Truth as viewpoint-perception-perspective.

[Edward J. Bartek]

The same truth may be perceived differently by one's viewpoint, perception, or perspective. View point is the angle at which an object is viewed. Perception is how one's view is distorted by inner bias. Perspective is how one views an object from different distances in space and time. Thus Three persons view another person. One views the front, another the side, and the third the back. Then each changes this view by their inner perceptions that is biased. One perceives evil, another good, and the third views normal.They each view from different perspectives. One focuses on the face, one on the whole body, and one from a long distance. If all three viewers are artists, all will portray a "true" portrait of the model.

[Belinda]

Edward, what about when the three persons have all got the same same parents and had the same school teachers, and were forced as children to go to the same church?

[pjkeeley]

You just love the number three don't you?

[Edward J. Bartek]

Edward, what about when the three persons have all got the same same parents and had the same school teachers, and were forced as children to go to the same church?

EJB: According to Mendel's Law, if there were 4 children, one would be most like the mother, one mosst like the father, one like the mother-father, and one like the father-mother. So their perceptions would differ. Their perception of school and church would be influenced by their genes.

[Edward J. Bartek]

Edward, what about when the three persons have all got the same same parents and had the same school teachers, and were forced as children to go to the same church?

ejb: Belinda, The youth has free will. When he contacts new knowledge, he is free to accept or deny it, and to replace an old for the new. But, knowledge learned by chilodren, before the age of six; by parents, teachers, and the church; become the premises, true or false, by which the adult rationalizes his "Truths".

[Belinda]

Sorry, Edward, what the Jesuits claimed is the case. Give me a child until he is seven years old, and I will make of him.......'

Certainly genes play a part, but any child is so trusting that he or she will believe the parent very often unwittingly copying the same-sex parent.The child has little chioce in how he will grow up.

You never, as far as I can make out, back up with reason, or even by quotations from some professional philosopher your assumptions that free will exists.

[Edward J. Bartek]

[quote="Belinda"]Sorry, Edward, what the Jesuits claimed is the case. Give me a child until he is seven years old, and I will make of him.......'

ejb: I agree, so do dictators, like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, who made national nurseries.
But just becaue free will is suppressed by threats, does not mean that it's not still there. Think of the Russians who immediately became very religious after 80 years of total suppression of religion by Communism. Also, A child has NO free will before age six. But he is born with a nucleus of the spiritual and obedientgly accepts the "No" of parents as he stumbles in the sensual world. This determines his conscience. About age six, the spiritual and sensual merge to make reason. That's when rational free will asks "Why," At puberty, the sensual is expressed and the child rebels, but his rational free will, judging between the spiritiual "No" and the sensual "Yes" determines whether he becomes good or bad relative to his parents. This is a rational progression of truth and knowledge. Can it be denied by logic, fact, or inconsistency? I ask this of all the ideas I express. Is there a better way to validate a truth?

Probably genes play a part, but any child is so trusting that he or she will believe the parent very often unwittingly copying the same-sex parent.The child has little chioce in how he will grow up.

ejb: If you had your own children, then you know how children can be disobedient. Isn't that an expression of free will, and of how the youth determines how he will grow up?

You never, as far as I can make out, back up with reason, or even by quotations from some professional philosopher your assumptions that free will exists.

ejb: Belinda, how can you say that? Can you show me any example where I have not used reason? If I use reason, shouldn't I be affirmed or denied by reason.I don't see anyone else using quotation of authority, but I have used Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Kant, and Hegel, not necessarily for idea on free will. But all I have said about free will is coherently related, as truth, to a whole system of truth. Coherency is truth. My facts may differ, but the rational principles are the same as applied by other sytem philosophers,like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Thomas, Kant, and Hegel. Should you havxe to quote an authority for every idea you have. If you did, what original idea would you have?

[Belinda]

Sorry, Edward, I should not have said that.You do quote authorities. I do have the impression that you do not quote scientific evidence for assertions that can be backed up by scientific evidence but maybe I simply dont remember it.

But just becaue free will is suppressed by threats, does not mean that it's not still there.

(Edward wrote)

I think that is true. It is sometimes more difficult though not impossible to prove a negative. Can we agree though that free will, if it exists ,is suppressed not only by threats but also by rewards such as parental affections, an inherited docile temperament, random choices generated by ignorance of circumstances,a natural measure of native passions,impossibly difficult life decisions, and biological reflexes ?

These foregoing determiners of choices do actually exist, as I think you will agree. To me, their combined weight indicates that free will may not exist. However, there are rational arguments as well as the empirical evidences against there remaining even a tiny sliver of free will in any person.

I think that belief in free will is caused by several errors. The Western point of view is influenced by Christianity where the great myth needs free will to make any sense. The other error is a simple melding of the observation that human beings choose, apparently with a lot more freedom than other animals choose; with the philosophical and religious notion that there exists in mankind a faculty of choosing that is different in kind, not merely in degree, from that of other animals and which sets us apart from, better than, other animals.

The Biblical story of the expulsion from Eden
illustrates this core belief: if Adam and Eve had been contented to enjoy Eden as creatures of God alone and not as creatures with free will, they would not have eaten the fruit of the tree. One result of eating the fruit of the tree is that Adam and Eve got choices that were apart from God's choice on their behalf, and the human's choices are backed up by their origin in the expulsion from God's original complete deterministic choices on their behalf; the human couple chose to go it alone and thereby separated themselves from God the creator and made themselves after a fashion in his image by attaining free will. Previous to the Fall,God's was the only will.

I like the story because although I do not believe in the existence of an intelligent Originator, or in any one origin for human life on Earth, the story illustrates, for me,this foundation myth of theism.

Another, biological reason for not believing in free will is that human anatomy is very well known, and there is no evidence for any organ that is an originator organ. All the structures in the body are related deterministically to each other, and there is not one structure, including the electro-chemical firing of neurones, and the chemical influence of hormones, that is an originator of choices. All choices(and reflexes) can be and often are explained as being completely dependent on internal and external causes.

[Belinda]

Should you havxe to quote an authority for every idea you have. If you did, what original idea would you have?

(Edward wrote)

I am convinced that I do not nor ever did have one single original idea. Each of my ideas from babyhood on can be explained by reference to causes.

Einstein who had brilliant ideas was ethnically Jewish, for instance, and Jews are known to be significantly cleverer than other ethnic groups, perhaps because their survival as a group depended on the Jews enduring terrible treatment at the hands of other ethnic groups, as far as I know ever since the Roman occupation of Palestine, by sheer intelligence. The intelligence of Jews as a group is encoded in the culture, I suppose, and shows up as scientific genius, commercial and artistic ability and sense of humour.

At the opposite end of the spectrum of people with ideas, a person with brain damage, who never has ideas at all, can be explained as having some brain lesion or some other bodily malfunction.

Me, I fall within this spectrum somewhere, and my ideas can all be explained as combination of nature and nurture.Nature and nurture provided me with being able to read and I have read certain books. I have also had parents and teachers who encouraged me to have ideas, so such ideas as I have are not originated by me, they are due to a combination of chance and choice.

[Edward J. Bartek]

You just love the number three don't you?

ejb: I don't necessarilly love the numbe three, but it is the most concise number of words to enable reasoning on any CHANGING SYSTEM of values. As all things are always changing, and as all things relate to each other, then isn't it a bettger way of reasoning than thinking nonly interms of monism or dualism?

[pjkeeley]

No. I just use as many words as are necessary to explain a concept properly. I don't presume that amount will always be three.

[Belinda]

bettger way of reasoning than thinking nonly interms of monism or dualism?

( by Edward)

I see no connection between threeness and the value you ascribe to threeness, and substance monism and substance dualism.

Substance monism and substance dualism refer to the broad categories of what exists. Substance monism commonly refers to all substances either being material substances or mental substances. Substance dualism commonly refers to substances being either mental or physical, but not both together.

My guess is that Edward can reply that there is yet another substance which is a spiritual substance. This would make substance "triadism" if there were any reason to think that spiritual substance is separate from mental substance. Edward has never presented any reason to agree that spiritual does not boil down to mental.

[Edward J. Bartek]

No. I just use as many words as are necessary to explain a concept properly. I don't presume that amount will always be three.

ejb: pjkeeley: If anything can be explained in three related words, why use more. Which will be more complicated and less able to be understond. The philospher Occam is famous for his "Occam's Razor" which simply means that the simpler is always better in expressing ideas. Am I wrong in agreeing with him?

[pjkeeley]

I think you tend towards three. It could be subconscious.

[Edward J. Bartek]

[quote="Belinda"]Sorry, Edward, I do have the impression that you do not quote scientific evidence for assertions that can be backed up by scientific evidence but maybe I simply dont remember it.

I don't usually because empirical, material science does not deal with human values, which is the field of rational, abstract philosophy.

[quote]Can we agree though that free will, if it exists ,is suppressed not only by threats but also by rewards such as parental affections, an inherited docile temperament, random choices generated by ignorance of circumstances,a natural measure of native passions,impossibly difficult life decisions, and biological reflexes?

ejb: Belinda, I agree,but don't these same person have the free will to do the opposite? Isn't that one reason why teenagers rebellimng to have free will against their parents, and the other conditions you mention?

Belinda: There are rational arguments as well as the empirical evidences against there remaining
even a tiny sliver of free will in any person.

ejb: What are they? Don't I reason and evcidence for free will?

Belinda: Free will is caused by several errors. The Western point of view is influenced by Christianity where the great myth needs free will to make any sense.

ejb: I think you will find that, not just the West, but all the great religions have free with rewards and consequences.

Belinda: The other error is a simple melding of the observation that human beings choose, apparently with a lot more freedom than other animals, the philosophical and religious notion that in mankind there exists a faculty of choosing that is different other animals and which sets us apart from, better than, other animals.

ejb: I tend to agree with you, for having owned a dog all my life, I have observed much evidence conducive to a dog having free will. But can't the same observations be made to justify free will in man?

ejb: The Biblical story of the expulsion from Eden illustrates this core belief: if Adam and Eve had been contented to enjoy Eden as creatures of God alone and not as creatures with free will, they would not have eaten the fruit of the tree. One result of eating the fruit of the tree is that Adam and Eve got choices that were apart from God's choice on their behalf, and the human's choices are backed up by their origin in the expulsion from God's original complete deterministic choices on their behalf; the human couple chose to go it alone and thereby separated themselves from God the creator and made themselves after a fashion in his image by attaining free will. Previous to the Fall,God's was the only will.

Belinda: like the story because although I do not believe in the existence of an intelligent Originator, or in any one origin for human life on Earth, the story illustrates, for me,this foundation myth of theism.

ejb: Myths are used to explain the abstract that is enexplicable. If if You don't believe it, isn't it a good explanation of free will?

Belinda: Another biological reason for not believing in free will is that human anatomy is very well known, and there is no evidence for any organ that is an originator organ. All choices(and reflexes) can be and often are explained as being completely dependent on internal and external causes.

ejb: The RATIONAL free will is a mental function, not an organic one. It is from a PROCESS of reasoning that is physical. That free will processing does not take place without the rational free willed rational mind saying No-Maybe-Yes before deciding for one side or the other. This is observable in anyone making a choice? Can science verify otherwise?