Dear Cypocryphy,
Thank you for being so considerate (very sweet).
First, Mandy, I want to tell you that my heart goes out to you for having to experience such horrific and vile human travesties. I wish you never had to go through those experiences.
Broadly, in respect of your philosophical arguments about santient beings, they rely on certain philosophical axioms. A philosophy student can argue with me on the basis of error in logic. But I refute the axioms. Do an astrologer's predictions leave an error gap owing to free will or do they leave an error gap owing to the fact that humans are severely constrained by perceptual limitations?
I am a scientist by trade, a postgraduate student and researcher (assistant to professor) at one of the world's prestigious universities. My peers (professors/postgrads) think it is highly amusing that I "believe" in astrology, magic, tarot, a universal God, etc. When I ask them why, they say "Because it is a scientific impossibility!" I cringe at such ignorance, particularly as it comes from a scientist. However, I use the example here, amongst astrologers, to demonstrate that even people who might be considered at the cutting edge of "knowledge" and win awards for their contributions to science are really no more or less jaded in believing that their view is irrefutably correct. Their view is irrefutably messed up. Scientists are really just trying to understand our condition and they have not got very far, at all.
I'm not fond of closed minds either. And just to let you know, I am not coming from a position that says astrology is ineffective or has no merit. I wouldn't be a member here if I did.
What I know (not believe) is that that humans are clueless. We do not know what is going on in space. We do now know what is going on a km below the earth's own crust.
I think you are selling the human race a little short there, but you are free to think and do what you wish. That is your "choice."
We do not know what is going on in our brain/how the brain works. We do not even know how the hell we are conscious. And we are paradoxically limited in studying consciousness with consciousness. Even when we try to be objective we are limited severely by what technology has to offer.
I think you need to stop focussing on limitations and start realizing how little boundaries there are.
When we do not know somethng about the human condition it is easy and tempting to ascribe that to "free will" or "fairies."
This is why I categorized your belief as deterministic because it virtually is deterministic. You equate freewill with fairies, perhaps the tooth fairy, even.
And placing a 5 percent value on freewill and 95 percent on determinism seems to me to be a woman hedging her bets, as if she's not quite certain what she believes but wants to play it safe unless she's wrong.
But objectively there is no shame in admitting we do not know. Not knowing something is not the same as knowing (i.e., that we have free will). You can believe in what you like, more power to you. I dont believe in something for no reason.
I understand. I never thought you go around believing in things willy nilly.
Stoic people who have experienced trauma are not a separate class of people who skew the results of the bell curve. They fit neatly into the bell curve, because they have had the opportunuty to experience a lot more of life. If life is a constant, an axiom, then it is an eror, in my eyes, to think that the laws which apply to one person do not apply to the next, however different their situations. The simple bell curve illustrates this.
I'm not sure what you are saying here. It seems as if you are responding to something never discussed.
What you have said there is over the top rediculous
. If a person has undergone a deviational occurence, lets say a threat to their life, how are they supposed to go back and change it? Do you know something I dont? A time machine perhaps? Or are you of the persuasion like many "counselors" and hypnotherapists out there 'that one cannot change the situation but should change how they view it to a way that is more comfortable.' I dont need to put my head in the sand in order to deal with reality.
No no. I think you misunderstand what I said.
It is what it is, sometimes, hard to grasp, just like many other things, but that is all that needs to be done. Thinking that I can go back and save people or take responsibility for a past event that was out of my hands, factually, or aim to forget all about it, is percisely the wrong thing to do and drives people into madness. I am yet to see someone who takes responsibility for something they have not done appear healthy. Similarly, a rapist who takes responsibility for his actions is not necessarily healthy.
I never said that.
I did not "alleviate" my torture by ascribing my experience to determinism. Neither do I view myself or have ever viewed myself as a victim of anything. That is your judgement. It is thoroughly subjective. And your generalisation is clearly based on unfounded opinion.
Actually, it's not. Stoicism is a belief similar to religion. Much like how people view God as determining their fate, astrological stoics (not all) tend to ascribe the same power to the stars as do religious fundamentalist ascribe "power of influence" to their "God." Just as a fundamentalist Christian would lay the cause of their plight to the will of God, so too do astrological stoics lay the cause of their plights to those reflected by the formations and patterns of the stars and planets. There is a tremendous amount of psychological literature and research in this area. It is very well documented. And I have read a lot of it, but for other reasons, which have nothing to do with astrology.
I alleviated it because I accepted it. Did any person in the war with a gun kill out of his own free will? No. He was completely and utterly influenced by circumstance. I saw boys and men who before the war were the nicest of neighbours and husbands become killers, all in the space of a year. They suffer with guilt now percisely because they feel a personal responsibility over something they were forced to do. They could have said 'no' but they would have died and left their wife and children without food.
Sure. That is a good example. Conscription does force people to do many things they would never intend on doing. And that is precisely why I said there is not 100 percent self-determinism. It is circumscribed by life conditions and the choices others make, which affect us significantly. But either way you look at it, a choice is being made by someone, whether it's a human or a government.
Anyway, I'm not going to go on about it. But I just want to let you know that my statements were not about judging you. And ironically, you actually supported my previous statement. I really had no knowledge that you have had such harrowing experiences. And I should have not used the word "victim." I simply meant that you were acted upon by external forces.
You said:
I alleviated it because I accepted it.
I said: The solution is determinism. By embracing such a black and white view, it simplifies life for them, places it in a context that is palatable, removing their own responsibility over their situation
or making said situation more acceptable.
You put the wrong emPHASis on the wrong phrase. You fit that theory very well.
