jpahmad
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Everything posted by jpahmad
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Antony, should children be encouraged to follow their whims? Or encouraged to only follow their rational self-interest?
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"There's Nothing Wrong With Bribery" in Parenting - Says Stef
jpahmad replied to LovePrevails's topic in Peaceful Parenting
You do whatever works as longs as you tell them the truth (children) and don't violate the NAP. It's that simple. -
10 buckets!
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We've come to the conclusion so far on this thread that choice must be an action; an outward or "external" action. For example, you don't choose to feel sad, but you can choose to go for a walk. We are theorizing that beliefs and feelings have nothing to do with choice, but something else
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Can everyone be rich?
jpahmad replied to afterzir's topic in Libertarianism, Anarchism and Economics
It's possible for everyone to be happy -
The word "talent" is such a life killer. I can't stand it! Great post Lians
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circumcision? contradictory effects?
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makes sense to me
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Yep. Picture a big circle that encompasses all our reactions to our environment, both external and internal. A "belief" would be a smaller circle within the big circle that consists of only our internal reactions, and a "choice" would be a different circle within that big circle, consisting of our external reactions. I think it's better to use "external" and "internal" rather than "physical" and "mental."
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Yes, I believe so. Therefore, choice only pertains to behavior. Looking at it this way, someone who says "you choose to not believe in god" is not making any sense.
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You're family members don't know what it means "to choose." If you define choice as a "reaction to your environment" then it is clear that when someone presents something nonsensical to you(god), you just ignore it because it is of no consequence. You have no reaction to it. Maybe I should change my definition to "our physical reactions to our environment?" Bisexual? I wouldn't think so. Maybe the straight guy just wanted to see what it felt like. Your scenario doesn't give us enough information. But, for the sake of the argument, let's say the "straight" guy really liked it. Well, then I think it would be fair to say that he is bi-sexual. But the label typically refers to a lifestyle, not just a solitary act based on a whim.
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O.k., so a straight person is in a new environment (gay lifestyle) and as a result, chooses to have sex with another man. Sure, this is a perfectly good example of a choice.
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If you are straight then I don't see how you could magically become attracted to the same sex. At least, I've never heard of this happening. What does this have to do with choice? I'm a little confused
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Good point. There are two ways I can fix my definition to include involuntary body functions. choice is a conscious reaction to our environment. Or, Our involuntary body functions are actually part of the environment we're born into, so my initial formulation could still hold. Although I think I prefer the first one. Choice = I'm hungry, I see an apple, I choose to eat the apple. (I simply reacted to my environment) To explain a little further: My environment makes me hungry (expending energy to deal with gravity) My environment has an apple in it. I can potentially attain the apple and consume it. I choose to eat the apple. Choice = I meet two black people in my entire life, both of whom mugged me(my environment). I then choose to avoid all black people in the future on the belief that they will harm me (this is the reaction). Am I responsible for these choices? Of course I am. I chose them. Not a choice = my environment. (earth, gravity, the elements, having to breath, dealing with other people, etc...)
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We have to define "choice" as well. I'll start. "Choice" is simply our reactions to our environment. I like this definition. It is simple, concise, and covers a lot of ground. To expand: to choose = to react choice = reactions to environment By that definition, we do choose our beliefs.
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For god's sake, will someone read The Magus and discuss it with me?!
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Does parents have moral obligations towards their kids?
jpahmad replied to SondreB's topic in Philosophy
The DNA is exactly what gives a mother the urge to take care of a child that they have been carrying in their womb for 9 months. It is an evolutionary instinct that has evolved over millions of years. The DNA determines what is "moral." A women who just tosses out her baby with the trash, is just damaged goods. With healthy individuals, unless they had a momentary moment of complete irrationality (not likely with someone who I consider "healthy") this would never happen. It's really not an issue. However if someone were to do this, then they would probably be condemned by many people, and in a free society, they would most likely get dropped by there DRO. So, the threat of that alone would be an incentive not to do the act. -
The only problem that I have now, is that I don't know how to explain the phenomenon of someone who is unreasonable (brain damage due to emotional trauma) suddenly becoming reasonable. This would seem to contradict my theory that irrationality is brain damage. For example, when we think of sociopaths, we think of someone who quite literally does not have certain parts of the normal human brain present, or, certain areas are significantly underdeveloped to the point where their brains look completely abnormal in a PET scan. Sociopaths have no empathy. This will be a fact for the rest of their lives. Apparently, no amount of therapy can restore these brains to a "pre-abuse" state. So, if being unreasonable is also brain damage, then how come it is so easy for someone to shed mysticism and superstition and become reasonable again? Well, maybe it's not that easy.
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uh oh, I smell determinism vs free will
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I think it can be easily demonstrated that force impedes rational behavior. If human beings were born into an environment where everybody observed the NAP, it seems to me that everyone would think like Socrates by the age 18, or whatever age marks full brain development (25 or something?) If this were the case (don't know if it would be) then we could conclude that human beings are indeed rational naturally. Ayn Rand would agree that what enabled mankind to survive through the ages, among other things, was his ability to use reason. I underline "use" because it is yet to be proved that mankind naturally chooses to use reason. Some of us clearly have the faculty of reason, but choose not to use it. I propose that in a free society, all would obviously not only have reason, but would choose to use it as well. This would make us naturally rational. Remember, you'er only rational if you choose to use reason, not if you just have the faculty of reason. My conclusion from these musings is that a person who is not reasonable, is brain damaged(through either physical or emotional abuse), and therefore not healthy. If I look at humanity this way, then I can include the trait of rationality in my concept of a healthy human being. It's much more convenient to do this. Of course this would exclude millions of people from my definition of "healthy" but that is exactly my point.
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Yes, that is rude to say the least.
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I've never met anyone in my life who claims that they themselves are bad. Furthermore, If you and I are both "bad", but I can control it much better than you, then that would make me less bad than you. It would make me better than you. It would make me "good" in the eyes of an objective observer. It's a contradiction. You can't be bad and good at the same time. My claim is based on discussions with statists. I remember a few of them telling me that private enterprise cannot be trusted because "man is greedy and will sacrifice ethics for material gain." Now they might be lying to me, but how else are you supposed to understand someone's motives unless you ask them? Our genes, alive or dead, are all part of our ancestral histroy dating back to when we were fish. They all evolved for the purpose of survival and some became apparently useless, like the gene for making egg yolk. Although, we can't be certain that this same gene doesn't code for other things as well. Our faculty for reason was naturally selected to continue to reproduce. You cant say that our ability to reason served no purpose in the survival of our species. Why wouldn't empathy? It seems obvious to me how empathy leads to the flourishing of our species. I certainy agree with you on that.
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A catagorical defining trait must be applied universally. You can't say "I am good" and then say "all humans are bad." That's a contradiction. So, once you get someone to admit that they believe themselves to be "good", then they must then say that either "all humans are good", or "some humans are good." Then you take the argument from there and move forward. Yes I agree This is important. Becaue it's at the very core of what drives a statist to become a statist. If you get a statist to believe that human nature is naturally composed of traits that we all find virtuous, then you have won half the battle. Everything evolved for a reason. That reason is survial. If I'm wrong on this, which I might be, can you give me an exampe of a facutly which science has determined to be useless? I mean, penguins are birds with wings. They don't fly, but this doesn't mean their wings are non-funcitonal. By definition, that wouldn't be empathy. Empathy involves the use of so called "mirror neurons" which effectively put ourselves in the place of another person when we perceive that person experiencing a sensation. We then are able to vicariously experience what that person is experiencing. It is the basis for what we call compassion. Sociopaths, who do manipulate people, by definition, don't experience empathy. That is because this faculty, which is inherent in all of us, was forcibly removed through abuse or neglect.
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Obviously that topic has an extensive histroy here on the boards. I'm not interested in debating it either. However, you can't deny it's lurking presence in this thread. It seems that many philosophical discussions come to this inevitable fate. I completely agree that chasing a a ghost through an endless rabbit hole of conundrums, paradoxes and semantics is a waste of time and resources, especially when there are more important things to tackle (cruelty to children). I'm just confused on why Stefan is so hostile towards people who take a deterministic view of human action. Does this view lead to immoal behavior? Have people been using it to justify evil? I'm not saying they do or they don't. I just would like to be updated on what FDR supporters have witnessed as far as people with this mindset. I've only been following the boards for a little over a year so I might have missed out on some important dialogue.
