spin

II should be a place where people have some understanding of others. We may go hammer and tongs at arguments, but such attacks on persons -- unrelated even to the daily heat of argument -- seem more to be a reflection of some necessity of yours than on the person you attack. Be good and compassionate.


spin

Clivedurdle

Please see my thread on 153.

We as humans have a sense of awe, of wonder, of the ineffable, the transcendent, of intuition. These are real experiences - Persinger can induce them by poking stuff in brains.

We use terms like "spiritual" for these experiences.

Hawkins uses terms like mind of god - Dawkins discusses this.

Is there a way of using the term spiritual in a non supernatural way? Possibly not if we are being precise, but we find that difficult!

http://www.sofn.org.uk/

How does the catholic church work now? Do lay people get ex communicated?

Ted Hoffman

I think Kirby is a fine human being and I did not mean to attack his person. I am simply not for moving from a prolific author and compiler of important documents and websites to a computer gamer to a Uber Catholic (whatever that means). I dont get to dictate what Kirby does but I do have a right to an opinion. As far as I know, Kirby has not asked for our support or compassion. If he wanted it, he knows he can start a thread at Secular Lifestyle and Support forum.
I think that feeling compassion toward a grown man who is making rational choices that make him happy is patronizing and I am not sure it is morally better than voicing disapproval when someone you know makes choices whose correctness are not clear to you.

spin

And I wouldn't think of denying you one. :angel:

Everyone needs compassion, Ted. People of all ages in all situations everywhere are vulnerable to the fickleness of events, even Arnie the governator types, even the ones who come to ii to be battered. All choices we make are overdetermined. Life choices are often outside our own individual control, they are so overdetermined. Choices about happiness, being so overdetermined, quite often don't lead to increased happiness. And "grown men" rhetoric is often also overdetermined, manipulative, and propagandistic.

I wouldn't want to rob you of your opinion, but I would hope yours is compassionate.


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Ted Hoffman

Alright alright. I am all for compassion and all that. Now, I have never heard or read about this pervasive and ineluctable psycho-metaphysical force that doggedly stands behind every choice we make called "overdetermination". Would you care to enlighten us a little on it?

S.C.Carlson

Yeah, I too couldn't figure out what "overdetermined" was supposed to mean in this context.

Stephen

spin

:blush: I feel so convinced now.

Let's say you buy chocolate a lot because you like the taste, but then, let's add that you buy chocolate because you feel comfortable eating it. You like chocolate because you feel the need for the reassuring sweetness and rich creamy texture. You like chocolate because you feel good eating it and when you were unhappy as a child you needed to feel good. You like chocolate...

Someone I know is a rather friendly person in public. It comes naturally to her. She feels comfortable that way. She's also learnt to manipulate people through her friendliness. She feels the need for people to like her. Her mother would never give her the love she needed for she in turn never received it. Then again it's good weather and she isn't under stress. There is always another reason for what you do or think.

In the simplest decisions you make there are ghosts sitting on your shoulders nudging you in your choice.


spin

Clivedurdle

mmmm chocolate!

Has anyone ever worshipped it?

Ted Hoffman

Thanks,
Is this another brand of predestination? I mean based on it, we dont get to choose whether we will have a short temper or whether we will be atheists. We look at the evidence and we say crap! Theists look at it and say "Jesus!".
And you are saying it has got nothing to do with wilful, rational choices: it is the culmination of nurture and nature combined - which is too big to formalize in the logic we peddle around as a "basis" for our choices.
Is that it? If that is close to it, it would be fun to watch the Philosophers in the Philosophy forum chop it to pieces. It runs counter free-will and means the suicidal guy who flings himself from a skyskraper never had a choice in the matter.
Is this your own idea or are there oher thinkers who have documented it?
If its yours, it would be useful to develop it further for the philosophers to take it apart. I have a feeling it is not Philosophically robust. Oops - was that overdetermination again?

No Robots

Let us conceive a very simple thing. For instance, a stone receives from the impulsion of an external cause, a certain quantity of motion, by virtue of which it continues to move after the impulsion given by the external cause has ceased. The permanence of the stone's motion is constrained, not necessary, because it must be defined by the impulsion of an external cause. What is true of the stone is true of any individual, however complicated its nature, or varied its functions, inasmuch as every individual thing is necessarily determined by some external cause to exist and operate in a fixed and determinate manner.

Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavouring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavour and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.


-- Letter 62 (58) Spinoza to G. H. Schaller