Two Points of View


Dglgmut

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1 hour ago, Dglgmut said:

So if the release of the chemicals happens without exogenous drugs, then it's the result of consciousness (self-programming). But if there are drugs involved you are interfering in the process that is normally restricted to the interaction between the mind and the brain?

Dg,

We are talking about a specific set of brain chemicals, and their normal, healthy processes. Not growth hormones, not curative/recreational drugs.

Intervention by other chemicals will, I suppose, temporarily change the state of the brain in some way for better or worse, but I have limited medical knowledge. 

Let's get back to how the 'emotion chemicals' react. And do they in fact respond, or do they initiate? If they initiate emotions, then there's no doubt one's state is a constant emotional lottery.

Then we live determined by their unpredictable actions, excesses and depletions. Do you think mankind could have evolved and done well under those conditions?

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52 minutes ago, Dglgmut said:

I just don't deny the determinst argument. I agree with most of it, but I don't think it rules out free will (compatibilism). The fundamental premise is that you can choose what you do, but you can't choose what you want. This is true.

 

 

 

This is why I point out that you keep minimizing the physical, observable aspect of the mind. They aren't "just" chemicals. They are chemicals, but "just" implies that you've completed the concept of what they are, and you haven't. Nobody has. You don't know exactly what they are or what they're doing. To point at chemicals as the source of consciousness does nothing to minimize consciousness. You have this lengthy process for how we consciously create our own psychology, but I don't experience what you're saying. I would bet almost everybody would disagree with what you are saying we do consciously. Not that the process is wrong, but you just say, "It's done consciously." Well, I say I don't do it consciously. I say I don't deliberately create memories. I just do it because that's something I'm naturally designed to do.

What's "lengthy" to some is not to others. That's not a matter of intelligence, but one of apprehending reality for oneself from simple things.

Assume there were such people as non-thinkers, they too will have subconsciously gathered from childhood on that some things are 'good', some things are 'bad' for them - that's due to their sensing pleasure and pain and a healthy, if subconscious, sense of bodily self-preservation . Ongoing from that pleasure-pain mechanism, even they will develop values of a sort, and therefore have had to make value-judgments. E.g. "Money - good, having no money - bad". Let somebody try to take their money away and they will respond - anger.

So what's to deduce, were chemicals the initiator of his anger? Or the self-programmed value-judgment he had already made concerning money?

You make it complicated when it is not.

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2 hours ago, anthony said:

E.g. "Money - good, having no money - bad". Let somebody try to take their money away and they will respond - anger.

I don't have time to respond fully, but this is not the process. What if someone wants money so bad their relationships suffer, or they generally become unhappy? Is it because they decided "money = good"? No... it's because human beings depend on resources to survive. We have evolved to care about resources to the degree that they have been scarce throughout the development of our species. They are no longer as scarce as they were, yet we continue to treat them as if they are. That is why you can get an unhealthy obsession like the one I described.

 

"Money = good" is the way someone explains their emotions in a way that makes them feel like they are in control.

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1 hour ago, Dglgmut said:

I don't have time to respond fully, but this is not the process. What if someone wants money so bad their relationships suffer, or they generally become unhappy? Is it because they decided "money = good"? No... it's because human beings depend on resources to survive. We have evolved to care about resources to the degree that they have been scarce throughout the development of our species. They are no longer as scarce as they were, yet we continue to treat them as if they are. That is why you can get an unhealthy obsession like the one I described.

 

"Money = good" is the way someone explains their emotions in a way that makes them feel like they are in control.

Totally over-thought, again. Over-educated, under-observed.

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1 minute ago, tmj said:

Fred Rogers made a career of teaching children how to deal with their feelings.

Do children need to learn rational valuation in order to secrete properly?

Secrete Properly is my new metal band's name.

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2 hours ago, tmj said:

Fred Rogers made a career of teaching children how to deal with their feelings.

Do children need to learn rational valuation in order to secrete properly?

Vaguely familiar with the name. Rather than only - dealing - with feelings, identifying what an emotion is, understanding that the capacity exists for one's good, and how one can and does set their tone, is of greater importance to children and adults.

One could put it as advice to consider your evaluations with care, as your emotions will answer in kind.

Emotions are self-ful - obviously - 'designed'/evolved for the survival good of the individual.

But the common wisdom that one partly or wholly shares no responsibility for their inception - e.g. that they chemically-induced (true, to a point) - or mysterious and unknowable - is bound to separate one from reality and self. (There's the state of the modern world). Then one is reduced to having to "deal with" emotions and emotional fall out.

So yeah, the whole approach to youngsters should be on another level: "to develop an independent and strong ego, to evolve to moral sovereignty ...". NB.

I would like to get my hands on Branden's The Disowned Self, or is it the Psychology of Self Esteem ? From excerpts I read he goes farther into this topic than his book I have.

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5 hours ago, tmj said:

Do children need to learn rational valuation in order to secrete properly?

Secrete? Me no understand that kemo sabi. Now if your bananas are turning dark ,  bake them into banana bread and keep that in the refriigerater. It will be edible for a week longer without secreting.   

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9 hours ago, tmj said:

I wasn’t aware dealing with feelings precludes identifying.

I have specified "identify" and evaluate over a dozen times here. When I did not, you may safely take it as read.

Identify/evaluate are precisely what a brain and chemicals alone are incapable of.

"To be conscious is to be conscious of some thing", likewise judging is judging something.

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14 hours ago, Dglgmut said:

I don't have time to respond fully, but this is not the process. What if someone wants money so bad their relationships suffer, or they generally become unhappy? Is it because they decided "money = good"? No... it's because human beings depend on resources to survive. We have evolved to care about resources to the degree that they have been scarce throughout the development of our species. They are no longer as scarce as they were, yet we continue to treat them as if they are. That is why you can get an unhealthy obsession like the one I described.

 

"Money = good" is the way someone explains their emotions in a way that makes them feel like they are in control.

Who ever thinks rationally that way? About anything.

I assure you, neither you or I have  -  "evolved to care about resources ... development of the species". If you care for - value - those, it is because you consciously learned of them from someone else's theory - or picked up not to squander your personal resources, by experience - and conscious evaluation..

Before that you didn't have a clue.

There's where you started and have kept going, with top-down evolutionism and "heritability". Here is only another type of collectivism and source of dutiful obligation to others ... the species.

But no, you and I and all have ¬learned¬ to understand, appreciate and value and utilize and not waste "money". For the good of each. If it's taken away, anger is a rational response.

 

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12 hours ago, tmj said:

 

Do children need to learn rational valuation in order to secrete properly?

Raises a point about to what degree, how rational (in accordance with reality) children's evaluations will be. Poor identifications and consequent judgments (usually by subjective and/or intrinsic, standards) will still have emotional outputs, faithfully conforming with their assessments.

What they put in, simply, is what they'll get out. Rationality and mind-independence is what needs being taught children, if for only this, their emotional health.

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1 hour ago, tmj said:

Tony

Are you positing  that every instantiation of a recognized emotional response is an effect /result of a conscious value judgement? 

Where not conscious, subconscious. Things that fall below one's perceptual radar, not made explicit (nor explicitly given value-significance) at the time. Then later, an ¬association¬ is subconsciously made with something else, in another situation - and odd or inexplicable feelings could result.

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On 6/25/2020 at 5:02 AM, Ellen Stuttle said:

 

However, I shouldn't have blipped into this thread.  I'd been avoiding reading the thread, since I could see from the activity feed that Tony is  a major participant.  But then I noticed Wiiliam's reference to studies of the effects of early maternal deprivation, so I added a link about Harlow's experiments with monkeys.  Then I read a few posts and noticed your comment to which I replied. And, foolishly, I yielded to curiosity, wondering just what conscious process Tony thinks results in the almost universal phenomenon of pubertal interest in sex.  (Tony doesn't appear to understand the question.)

Anyway, I don't have time for trying to follow your and Tony's disputes, so......sorry for interrupting.

Ellen

Have I understood "the question", Ellen? About the (supposedly) "conscious process" in the "pubertal interest in sex"? Related, in some way, to emotions.

I must take from your silence, that I did. But go on "avoiding" if you wish.

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18 minutes ago, anthony said:

Have I understood "the question", Ellen? About the (supposedly) "conscious process" in the "pubertal interest in sex"? Related, in some way, to emotions.

I must take from your silence, that I did. But go on "avoiding" if you wish.

I'm going back to ignoring, Tony.  Which is where I should have stayed.

Your "answer," if it is one, contradicts other things you've said.  Figure out which things yourself, if you can (doubtful).

Ellen

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Reduced to basics, there is either a discerning consciousness behind an emotion, or there is not. If not, your emotions have nothing to do with "you".

Other's emotions have nothing to do with "them". Nobody can be held accountable for their emotional reactions, or even "known" (as much or as little as others and their personalities, character, convictions - and values - can be known, by outward emotional signs).

Our emotions then are just a melange of deterministic, chemically-caused responses.

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1 hour ago, anthony said:

Reduced to basics, there is either a discerning consciousness behind an emotion, or there is not. If not, your emotions have nothing to do with "you".

Your dualism is showing. You're starting from a false concept of self where everything within your conscious control is labeled "you" and everything outside is "not you." You didn't choose to be human, therefore everything human about you has nothing to do with "you." You established a dichotomy that leads most people to determinism.

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1 hour ago, Dglgmut said:

Your dualism is showing. You're starting from a false concept of self where everything within your conscious control is labeled "you" and everything outside is "not you." You didn't choose to be human, therefore everything human about you has nothing to do with "you." You established a dichotomy that leads most people to determinism.

Very good. This is the non-understanding of integrationism you've shown repeatedly. And which I've replied to repeatedly.

I.e. It is either the biological body - or it is a Soul. You can't get past that. So like other secular humanists you plump for the body and sacrifice the mind and volition .

Your rejection ultimately is of the individual, (to the species-collective) and that he thinks and must think for himself. Here you state in a nutshell what the post-modern world has sunk to, and its causes. 

Didn't "choose to be human"? Well too late, we are. Therefore, choose to be man who is human, the rational animal. Then - there is no "dichotomy".

Are these your own words, btw? I've had the sense there is some prompting going on from the wings.

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11 minutes ago, anthony said:

Didn't "choose to be human"? Well too late, we are. Therefore, choose to be man who is human, the rational animal. Then - there is no "dichotomy".

What does this even mean? You say we don't choose to be human, then we must choose to be human.

 

This is sophism. You are facing a blatant contradiction and you are deliberately obfuscating the problem. Is your nature in your control or outside of it? Are "you" your nature or are you not? We don't choose to be human, okay. If we then later choose to be human, even though we already are, then there is no dichotomy because we've covered our tracks? This is nonsense.

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3 minutes ago, Dglgmut said:

deliberately 

I don't think it is deliberate in Tony's case. I think he does not follow the points you make, at all. And he doesn't try to understand, first. He tries to refute, first. And he doesn't understand the points he makes, either, so he contradicts them with ease and unknowingly.

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