Determinism

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Ok, here's the point in the conversation where I start advertising for the total removal of responsibility from human thought. I am a total advocate of this, and the idea that we don't need responsibility to grow as a race.

Do we all agree that furthering yourself as a person improves your overall satisfaction with life?

If we do agree that that is a the case, then could you not, as opposed to holding someone responsible for a negative behavior, instead educate them as to why it is a negative behavior, and how it will impact them negatively? If someone could be properly educated as to why the behavior will have a negative impact on their life (even including imprisonment, for the protection of those around them, as a negative impact) then it will be apparent that it is in the person's best interest to change the behavior.

Granted, this is an idealistic approach, but looking at the current statistics of the prison system, in which people are incredibly likely to return compared to reform, I don't see why exploring a radical option would be such a bad idea? Even as a pilot program, a beta test if you will.

I think the idea of responsibility is tied to the idea of Blame, and the question of Fault, which don't seem to have any inherent benefit in holding on to (except in terms of where the problem that needs to be fixed resides). I think that these ideas are things that the human race needs to go beyond, before ethical growth can start growing in leaps and bounds.
-jem

[theDespiser]

i choose not to read all these freakin pages!!!

[Avatar]

No I do not believe in fate. Fate is the notion that everything that happens is meant to happen, no? I believe everything happens because it has to happen.

Hmmm, so what we've actually been lacking all along here is a working defintion of determinism.

I was thinking more along the lines of pre-destination.

But it still feels wrong. Things don't have to happen. They could just as easily go one way or another. Why does anything have to happen? That still, to me, suggests a purpose. If there is no purpose for them to happen one way or another, then if they have to happen one way, don't they have to happen the other way too?

Do we all agree that furthering yourself as a person improves your overall satisfaction with life?

If we do agree that that is a the case, then could you not, as opposed to holding someone responsible for a negative behavior, instead educate them as to why it is a negative behavior, and how it will impact them negatively? If someone could be properly educated as to why the behavior will have a negative impact on their life (even including imprisonment, for the protection of those around them, as a negative impact) then it will be apparent that it is in the person's best interest to change the behavior.

Sure, I'll agree that futhering yourself as a person improves your satisfaction. However, perhaps we give people too much credit for noticing, accepting, and carrying out actions that are in their best interests? Not to mention the fact that often they percieve those best interests as something else completely.

Granted, this is an idealistic approach, but looking at the current statistics of the prison system, in which people are incredibly likely to return compared to reform, I don't see why exploring a radical option would be such a bad idea? Even as a pilot program, a beta test if you will.

I think the idea of responsibility is tied to the idea of Blame, and the question of Fault, which don't seem to have any inherent benefit in holding on to (except in terms of where the problem that needs to be fixed resides). I think that these ideas are things that the human race needs to go beyond, before ethical growth can start growing in leaps and bounds.
-jem

I certainly would rather replace blame with responsibility, but we strike the eternal problem again. How do you make people be responsible for their own behaviour? To teach them that it is negative, and to teach them to act differently as a result, surely requires some measure of acceptance of responsibility?

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[Nathan]

If there is no purpose for them to happen one way or another, then if they have to happen one way, don't they have to happen the other way too?

What? Why should they have to happen the other way too?

[Avatar]

For the same reason that they happen the first way.

Why should one set of possibilities have to happen? And if they have to, and the other set of possibilities does not have to, yet, there is no purpose, no reason for one having greater weight than the other, then each possibility should have an equal chance of having to happen.

If I have to turn on the light, (if I turn it on) and I have to leave it off, (if I choose to do that), then they both have to happen, all that affects which one happens is my action.

I'm not sure how much more clear that is, but hopefully you get the idea.

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[Nathan]

The set of possibilities that has to happen has to because the first thing that ever happened did. If everything started with nothing, then something happened, and since then all action has been governed by universal physical laws, there can be only one possible path for everyone to take. People can't choose their actions any more than chemicals can. Humans and animals are only a collection of complex chemicals anyway.

People follow the path they have to. Not because someone decided they should, but because they don't know any other way to live.

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

You don't make people responsible for their actions. Just the opposite, I'm talking about -removing- the idea of responsibility entirely.

In the vein of thought I'm in, people are responsible for their actions only insofar as there are negative consequences associated with it, remember? That's what made an action 'evil' for me in the Pitch's Idea of Evil thread.
You don't need to make people responsible for their actions, that's adding an arbitrary and probably difficult to defend ethics on top of nature. Nature's ethics would be an ethics of happiness and unhappiness. I believe in rehabilitation, not punishment.

*ducks the slings and arrows*

[Nathan]

I agree with you in theory, but in practice what are you going to do to prevent people doing things that are evil other than punish them?

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

It's the spirit of the rehabilitation that has to change. I think different 'justice' system options could definately be considered. Giving someone a prison sentance is applicable if the person is a threat to themselves or others. If they are not a threat, I don't see why prison should be the punishment. The practice would be something that needs to be developed from square one, with these ideals in mind.

[Fist and Faith]

Jem, I just bumped the Our reactions to others define us, not them thread in General Discussion. The point I was trying to make lead to a discussion much like what you're saying now.

Nathan, you've never specifically said, but I guess you do believe that my past experiences and brain-wiring determine which Bach recordings I pick up, "contemplate," and reject before finally "deciding" which one to listen to?

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

I don't think I'll be over reaching when I respond with a yes for him, and for me also.
I think at each possible instant of choice, each action that you decide to make, you're doing what's best for you....

Here's another angle that might open some possibilities: Human limitation may keep someone from being able to calculate as well as they could, and thus people might do somethint that they think is best for them, but simply fail at it because they don't have the time/resources to compute it.

[Avatar]

I think at each possible instant of choice, each action that you decide to make, you're doing what's best for you....

Instants of choice, in which you decide what's best for you? And that is not free will?

Hmmm. Are we being handicapped by the limitations of our language?

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[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Nope, there's no handicap there, just a simple disagreement
at each instant of choice, you take into account as many factors as your mind will hold, and then make your decision based on them.

what I'm suggesting is that each person, if they had IDENTICAL pasts, IDENTICAL brain development, and IDENTICAL personality development, in an IDENTICAL situation, will make IDENTICAL decisions.


Agree, or disagree?

[Nathan]

Agreed, Jem. Thanks for answerng that last one for me, I was around my dad's this weekend, and no internet.

[Avatar]

what I'm suggesting is that each person, if they had IDENTICAL pasts, IDENTICAL brain development, and IDENTICAL personality development, in an IDENTICAL situation, will make IDENTICAL decisions.

Interesting. On the face of it, I'd perhaps agree, but with reservation. For a start, there is no guarantee of it. In fact, chances are that even one person could as easily make a different choice to the one that they did make, with no discernable reason between them. For another, anyone with an IDENTICAL past, brain and personality development and situation isn't somebody else. It's you.

But I certainly see your point. Those are the things that make you. But whether or not an identical choice would be made can never be proved, one way or the other. Still, an interesting and convincing take on it. Something just doesn't sit right though. I'll think about it.

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[Fist and Faith]

what I'm suggesting is that each person, if they had IDENTICAL pasts, IDENTICAL brain development, and IDENTICAL personality development, in an IDENTICAL situation, will make IDENTICAL decisions.


Agree, or disagree?

Based on the situation I know of that comes closest to your scenario, I disagree. I have cousins who are identical twins. IIRC, in such cases, the fertilized egg splits into two, as always happens. But with identical twins, the two cells become seperated, and become two different people. Meaning two people with identical DNA.** These twins were raised in the same house, went to the same school, etc. Certainly not IDENTICAL in any way other than DNA, but still, I'd expect them to be more alike in various ways than they are.

**Identical twin brothers could have children with identical twin sisters. The resulting cousins are, genetically speaking, full siblings.

[Avatar]

A good point Fist.

I'd like to try taking this in a different direction now. If our actions are based on our personality, and our personality and actions depend on our experiences, and those factors all combine to determine the way we act, and make it impossible to act in any other way as has been suggested, then consider the following:

I am, as you probably know, something of a humanist. I believe in equality, in freedom, and above all, the freedom to choose for your own life. I believe that all people should have rights, and that you should be allowed to do anything you want, as long as it doesn't harm anybody else.

I believe all those things, and I often argue for them. I live in the absolute conviction that these things are right. However, what may not be obvious, although I have perhaps hinted at it, is that these convictions are purely intellectual. They are not backed up in the slightest by my emotions. In other words, I believe them, I just don't feel them.

Beneath my "humanist" exterior, my feelings prompt me in a completely different direction. A direction which I frequently have to struggle to ignore.

You see, for many years I wasn't a very nice person at all. A massive arrogance, an unshakeable faith in my own itellect, and a firm conviction that I was smarter than pretty much everybody else all combined in a selfish, and self-serving whole.

For a long time, I took only the easiest way. The easy lie, the opportunity for gain, I lived only for the good of myself. Uncaring, and unsparing, of anybody else's feelings, I cut myself a path through life that often went right over everybody else.

It never bothered me for a second. Never having being burdened by a "conscience", and always being lacking in empathy, I felt no qualms.

In terms of my underlying personality, nothing substantial has really changed. If I returned to living that way, I still wouldn't be troubled by it. I never really feel regret, I struggle to be empathic, and "concience" is, on the whole, just a word/concept to me.

But at some point, (and I can't even pin it down), and for some reason (that I'm still not quite clear on), I changed my mind. I made a conscious intellectual descision to live differently.

To be considerate. To be more tolerant. To live according to those principles that I mentioned. To not lie, regardless of what it cost me. To strive always to not make other peoples lives needlessly unpleasant. To try and improve the atmosphere around me.

And I do. Try that is.
I try my hardest to apply these things to my everyday life. I'll choose to sit in a lane of traffic thats backed up, rather than take the turning lane that means I'll cut somebody off. I make an effort to treat everybody the same, regardless of any differences I might have with them. To recognise what they have to teach me, and that everybody has something to teach.

But emotionally, I'm not that way inclined at all. The personality that experience contributed to pushes me one way. The easy way. But I have excercised my will, freely and deliberately, in order to live in a way that should be right. A harder way. Out of an intellectual moral conviction. Nothing else.

Surely if our actions were determined by these factors, I wouldn't be bothering for the simple reason that I wouldn't be able to act any other way. But I am. I choose to act counter to my inclinations. To act against my natural predisposition.

Thanks for listening (reading?)

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[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

And thank you, avatar, for your excellent post. It's both provocative and revealing, and I'm pondering and rereading it now.........



...ok, reread it. Really interesting stuff. I was wondering (I don't mean to pry) but is there any way you could comment more on the reasons for your shift in behavior?
"But at some point, (and I can't even pin it down), and for some reason (that I'm still not quite clear on), I changed my mind. I made a conscious intellectual descision to live differently."

[Avatar]

I would if I could. Unfortunately, I only noticed that it had happened some time after the fact. And after I noticed, I was so busy trying to meet my own expectations, that I never devoted much time in trying to figure out why it had happened.

And by the time I started trying to understand it, it had happened so long ago that I no longer had any idea of what caused this shift in perspective.

Still, difficult as it is, I console myself with the knowledge that a lot of people would be glad of the change, if only they realised what had happened.

One of the drawbacks of being deliberately nice is that nobody ever knows, because they don't have to experience the opposite end of the spectrum.

I do know that it didn't come about because of any life changing event, or any negative consequence of my behaviour. Beyond that, its only assumption. Did my own actions become distasteful to me? Perhaps. But I can't be sure.

Suffice it to say, for the purposes of this thread at least, it seems to me that not only did I excercise free will at original time, but that I excercise it every time that my inclinations suggest a course of action which in contrary to the principles that I strive to uphold.

Stay Safe
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[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Well, I'm really curious about this, but if you're unsure, then I really don't have much to say. Except that I assume at one point or another, for reasons that seem to be unknown to you, you decided that it would be better for you to behave differently than you were. Distaste in onesself would be a very good condition for change in behaviour. I would think that distaste in onesself is a negative consequence of negative behavior