What is a choice?

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Socrateaze
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Re: What is a choice?

Post by Socrateaze »

LuckyR wrote:
Socrateaze wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


Yes, too much connects with money even our family life and love in many respects. Sometimes I wish we can feel regret before we make our mistakes.
To me, only a time traveler would feel regret before making a mistake.
Not quite. He still would have felt it before making the trip and would retain that regret as he traveled back in time. He would also not be able to impart the regret to his past self.
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Re: What is a choice?

Post by Ranvier »

Socrateaze wrote: If choice is made from pain and pleasure, why do people swim "up stream?" In other words, why do people sometimes sacrifice, doing things that do not give them pleasure to attain a better life for themselves? Also why do people make bad choices based on pleasure, that give them pain?
The self destructive human behavior, aside from the specific "pathological" miss-wiring of the nervous system, is most often due to "self preserving" desire to "feel" anything. Even to just feel pain (cutting) to maintain life in an otherwise state of depression, where one can no longer feel pleasure. Opposite is true for the narcissistic tendencies from our "herbivorous" heritage of compulsive hoarding, with high capacity for pleasure in indulging to the point of pain (obesity, nymphomania, or kleptomania).

-- Updated August 27th, 2017, 5:19 am to add the following --

Neither of these two mechanisms are the higher brain functions of the consciousness...

-- Updated August 27th, 2017, 5:31 am to add the following --

In our contemplation of the "choice", we can't entirely get rid off the genetic and environmental components. Hence i warned that such explanations will be "dry".
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Socrateaze
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Re: What is a choice?

Post by Socrateaze »

Ranvier wrote:
Socrateaze wrote: If choice is made from pain and pleasure, why do people swim "up stream?" In other words, why do people sometimes sacrifice, doing things that do not give them pleasure to attain a better life for themselves? Also why do people make bad choices based on pleasure, that give them pain?
The self destructive human behavior, aside from the specific "pathological" miss-wiring of the nervous system, is most often due to "self preserving" desire to "feel" anything. Even to just feel pain (cutting) to maintain life in an otherwise state of depression, where one can no longer feel pleasure. Opposite is true for the narcissistic tendencies from our "herbivorous" heritage of compulsive hoarding, with high capacity for pleasure in indulging to the point of pain (obesity, nymphomania, or kleptomania).

-- Updated August 27th, 2017, 5:19 am to add the following --

Neither of these two mechanisms are the higher brain functions of the consciousness...

-- Updated August 27th, 2017, 5:31 am to add the following --

In our contemplation of the "choice", we can't entirely get rid off the genetic and environmental components. Hence i warned that such explanations will be "dry".
But isn't this where it gets interesting? Here we seem to have a lack of choice, bordering on what we call a discussion of freewill. Or is some higher part choosing for us and is that part ... part of ourselves, hence do we still make the choice? Are we again putting things in boxes or will we be considering the whole human-animal? One part of the brain would not have evolved in conflict with the other, would it? Maybe they are just "safeties" preventing us from being too "conscious," because like I said; the conscious sometimes appear to be more foolish than the subconscious.

Perhaps this is where we'll find a good line of discussion for the OP. Is choice not that, which helps us decide when we can't? Indeed, I think this is hitting the nail on the head; when that "older" part of ourselves intervenes on behalf of tradition and stereotype.
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Re: What is a choice?

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Socratease, I actually had a refund come to me at a store, because, to make a long story short, I proved to the clerk that nobody makes any choice, and in my proof I did not use the concept of lack of free will.

The clerk did not like me, but he bowed to my explanation and proof. So he must have been a closet philosophy major.

-- Updated 2017 August 27th, 9:34 am to add the following --

Sorry;mispelled your name. "Socrateaze."
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Socrateaze
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Re: What is a choice?

Post by Socrateaze »

-1- wrote:Socratease, I actually had a refund come to me at a store, because, to make a long story short, I proved to the clerk that nobody makes any choice, and in my proof I did not use the concept of lack of free will.

The clerk did not like me, but he bowed to my explanation and proof. So he must have been a closet philosophy major.

-- Updated 2017 August 27th, 9:34 am to add the following --

Sorry;mispelled your name. "Socrateaze."
Yeah, I'm not much for freewill; it is much like the illusions of good and evil.
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Re: What is a choice?

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Socrateaze wrote: Yeah, I'm not much for freewill; it is much like the illusions of good and evil.
Right bang on. There is a proof for this, too, but it needs an assumption, or hypotheses, that our world operates on a cause-effect chain. Once you internalize that, the notion of free will goes POOF!

So many harped in, that maybe we should talk what we mean by "free" when we say "free will"... buh, humbug.
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Socrateaze
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Re: What is a choice?

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-1- wrote:
Socrateaze wrote: Yeah, I'm not much for freewill; it is much like the illusions of good and evil.
Right bang on. There is a proof for this, too, but it needs an assumption, or hypotheses, that our world operates on a cause-effect chain. Once you internalize that, the notion of free will goes POOF!

So many harped in, that maybe we should talk what we mean by "free" when we say "free will"... buh, humbug.
Perhaps freewill should translate to awareness, but awareness is often late and latent. Some have more some have less. I think the qualm with freewill is, it is so easily override by passion or fooled by the shrewd. Hell, our own bodies even fool us. So, we're pretty much doomed. I think of freewill as a radar screen with a very slow moving beam.
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Re: What is a choice?

Post by Ranvier »

All animals have "free will". Did you guys ever notice the "mental cogwheels" spin when feeding an animal, hesitating in an attempt assess the situation to make a decision between the reward vs possible threat. If we didn't have the free will, our thoughts would turn into unfiltered words. Of course, medication or brain injury can affect our free will in the decision making process but it's far from a mindless biological machine reacting to the external stimulus. Even a flip of a coin has a probability, not certainty of a 50/50 outcome.
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Re: What is a choice?

Post by -1- »

Ranier, I am not going to explain to you the nature of causality, and I am not going to lecture you on what we KNOW what the next coin flip will be, and what is KNOWABLE what the next coin flip will be.

instead of doing those, I will remind you that you again misspelled "assess". The second s sound is spelled with one s only.
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Ranvier
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Re: What is a choice?

Post by Ranvier »

-1-

Sorry, I meant to say:
as·sess
[əˈses]
VERB

evaluate or estimate the nature, ability, or quality of:
"the committee must assess the relative importance of the issues" · [more]
synonyms: evaluate · judge · gauge · rate · estimate · appraise · consider · get the measure of · determine · analyze · size up
(be assessed)
calculate or estimate the price or value of:
"the damage was assessed at $5 billion"
synonyms: value · calculate · work out · determine · fix · cost · price · estimate
set the value of a tax, fine, etc., for (a person or property) at a specified level:
"all empty properties will be assessed at 50 percent"
I must admit, I can be much better in the statistical analysis of tossing coins for fun :)
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Socrateaze
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Re: What is a choice?

Post by Socrateaze »

Ranvier wrote:-1-

Sorry, I meant to say:
as·sess
[əˈses]
VERB

evaluate or estimate the nature, ability, or quality of:
"the committee must assess the relative importance of the issues" · [more]
synonyms: evaluate · judge · gauge · rate · estimate · appraise · consider · get the measure of · determine · analyze · size up
(be assessed)
calculate or estimate the price or value of:
"the damage was assessed at $5 billion"
synonyms: value · calculate · work out · determine · fix · cost · price · estimate
set the value of a tax, fine, etc., for (a person or property) at a specified level:
"all empty properties will be assessed at 50 percent"
I must admit, I can be much better in the statistical analysis of tossing coins for fun :)
So you're telling us you're a professional tosser? :lol: Just kidding, but you handed us that one on a platter.
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Re: What is a choice?

Post by Ranvier »

I's a science love, I do science.
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Socrateaze
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Re: What is a choice?

Post by Socrateaze »

Ranvier wrote:I's a science love, I do science.
I like science, have no real qualm with it, except for the thought of human subjectivity that comes into play. I will abide with subjectivity and I admire people who acknowledge that. So ... is science much like choices and how?

-- Updated August 28th, 2017, 3:30 am to add the following --
Count Lucanor wrote:
Socrateaze wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


Choice is not always motivated by something. There is not always a logical reason behind choice. Have you ever looked at a painting full of blots and smears? Suppose the artist just moved his hands over the canvas. How about the things we get up to when we're daydreaming - when our minds are not thinking at all and are just empty. Afterwards we ask ourselves, why did I do that? How many times have you done something, only to realize later you were not quite present in the moment?
I tend to disagree: choice is always motivated, it is the very reason it is a choice, because it was triggered by something. That's very different from motivations behind choices being logical ones, but at the end of the act there's always a rational control, that of basic awareness. A painting full of blots and smears tells us about an agent that made some conscious choices, even if they were actions that would produce a random effect over the canvas. I agree that sometimes we fall into "automatic" mode and do things somehow unconsciously, but those seem to be habits developed after repeated patterns of choices are internalized and no longer thought through.
I've read that most of our actions are on "auto pilot," especially the television generation. When we are confronted with things that are out of our everyday automation processes, then we start making real choices. We all have known what it feels like if your boss tells you to put the keys in a new spot and you've put them in the old place for years. So how much of what we do is automated?

-- Updated August 28th, 2017, 8:18 am to add the following --

Count Lucanor,
I tend to disagree: choice is always motivated, it is the very reason it is a choice, because it was triggered by something. That's very different from motivations behind choices being logical ones, but at the end of the act there's always a rational control, that of basic awareness. A painting full of blots and smears tells us about an agent that made some conscious choices, even if they were actions that would produce a random effect over the canvas. I agree that sometimes we fall into "automatic" mode and do things somehow unconsciously, but those seem to be habits developed after repeated patterns of choices are internalized and no longer thought through.
What about automatic writing? The same applies for some forms of art. Rationality lives in different realms of the mind; sometimes they work together, sometimes they do no.
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Re: What is a choice?

Post by Phorever »

Socrateaze wrote:What is a choice? How do they come about? Why do people who are prone to make certain choices suddenly make a different choice? If you have a bad character, why do you sometimes make the same choice as a person with a good character and vice versa? If the environment plays a role, why does it not have the same effect on someone that has a similar personality?

Why do people suddenly change their habits with no apparent external influence? Why do others never change them? Does external influence alone have bearing on our choices? Why does someone sometimes wake up the next day and somewhere suddenly feel like they want to change their convictions? If nothing moved them to do so, what did?
A choice is what you picked. Much of that decision comes from your conditioning, culture, ideas, knowledge and philosophy about it.
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Count Lucanor
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Re: What is a choice?

Post by Count Lucanor »

Socrateaze wrote:
I've read that most of our actions are on "auto pilot," especially the television generation.
Well, the critique of the passive modes of consumption, especially of entertainment in media, will not go so far as to claim that people make no choices. They may be manipulated, but the whole point is that they are not forced, and they choose freely their ball and chain.
Socrateaze wrote:When we are confronted with things that are out of our everyday automation processes, then we start making real choices. We all have known what it feels like if your boss tells you to put the keys in a new spot and you've put them in the old place for years. So how much of what we do is automated?
Not much, I think. Maybe the involuntary reflexes, like blinking, or the automated processes like breathing, pumping blood, etc.
Socrateaze wrote: What about automatic writing? The same applies for some forms of art. Rationality lives in different realms of the mind; sometimes they work together, sometimes they do no.
The writing itself may have escaped the control of consciousness, but getting to the point of handling a pen and being ready to achieve the glory for Surrealism is a very conscious decision.
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