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MushroomTrip said: Listen, you said more than once that you can't possibly determine the level of awareness of all the people in their decision making, and yet, you state as a fact that you delimited most of the situations in which people make unaware choices (when they obey to authority). Doesn't it sound incredibly stupid? 
Make up your mind once and for all: which of these two statements is the one you sustain?

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MushroomTrip said:

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The Cypher said:Sure, I'm not able to omnisciently know the level of awareness of all people in all their decision-making situations.  This is a ridiculous request for you to make--all that is really needed to support my argument is that there be recognized a difference in the levels of awareness in people (the level is obviously not uniformly the same), and therefore it becomes possible to draw a distinction.

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Really? Are you saying that it is ridiculous of me to ask you to back up your bull-shitty and vague statements, in a debate forum?
I thought you knew what you were getting yourself into when you freely decided to post in this forum. If you can't come up with any real evidence to stand behind your assertions, maybe it's time re=read the forum rules

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Yeah, because there exists factual evidence as to the precise level of awareness of every human being on the planet.   Are you aware how ridiculous this request for evidence sounds?  As I repeat, again, almost any philosophical or psychological speculation about the motives for why we do the things we do is not going to be able to be founded on hard data (at least not at this current time, at any rate).  All we can do is construct a persuasive argument towards one view or the other, and this is what I have done.  It's as if I asked you for a source if you claim that most people feel the emotion of love at one point during their lives.  No empirical, psychological survey will back this assertion up, but you can certainly defend it with reason and a rational argument.

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MushroomTrip said:

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The Cypher said: Again, here you are changing your position once more.  Your original statement makes the bare implication that there exists a subset of the population with this particular subconscious motivation for their beliefs--NOT giving a personal example.  If you're speaking from subjective, personal experience, then make this clear--otherwise don't try to pass off unwarranted generalizations.

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I thought it was more than self-implied that I was taking from my own POV, since the example I specifically provided with was from personal experience. If I remember correctly, this is how my example began: "I happened to be raised by one of the most irrational and emotionally unstable people that I know (my mother)..."
Wow, I wonder to whose personal experience I was making reference...

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Sorry, but that's not what you originally claimed.  Your original sentence that I took issue with, and I quote, is:

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MushroomTrip said: It is true that some people use the line "I had no choice", but it is rather an emotional and false affirmation made with the purpose of justifying their own weaknesses, fears and frustrations regarding the decision they have freely taken, when, in fact, a more accurate description of the situation would be "this was the most favorable option, from the multitude of the options that I had in this specific case".

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NOT the personal example you gave about your mother.  It was the attitude of over-generalization and unfounded statements in the quote that I just listed that gave me reason to call your position inconsistent.

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MushroomTrip said: You were the one that's apparently suggesting the existence of mind-control, when you were saying that certain people don't take "their own" decisions, but the decisions imposed by one or another authoritarian forms.


"Mind control (not to be confused with "brainwashing") refers to a broad range of psychological tactics able to subvert an individual's control of his own thinking, behavior, emotions, or decisions.
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The question of mind control has been discussed in relation to religion, politics, prisoners of war, totalitarianism, black operations, neural cell manipulation, cults, terrorism, torture, parental alienation, and even battered person syndrome."

Hmm, sounds exactly like things you have said in several of your replies.
It's sad when you can't even remember your own words, mistake them for mine, and tell me to bring the discussion "on topic"!

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Again, nowhere have I used the word mind-control.  Please stop putting words into my mouth and then using your words to insinuate irrationality on my part, when instead the irrationality is on the other.  I seem to recall you using the word a lot:

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MushroomTrip said: Until now, the only place where I have head or read about mind control and other crap like that was in paranoid fiction movies, cheap novels and the like.

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And still, the relevancy of this eludes me.  "It's sad when you can't even remember your own words."  What is even worse when you're the one who used the word and then blames me for using it.

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MushroomTrip said:

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The Cypher said: then this cannot be considered a truly "free" choice.

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And what can be considered a free choice?

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MushroomTrip said:

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The Cypher said: Well, "kiddo", you're right... it's a generalization.  Nevertheless, though, it still offers compelling evidence that acting as rationally and with such an iron grip on your emotions as you would advocate is not a viable solution for all of society.

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And I have never stated that this will be an Universal recipe for every person on this planet. In fact what I have said was: "With the risk of repeating myself, the subject in discussion was not about how many people can control their emotions and how effective, but about how harmless these irrational emotions are to the self, to the others, and how much they slow down real understanding and communication between people. How much they keep of reaching our fullest potential, which, in exchange, will create constructive emotions such as love, acceptance, understanding, deep feelings of inter-connection and happinees. "

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fireworks_god said:
There is nothing more pretentious than someone who believes they really know the nature of reality for billions of individuals on this planet, especially when it comes to something for which little valuable information even exists.

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So all of philosophy and spirituality is pretentious?

At any rate, this has been a good discussion, although evil causing myself to suffer has somewhat veered off the topic of this thread.  I'll gladly enter into a debate with you in a separate post, if you wish.

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The Cypher said:

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fireworks_god said:
There is nothing more pretentious than someone who believes they really know the nature of reality for billions of individuals on this planet, especially when it comes to something for which little valuable information even exists.

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So all of philosophy and spirituality is pretentious?

At any rate, this has been a good discussion, although evil causing myself to suffer has somewhat veered off the topic of this thread.  I'll gladly enter into a debate with you in a separate post, if you wish.

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ackack9000 said:
I'm so tired of my mother, as long as she gives me money. She is cool.

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Just because I didn't respond to this post? 

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The Cypher said:
So all of philosophy and spirituality is pretentious?

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No, this question couldn't be based in anything I said, but it does bring up a good point regarding how baseless a lot of it can be.

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At any rate, this has been a good discussion, although evil causing myself to suffer has somewhat veered off the topic of this thread.

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fireworks_god said:
Nice red herring. No one discussed evil causing anyone to suffer.

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The Cypher said:
if inflicting suffering isn't considered evil, then what is?

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