Makaze

Depends on who uses them. If I'm not close to them I don't like them at all.

Disease

< 3

Not very well. I won't be winning any races.

The progression of this thread reminds me of the Vinegar Tasters painting, particularly the Buddhist interpretation. I agree with the Buddhist interpretation in the sense that suffering comes from desires, the root of idealism. Balance or even ego death is the only way to be at peace with anything, including the world around us.

My sign does. I don't read the daily horoscope.

I think you are, yeah. I think it's a matter of perception.Go back to the apples on a tree example. You can't choose to take two apples from a tree with only one apple, right? But what if I asked you how many you wanted without telling you how many are on the tree? Then you could choose any number... but not really. If you factor in that you couldn't have chosen to want two apples but just happened to want them then all choices work this way. Having volition doesn't make you less determined, it makes you happier with your perceived options. I guess if you define freedom as the possibility to achieve your goals then freedom exists, but it seems a hollow claim when you were always going to take those chances if they were available to you. It's like arguing that a computer program has more freedom than a simpler one because more of its conditionals are fulfilled. Doesn't that model ignore that threats and consequences take advantage of your personal desires? Not everyone fears death, for example.

If free will exists, then you are just as free when threatened at gun point as when there are no obvious consequences because your decision is not determined in either case. If free will does not exist, then you are not any less free when threatened than when there are no consequences because your decision is determined in both cases. Doesn't that mean that the difference is only a perceived difference in freedom? How can you justify it other than the feeling? If you define freedom as how free someone feels then that changes things.

Physical hard determinism leads to the same absurdity metaphysical determinism implies, right? In both cases the feeling that you could have done something else is an illusion: you were always going to do that thing. Where are we disagreeing?

A+ taste

That feeling when you realize doing a slow roll is bad etiquette.

The nekonomicon.

That's the idea. Who will it be?

I meant passing it on to someone else.

Shall we end it? Who was taking up the baton? Hattusili I, wasn't it?

Steel. I win.

Have you thought that through? I think you know that rationality is relative too. You can't apply rationality unless you have a preferred outcome. If your goal depends on annihilating the enemy, it may be rational to sacrifice a lot to attain that goal. If your goal depends on the survival of your people, it may be rational not to take opportunities to annihilate the enemy. Whether you personally feel like letting your friend die or letting that bastard get away in that moment does not change that you have a larger goal, which is something that you want. You may not wish to do the dishes directly, but your desire to have an enjoyable meal, to avoid diseases, to keep an aesthetically pleasing living space, and so on all require that you clean them. If by "relative freedom" you mean the freedom to focus on how much you enjoy the activity you are doing at the moment and ignore the larger cause and effect, how is that anything more than self-deception? You know that those bigger desires led to the indirect desire to clean the dishes. I hope there's no debate there. Does ignoring some of your wants to frame the choice as not what you wanted on the surface make you free? I could have truck with it if you weren't aware of your deeper desires, but since they are so obvious I can't help but laugh. You might as well say people go to jobs they hate because they are free to choose what to do. In scenario 1 (rational decision making), what standard do you use to determine if it is rational or irrational? Whence cometh the goal? In scenario 2 (irrational decision making), why convince yourself? Whence cometh the desire to think your way out of it? You could argue that the action you ultimately take is more than a result of the desires because your thought process is involved, and that's true. But if you look a little deeper, the thought process only exists because desires start the process. You think. Why do you think? Because you want to solve some puzzle. You want to. If you don't want to, then you won't think or your mind will wander in ways that are not under your control. That wanting must just happen at some level. Or for those thoughts that you don't create intentionally, they just come to you out of nowhere and you react to them: that's not free either. In other words, thinking is an action too, and you can't do it intentionally (with your will) unless you have an intent in doing so. If you can't control your intent then you can't control the actions that result either, including your thoughts.

Impressions?

In other words, you control your wants because you want to...? Suppose you rebel against your first impulse. Why? Because you had a secondary impulse that overrode the first one? Or did you not choose it at all, like how your leg kicks when your knee is hit with a mallet?

Freedom: The ability to control your own actions and the circumstances that frame them. True freedom is impossible. We are limited by resources, the limits drawn by the actions of others, and our own desires. "We can control our own actions." Is that true? Our range of actions is limited to the things we want to do. We don't want to want to do them, we just want to them or we end up in infinite regression. "We can control our circumstances." Is that true? Can you choose to pluck two apples from a tree when there is only one apple on it?

8: Sask 7: Hattusili Sask wins. Do you want it open now or what? It may be time to discuss passing on the baton. I really am too busy to remember this.

Nominations for #38 are open. Nomination ends next later tonight.

Impressions?

Which script?