choose our desires right? Can we choose which of our desires is strongest? No, we cant. And how do we choose what we dont want to choose?
[/ QUOTE ]
We cannot choose our desires. They are primarily genetic/environment/lifestyle induced. So we can't choose which desire is the strongest. We can identify which one is.
An alcoholic, physically and mentally addicted to alcohol, has a much stronger desire to drink than a desire to get sober. Yet they do. Go to an open AA meeting and ask one who has been sober for at least 5 years how he/she did it.
[/ QUOTE ]
Apparently you are wrong about which desire is strongest, since they dont drink. And their perception of their desires is potentially pretty misleading. After all, I feel like I have free will!
|