FRDB Archives

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.


Go Back   FRDB Archives > Archives > IIDB ARCHIVE: 200X-2003, PD 2007 > IIDB Philosophical Forums (PRIOR TO JUN-2003)
Welcome, Peter Kirby.
You last visited: Today at 05:55 AM

 
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 04-20-2003, 09:02 PM   #31
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,322
Default

Quote:
Originally posted by Nowhere357
I agree to an extent. It's kinda hard to choose something we have no awareness of.


Yes, it is impossible to choose something of which we have no awareness. And it is impossible to have an awareness of something of which we have no experience. So nothing you can think is free of the implications of experience.

Quote:
Suicide is an application of free will. I wonder how we ever could learn it to be rewarding and appropriate.


Suicide is not a free act at all. First of all, an individual must understand what suicide is and how to go about it before attempting it. This entails the automatic enlistment of all applicable biases in "suicide neural groups", by the encodement of attached emotions as well as those of other associated experiences. Not free at all. All bound up.

Quote:
A more clear cut example may be putting a hand in a flame. Can't do it without mental effort, yet do it we can, and it certainly carries no reward, and is entirely inappropriate.


No reward? The reward is in satifying the desire, of course. Dopamine to the rescue! What do we always learn is rewarding? Satisfaction of desire. From our first squalling breath we are reward-seeking organisms and will remain so for the duration of our lives. If the MOST rewarding thing is sticking the hand in a flame, then, by god, we will do it. Far from free agents, we are literally slaves of desire.
DRFseven is offline  
 

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 10:09 PM.

Top

This custom BB emulates vBulletin® Version 3.8.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2015, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.