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| Topic: Building a belief system... | |
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my understanding of the veil, (there are several actually) is a large wall of fog, attached to our heads, turning with us, eternally dividing the world into the half we know, and the half we ignore. As far as coming to believe something is true, well, just look for the direction that scares you. The reason it is scary is that there is truth over there. Fear often guards truth.
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A mature belief system is a complex mechanism which has at it's beginning an adopted ideology that is learned from parents or whomever rears the child. sounds like "Stockholm Syndrome" a belief system as being truth is in itself a contradiction ....a belief system may be based more on being content than any truth beyond one's own existence for example.....would having different parents result in the child having different truths |
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Funches!
 Glad you could make it.  A belief system is one which has been defined for this discussion as everything that one accepts as true. It does not necessarily follow that those are true. Therefore, I do not recognize the 'contradiction' you speak of. |
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Edited by
creativesoul
on
Thu 02/04/10 09:47 PM
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Concerning whether or not taking responsibility for one's choices/actions is the sole determining factor for holding a decision as 'conscious' one(or not)...
JB wrote: The only way they can refuse to accept responsibility is if they lie to themselves and actually believe that they are not responsible when they are. (Denial) But if they KNOW they are responsible and deny responsibility for it (to others) with deceit and lies, they are AWARE of their responsibility. They are also aware of the risks they are taking by their deceit. When a person makes a decision that they know is wrong (to be dishonest for example) or risky, they are making a conscious decision. When they make a decision and they have no idea it is wrong or bad or risky, and are unaware of the consequences, they are making a 'unconscious' or less conscious decision. creative responded: Because I think/believe that your not arguing just to be arguing, I want to address this... Being unaware of the consequences of one's decision(s) or actions by decision does not make that action/decision an 'unconcious' one. Think about this for a minute, and I am confident - based upon my confidence in your ability to recognize the truth-value of this line of thought - that you will agree... If that claim were true, then nearly every decision made by humans - possibly even every one - would necessarily be an unconscious one. On the other hand, the only way to make a 'conscious' decision would be for one to already know all possible results of any given decision/action prior to making that decision. That is clearly not the case. Jb replied: Clearly? I don't think so. Really?  I had to deliberately pause in order to contemplate the best way to respond to this, just so you know. 1.) Are you attempting to deny the fact that humans make conscious decisions all the time which have unforseen outcomes/consequences? 2.) Are you really claiming that one cannot make a 'conscious' decision unless one already knows the outcome? Let's focus upon your grounds for this... MOST.. meaning the largest number of all decisions-- are "unconscious" that is, made without much thought or awareness of consequences; -- and most people don't want to be responsible for them. Do you know 'most' people's wants? If not, you have no basis for the last sentence here. Your equivocating between actions/behaviors and decisions. They are not the same thing. All actions/behaviors are not considered and then decided upon prior to taking them. It is true, based upon what we do know, that most human behavior/actions is/are done without thinking. There are very practical reasons for that being the case. Those are considered unconscious behavior/action. In order to decide upon anything, one must think about it. By the very definition of the term, in order to be a conscious decision, it must be thought about/consciously considered. That is what makes it a conscious decision. Just like one cannot do both, think about something and not think about something at the same time, one cannot possibly make an unconscious decision. The very label is a contradiction in meaning/terms. This is because humans are not fully conscious beings. They are more like children walking around in a daze. They are sleep walkers. And yes, that includes me. (I'm human) You have probably made hundreds of decisions today that you do not even remember. Unconscious behavior/actions exist. It does not follow that humans are not fully conscious. The fact that one does not remember everything thought about and/or decided upon during the day means that they forgot about those things. In order to even be able to forget something, it must have first been consciously thought about. People forget things. It does not follow that those things are/were unconscious decisions. They necessarily were thought about, or else they could not have been later forgotten. If it is thought about, it is not unconscious. Clear, you may ask? Crystal. |
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Really? I had to deliberately pause in order to contemplate the best way to respond to this, just so you know. 1.) Are you attempting to deny the fact that humans make conscious decisions all the time which have unforseen outcomes/consequences? You can call them "conscious" if you want, and they may or may not be conscious decisions. One does not have to know every detail of the consequences in order to make a conscious decision. One only has to realize that there ARE consequences and accept the responsibility for those consequences...whatever they may be, to be making a "conscious decision." In other words, if you are aware that there are consequences, and you make the decision anyway, then it follows that you are accepting responsibility for that decision... (whether you want to admit it not,) and whether or not you try to wriggle out of the responsibility later. An unconscious decision is when you take action (make a decision to act or think) and you do not realize or even consider that there will be consequences, and you do not accept the responsibility for those consequences. You just blunder forward (like the fool in the tarot) clueless of consequences. That is what I define as an "unconscious decision." 2.) Are you really claiming that one cannot make a 'conscious' decision unless one already knows the outcome? No I am not claiming that. I am claiming that one is not making a 'conscious' decision when one does not realize or consider that there are or will be consequences. People who make these kinds of 'decisions' are the victims who are always claiming "It was an accident!" No, it probably wasn't an accident. It was a result. It was consequences that they did not realize or consider. People who are constantly careless, and reckless are making unconscious and clueless decisions. Let's focus upon your grounds for this... |
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Edited by
Jeanniebean
on
Fri 02/05/10 11:37 AM
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MOST.. meaning the largest number of all decisions-- are "unconscious" that is, made without much thought or awareness of consequences; -- and most people don't want to be responsible for them. Do you know 'most' people's wants? If not, you have no basis for the last sentence here. Yes, from experience, I have found the most people I know and know of, prefer to believe in accidents; and few people I know and know of are willing to accept full responsibility (100%) for everything in their life that has happened to them. Your equivocating between actions/behaviors and decisions. They are not the same thing. All actions/behaviors are not considered and then decided upon prior to taking them. It is true, based upon what we do know, that most human behavior/actions is/are done without thinking. There are very practical reasons for that being the case. Those are considered unconscious behavior/action. People do things from habit. Take smoking for example. Each time a smoker picks up a cigarette they are doing it from habit. That habit becomes an "unconscious" (semi-conscious) decision each time they light up. They don't really stop and think much about it or the consequences each time they pick up a cigarette. BUT they DID, at one time, consciously decide that they were going to smoke and continue smoking. Their actions after that conscious decision are simply an extension of that decision to smoke and continue to smoke with no thought of quitting. In order to decide upon anything, one must think about it. By the very definition of the term, in order to be a conscious decision, it must be thought about/consciously considered. That is what makes it a conscious decision. I agree. But habits are based on prior conscious decisions. (Like smoking). The decision to keep smoking was a conscious decision. The act of smoking without thinking about it is not an unconscious action or decision; it is an extension of a prior conscious decision. There is no need to stop and think about the consequences of smoking and decide to continue to smoke each and every time you pick up a cigarette. That decision has already been thought about and made. Just like one cannot do both, think about something and not think about something at the same time, one cannot possibly make an unconscious decision. The very label is a contradiction in meaning/terms. According to your understanding of what an unconscious decision is you are right. I am using the term loosely. In literal terms, there is no such thing as "unconsciousness" so there can be no unconscious decisions. If you want to get literal and nit pick the term, I will call it semi-consciousness. Unconsciousness is really semi-consciousness. And don't confuse unconscious with subconsciousness. They are no where near the same thing. |
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I believe that it is my duty as a human to value the subjective nature of the human mind. In doing so, I do not believe that I am required to value the content of that subjectivity, only the subjectivity, in and of itself. With that being said...
I am being reminded of Rule 42. |
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Again, this is a very large blanket statement which, to me at least, cannot possibly apply to all western thinking, nor eastern thinkers/philosophers. It wasn't intended as a judgment. Nor was it intended to apply to any "individuals". It was intended as a general observation of cultural tendencies. Moreover, it's not even a personal opinion, this has been recognized by philosophers for centuries, if not millennia. The western "world" tends to think objectively. It's hardly a secret. It was this type of thinking that gave birth to the scientific method of inquiry. However, from a philosophical point of view it's circular thinking. It basically goes like this: "Assume a premise that the world is objective and we can show that this leads to a conclusion that the world must be objective."  However, it doesn't work this way in science. The greatest scientists have all concluded just the opposite: "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein (objective analysis ultimately leads to the conclusion that the world is an illusion) "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman (the greatest scientists know that there is no objective reality to know and thus scientists are ultimately truly ignorant) "Quantum physics thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe." - Erwin Schrodinger (the greatest scientists have realized that the reductionistic approach to reality leads to a conclusion of holism) "All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force... We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter." - Max Planck (the greatest scientists have recognized that there is far more going on behind the scenes than objective investigation can ever hope to reveal) "Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? - Stephen Hawking (again, the greatest scientists have recognized that there is far more going on behind the scenes than objective investigation can ever hope to reveal) "What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." - Werner Heisenberg (objectivity can never be free from subjectivity) The greastest irony of all is that any objective approach to reality will always lead full circle back to subjective reality. There's no getting around it. Reality is necessarily subjective.  So even the greatest of the western thinkers have ultimately come to the same conclusions as the sages from the east. That's just an observation, not a judgment of any kind. I observe that you judge...or is it that I judge that you observe? you tail chaser! how have you been? |
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Just when I think ....
I discover I don't. 
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