No one chooses what they believe

[Jodie.Lynne]

14 hours ago, DieChecker said:

But, I agree humans are mostly illogical, going off impulse, intuition, and emotion. The perfect targets for religion?

Especially when it comes to religion and matters of faith.

[Golden Duck]

21 minutes ago, Jodie.Lynne said:

Especially when it comes to religion and matters of faith.

Upselling has long superseded the maxim 'the customer is always right'.  Who hasn't heard "do you want fries with that?"

The Gruen Effect is utilised to make "consumers more susceptible to make impulse buys."

It's easier to stay home that attend a religious service.  Religion is more routine that impulse.

[+Sherapy]

On 6/27/2019 at 7:49 PM, XenoFish said:

During our early childhood, various beliefs are burned into our subconscious. These beliefs act as "background programs" in our minds that help shape us. New beliefs tend to grow from the ideas that were planted, eventually contradictions arises. So a conflict of belief is created, creating inner turmoil. Then a resolution must be met, to either reject or accept a new belief. 

New beliefs grow from our experiences, that is why we let go of so many childhood teachings once we mature and live for ourselves. 

Had I believed my Mom’s beliefs about me I would have been destined for suicide, 

 

[+Sherapy]

On 6/27/2019 at 11:14 PM, DebDandelion said:

@spartan max2.  As we are young we don't form our own beliefs. We adopt the beliefs of those who are influencial in our lives. When we get to the age of questioning things in our lives we begin the journey of choice.

This is where conflict arises like Xeno said previously. Cause you have to get a balance, so you either stay as you were taught, disregard what you were taught or choose to grow in what you were taught. 

This choice as mentioned above is the beginning of a cycle. You never really stop Making choices from this point, cause life has a way of working through the things we believe. 

And your choices change with experience and you adopt. A wise man said that the only true constant in life is change. And that is the truth. 

So we all choose, irrespective of age, we all get to that point where we make a choice, where we are coming face to face with that abyss. 

The mere fact that we are human leads to us questioning everything, even if you decide to not change what you believe that is still a choice. 

Imo

And our own experiences lead us to new beliefs, we outgrow and refine or replace beliefs all the time.

As we mature, so do our beliefs. 

I also think being exposed and being open to other perspectives influences beliefs too, 

I surround myself with quality people and ideas. 

As a parent, I trashed a lot of my childhood teachings due to they went against my goals as a parent, I kept the beliefs that were productive and in line with my goals and the experiences mine, and my kids played a big part in our collective beliefs too. 

 

I tried to build on the best ideas ( education) to adopt as beliefs on the issues that were important to me, 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 13, 2019 by Sherapy

[+Hammerclaw]

I believe in choice and so choose to believe all sorts of nonsensical things because my heart tells me to. No one said it better than The Gentle Giant, God rest his soul.

https://youtu.be/5sUnv9-ePbo

 

[+Sherapy]

5 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

I believe in choice and so choose to believe all sorts of nonsensical things because my heart tells me to. No one said it better than The Gentle Giant, God rest his soul.

https://youtu.be/5sUnv9-ePbo

 

I think after we get out of our childhood homes, we may keep some, such as my grandmother not only believed  but practiced compassion and kindness towards children, we do choose beliefs, ( I choose not to believe in god) we lose some, and we get new ones based on our own experiences. 

 

Edited July 13, 2019 by Sherapy

[+Hammerclaw]

4 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

I think after we get out of our childhood homes, we may keep some, such as my grandmother not only believed  but practiced compassion and kindness towards children, we do choose beliefs, ( I choose not to believe in god) we lose some, and we get new ones based on our own experiences. 

 

If there is an all-knowing, all-seeing God, he'll surely understand and if not? Well, it won't make no neverminded then, will it?.

[XenoFish]

6 hours ago, Sherapy said:

New beliefs grow from our experiences, that is why we let go of so many childhood teachings once we mature and live for ourselves. 

Had I believed my Mom’s beliefs about me I would have been destined for suicide, 

 

Sometimes past experiences leave lingering marks that affect the current of living. Past programs still running in the mind. Subtle, quiet, except in those loud moments where they show themselves. You can put a band-aid on the scars and pretend they don't exist, but they do and forever will. 

[+Sherapy]

5 hours ago, XenoFish said:

Sometimes past experiences leave lingering marks that affect the current of living. Past programs still running in the mind. Subtle, quiet, except in those loud moments where they show themselves. You can put a band-aid on the scars and pretend they don't exist, but they do and forever will. 

No dispute, I know from experience change is complicated and involves more than just the cognitive aspect, there is the social and biological aspect too, in other words, change is not just an internal, individual process, one has to account for the external factors that undergird effective change too, and then the things that one can’t change they might find it beneficial to work on acceptance. 

Personally, for me by adopting the belief that I can find the opportunity for growth in any adversity has panned out for me so far, granted I have had a lot of experiences that have put this to the test, but not without a lot of work and commitment to pushing through when the adversity hits and sucks and it isn’t fun, making changes doesn’t negate the emotional or social  aspects or turn awful experiences into rainbows and unicorns, what it does is grow a resiliency in us that we can weather the storms and push through live on. 

At times, it is trauma that can motivate us to find coping systems that are viable, and practical, not magical. 

And, there is a lot of variables in human experience, what matters is we get to know ours and go from there. 

Edited July 13, 2019 by Sherapy

[lightly]

On July 11, 2019 at 11:43 PM, psyche101 said:

I see people reject facts for beliefs all the time. 

That seems like a choice to me. 

Yes,  and, people reject beliefs for facts all the time too?   It's like Jodie said...when we are young we are told what to believe...but as we live and learn ....most of us Choose our own beliefs?  ...what ever they may be.

[+Sherapy]

18 hours ago, Hammerclaw said:

If there is an all-knowing, all-seeing God, he'll surely understand and if not? Well, it won't make no neverminded then, will it?.

It is obvious to me that your belief system works as well for you as mine works for me. We have the same ideas just different ways to get there.

[+Hammerclaw]

3 hours ago, Sherapy said:

It is obvious to me that your belief system works as well for you as mine works for me. We have the same ideas just different ways to get there.

Not really a system; we are both rational and irrational, each after our own uniquely individual fashion. We both follow the dictates of our hearts. In one sense we are in complete agreement; neither one of us believes in a God of dogma.

[Mr Walker]

On 29/06/2019 at 11:14 PM, XenoFish said:

The real problems I have with people's religious beliefs are the negativity they create with them, including basically being told I'm going to hell no matter what I think, feel, or do. 

I don't believe in heaven or hell, but I've never had anyone (not from ANY christian denomination)  tell me i am going to hell no matter  what i do.

The many fundamentalist Christians i know all believe that Christ redeemed every human from "original sin", through his death, and we that stay redeemed and clothed in garments of righteousness  until we consciously sin as an individual. 

Then, we can be forgiven for a sin by confessing it, doing our best not to repeat, it making restitution  for any hurt or damage caused,  And simply asking  for forgiveness.

Under those rules, almost no one need go to  hell, even if it did exist, unless they worked really hard at it. 

if you  (generic) don't believe in  Christ's offer of salvation and eternal life. or in the concpet of sin,    then some Christians who do believe in hell might say you are going there, but as you are a non believer, that is irrelevant anyway 

[Mr Walker]

On 29/06/2019 at 11:49 PM, XenoFish said:

The problem with spiritual/religious beliefs is that they are assumptions, prone to confirmation bias and self fulfilling prophecy. 

Isnt that the case with ANY human belief? 

Beliefs are constructs with an evolved purpose.

As long as the y serve that purpose, and are effective,  it doesn't matter if the y are correct /incorrect,  logical or illogical,  or have the flaws you mention.(which in the case of beliefs may not be flaws at all but other helpful  evolved constructs of the mind)

No human psychological or cognitive pattern or abilty exists without a purpose and a function.

The y are like fingers or ribs. We evolve them to meet a need and improve the chances of our survival. 

 

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2eef/94fc180fd2c31726745fe6a15a98fbf041f4.pdf

Edited July 14, 2019 by Mr Walker

[Mr Walker]

On 30/06/2019 at 7:50 AM, Tatetopa said:

Greetings Mr. Walker.  Yes the definition of making choices as jmcr8 has said is seeing options and choosing between them.

IBM's Deep Blue the chess playing computer makes billions of comparisons every second from every game in its memory, including the ones it's opponent has played.  It makes the best "choice" for its next move.  Does that mean Deep Blue has free will?  Or does it run within the parameters of its programming, which includes the ability to learn and modify its programming?

I think you assume we have free will if there are no impediments that we perceive when we exercise choice.  You never run into a wall, so there must not be one.

Is it possible that like a self aware  piece on a chess board  you can posit a universe of moves and their outcomes in any game?  

You can choose any course of action  even if it results in your piece being taken.

The knight or the pawn of the rook says, "Of course I have free will, I can imagine any move  I want and if there is nothing in the way I can actualize it. 

But the universe of moves for the bishop is proscribed by moving diagonally, or the rook in straight lines.  For them, that is the entire conceivable universe. 

So yes, they have the ability to choose, but in the metagame, they are restricted by the very nature that makes them a bishop or a rook or a pawn.

I think you will say that you can see over the walls of these limitations and therefore have some higher degree of determination that constitutes free will.

And I wonder if free will is not just the human machine  being unaware that it too moves on a subtle track that is the very nature of what makes us human.

You explain why humans have free will, very clearly here We are NOT limited in the moves we can make or the choices we can take. Anything and everything is prone to the imagination of the human mind (even though we  often dont utilise that abilty very widely or deeply 

Thus the human rook can jump 5 spaces, take a left turn,  sneak up behind any other piece and give it a knock out blow (or utilise any other move it can envisage such as dematerialisng and rematerialisng

Now there are physical limitations on acting on that imagination BUt these don't affect our abilty to try using technology  time and creativity  Hence i can fly, given an  adequate updraft, with nothing more  than a small piece of material holding me up.  i can ATTEMPT to do anything i can imagine doing.   

Tell me, if you can, what physical barriers you can identify to free will. If you cannot identify any, then why on earth assume any exist

I think the basic strength  of human will is tha t we do not JUST use logic.

We use imagination, intuition, creativity  emotions and feelings etc 

Thus, when confronted with a problem which pure logic tells us is not  soluble,  we will find a way to solve it, using other parts of our mind 

[eight bits]

14 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

Beliefs are constructs with an evolved purpose.

There is no purpose to any result of evolution by natural selection, hence the name.

You are of course free to invoke the agency of your god, he she or it of the truck headlights, in place of natural selection; just as you please.

[Mr Walker]

On 30/06/2019 at 11:54 AM, Sherapy said:

MW, you are making yet another unsubstantiated claim.

I work for a Neurologist and the facts are 

“...little is understood about how the brain determines and communicates the need to recruit cognitive control, and how such signals instigate the implementation of appropriate performance adjustments” in other words, you don’t know the mechanics behind your own neuro cognitive processes anymore than Neuroscience does. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0278262604002866

 

Untrue 

A great deal has been learned in the last 10 years using modern machinery capable of reading brain patterns in real time  Like many you argue on issues you are not up to date with  This is not to say our knowledge is complete or even a high percentage of what we will one day know, but we know a lot, and learn more every day. 

Edited July 14, 2019 by Mr Walker

[Mr Walker]

29 minutes ago, eight bits said:

There is no purpose to any result of evolution by natural selection, hence the name.

You are of course free to invoke the agency of your god, he she or it of the truck headlights, in place of natural selection; just as you please.

Thats  semantics  You assume i meant some form of directed purpose, however evolution is a process which works towards constructing the most highly adaptive and successful species even though it does it without intent or design. 

the literature explains how and why things like confirmation bias evolved   The reasons we evolved things like confirmation bias and belief and imagination etc are identical to the reasons why we evolved a spine or fingers or the abilty to speak ie such adaptions increased the chances of survival of those who had them and their progeny  

Evolution has a purpose or it would not exist That purpose is not intelligent or self aware. Gravity has a purpose, sunlight has a purpose, rocks have a purpose Those purposes  may have nothing to do with human beings, but the y explain WHY we have suns rocks and gravity     

I think you are making the same mistake many make  of confusing directed purpose with chaotic purpose 

When you get any end result it comes from  a [purpose.  NOTHING exists or can come into existence without its own purpose 

eg why do we have fingers? 

Why do we have imagination?

Because those qualities served the purpose  of increasing human survival and mean we are still here and not extinct.  Their purpose was /is to increase our chances of  survival   or  Darwinian fitness  

 To take a wider example of the way i use purpose. Air movement results from differences in air  pressure  which. in turn. result from  differential hearing on the earths surface The greater the difference the stronger the winds 

So what purpose do winds serve? They distribute heat and prevent extremes of heat and cooling 

There is not design or intent in this. It is purely a natural  evolved process BUT when asked" what is the purpose  of winds?"  that is the answer 

As it happens, human life would be impossible without this natural mechanism,  but it is not the purpose of air or wind to serve human beings  We are a consequence of these things and their natural purposes 

Edited July 14, 2019 by Mr Walker

[Mr Walker]

On 30/06/2019 at 4:04 PM, Tatetopa said:

Awesome.  Wish I'd said that.

lol except it doesn't make sense

is she saying that neuro scientists have no more knowledge about how our brain and mind works than i do? Does that mean she believes NO one has any scientific understanding of the brain and mind.

That is simply so untrue we know an incredible amount and are beginning to utilise it in many ways from capturing mental images and verbal thoughts  on a computer to alleviating pain which is a neural construct

Heck we have been using neural interfaces, first with electrodes and then wirelessly,  to operate machinery, exo skeletons and vehicles,  for almost two decades   

[Mr Walker]

53 minutes ago, eight bits said:

There is no purpose to any result of evolution by natural selection, hence the name.

You are of course free to invoke the agency of your god, he she or it of the truck headlights, in place of natural selection; just as you please.

So our fingers have no purpose? 

[eight bits]

49 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

Thats  semantics  You assume i meant some form of directed purpose, however evolution is a process which works towards constructing the most highly adaptive and successful species even though it does it without intent or design. 

Perhaps if you knew some semantics, then you'd more often manage meaningful utterances.

That which works toward is fairly said to be directed.

As to what I did or didn't assume in respoding to what you said: You know nothing of me, nothing of my "assumptions." The unscientific, even anti-scientific, character of your pontifications on biology moved me to remark upon them. That is all.

[Piney]

1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

  Darwinian fitness  

 Evolution is caused by environmental stresses and takes the path of least resistance. 

See! I did that without a wall of text. 

[Golden Duck]

55 minutes ago, Piney said:

 Evolution is caused by environmental stresses and takes the path of least resistance. 

See! I did that without a wall of text. 

Brute force hack?

That's only three words.

[danydandan]

51 minutes ago, Piney said:

 Evolution is caused by environmental stresses and takes the path of least resistance. 

See! I did that without a wall of text. 

I often think folks who still cite Darwin when talking about evolutionary biology these days, don't really have a clue. 

Like me for instance, I know nothing about modern evolution other than what I have heard on the SGU. I still think of Darwin, but I know modern evolutionary biology has progressed so far from Darwin's original theory. That it would be like me still citing Newton's gravity instead of Einstein's relativity.

[Tatetopa]

8 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

You explain why humans have free will, very clearly here We are NOT limited in the moves we can make or the choices we can take. Anything and everything is prone to the imagination of the human mind (even though we  often dont utilise that abilty very widely or deeply 

Thus the human rook can jump 5 spaces, take a left turn,  sneak up behind any other piece and give it a knock out blow (or utilise any other move it can envisage such as dematerialisng and rematerialisng

 

8 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Tell me, if you can, what physical barriers you can identify to free will. If you cannot identify any, then why on earth assume any exist

I think the basic strength  of human will is tha t we do not JUST use logic.

We use imagination, intuition, creativity  emotions and feelings etc 

Thus, when confronted with a problem which pure logic tells us is not  soluble,  we will find a way to solve it, using other parts of our mind 

The brain itself is the physical limitation.  

Yes, we  do use more than simply logic.  Logic is just one useful problem solving subroutine the brain has developed.  It is not the only one.

Intuition and creativity are two other subroutines for solving problems, really analogous to logic.  Not beyond logic, just other approaches  as  structured in their own way by our brains as logic is.

Emotions come from a deeper limbic programming not requiring thought at all..  Many creatures share basic emotions, more complex ones may provide more nuance to behavior.

All of that is formed from circuits and connections between neurons in the brain.  Indeed we do program ourselves, and that has proven quite adaptive and useful.  Yet we are limited by the kernel we began with and the architecture  we grow onto it.   Imagination comes from within and is limited by the physical connections it can grow, almost infinite but not infinite.. It is seeded with experiences, and can distort those or put several together, but it does not encompass all that there is.  There is a major gulf, a change of state  between almost infinite and truly infinite.  Imagination stops at almost infinite.

Those are the limits, way out there where some people do not go or pay attention.  Humans are a very wonderful electro-chemical and mechanical assemblage, but they are limited by the structure of the matter that composes them.