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Originally Posted by roachboy
cynosure--you seem to be one of those people who imagines that for human beings to be able to do anything beyond crawl about the ooze of perdition or whatever that they have to be able to see themselves in Lofty Terms, so free will and the soul and the Grand Drama of Really Important Stuff like Agape and related Big Loves.
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I certainly wouldn't put it in those words, but, yes, I do think along those lines.
Basically, I believe that the human race – that
all life on this planet, really – is ultimately screwed, without some higher power to guide us.
So, there!
Quote:
Originally Posted by roachboy
but think about it. if will refers to anything, it is to your capacity to act on situations. you act on situations continually, every day. that you are reading this is a series of actions; that you are disgreeing with it a related series. how much of either process are you aware of?
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Well, it depends. Are we talking about daily, little decisions like what I'm going to eat for dinner? Or what clothes I'm going to wear, today? Or what movies do I want to put into my NetFlix queue? Or are we talking about major, pivotal decisions like what career am I going to pursue? And who am I going to marry? And whether or not I'm going to believe in God; and if I do believe, then what religion I'm going to follow?
Quote:
Originally Posted by roachboy
to say that love is a chemical reaction, for example, is a really simplistic statement. it presupposes that a human being is a thing, that the brain is a machine, that result x is a simple function of chemical releases and combinations. this seems to me the christian notion of human being stood on its head: where before you had the Soul and Body, now erasing the Soul leaves you with a meat puppet, and you have to see the meat puppet as nothing other than a hunk of meat--so an object. i don't buy it.
so can say that at some dimension love is a chemical thing. but it's also a function of the neural substructures that enable empathy it's a function of the capacity to generate and vary projections and symbols in the imagination. it's a function of the capacity to project oneself beyond the confines of one's meat palace. it's the way all these intertwine with the modes of being of another. it's also many many different states, many different types of relations, all crushed together because you call them one thing, use one word.
i can say all that quickly and still not really know what love is--what's easier to know is just that i'm pleased when it take shape and not so much when it dissolves.
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And yet you seem to believe that "free will" is a fallacy, an illusion.
I suppose the difference here is that you find the notion of "love" useful in your life. For you, "love" is emotionally (if not intellectually) satisfying and even productive,. But the notion of "free will", you find to be useless and without merit. (But of course you find "love" and "free will" to be this way, for
you have chosen to be entirely carnal-minded.)
Whatever. According to your worldview, both "love" and "free will", when boiled down, are both the same: chemical reactions in the brain.