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InvisibleIcelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
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Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
"God the Creator"
    #7477234 - 10/02/07 12:06 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Is an unknown and unknowable entity that is responsible for all things, all chaos, and all contradictions, all evil and all good, time, space, your momma and the neighbor who tried to rape you.

How do I know this? It told me of course and now I'm telling you.:monkeydance:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Offlinehoopershroomer
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Re: "God the Creator" *DELETED* [Re: Icelander]
    #7477281 - 10/02/07 12:25 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Post deleted by fireworks_god

Reason for deletion: Flaming is not permitted in this forum.



--------------------
"Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience that primordial shamanism is based on is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego."

"You teach the world how to treat you, by showing the world how you treat yourself."

A well developed sense of humor is far superior to any religion"

"Everything you could want and could be, you already have and are."

:peace: & :heart:

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InvisibleIcelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
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Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
Re: "God the Creator" [Re: hoopershroomer]
    #7477285 - 10/02/07 12:26 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

It's you're not your.

How would I know that if God hadn't told me?


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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OfflineQuerjek
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Registered: 09/26/07
Posts: 339
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Icelander]
    #7477292 - 10/02/07 12:29 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

So to you, is god all things?


--------------------
tripping eyes and flooded lungs
northern downpour sends its love

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InvisibleIcelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
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Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Querjek]
    #7477346 - 10/02/07 12:45 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Well that's the point of this post to some degree. Yes "God" would be all things like the Tao or Nagual.

But I was making a joke that I could ever really know this. It's just my best guess and I was making light of all those who continually post here and say God is this or that or God means this or this is what God wants or means. That to me is just self-important nonsense. IMO it's the result of severe anxiety and the need to know that someone or something (read father/mother figure) is looking out for them and will protect them from the chaotic nature of life and their conscious or unconscious fear of death and disintegration, physical and mental/emotional.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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OfflineBlueCoyote
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Querjek]
    #7477448 - 10/02/07 01:19 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Querjek said:
So to you, is god all things?



Our free will reaches out of the realms of g*d.
At least g*d left us this little room for experiencing reality, by creating or decreating it for and by ourselves, so this is reaching into g*d's' limit(s) :sun:

But maybe even decreation (nonexistence) isn't a limit for g*d, either :shrug:


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

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OfflineYosefxp
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #7478240 - 10/02/07 05:42 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Behavioural science has disproved the existence of free will. Or at least has mountains of evidence against it...as opposed to their being no evidence for it. To say something was caused by free will is merely ignorance of the causes...like saying the sun moves across the sky because it is pulled by Helios; it is merely ignorance of the real causes causing a hypothetical construct called Helios.

Everything, including human behaviour, is caused by past events and if a god created everything, it knew exactly how everything would turn out and thus the original posters first statement is correct.


--------------------
Well it's alright riding around in the breeze
Well it's alright if you live the life you please
Well it's alright doing the best you can
Well it's alright as long as you lend a hand

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InvisibleHuehuecoyotl
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Posts: 10,689
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7478256 - 10/02/07 05:50 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Behavioural science has disproved the existence of free will.




I am afraid you are mistaken. Behavioral science is still such a little understood field that it can hardly be taken for hard science. All it consists of are unproven theories...not laws. There are no behavioral laws. To say that is has disproven free will is making a lot of erroneous assumptions.


--------------------
"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

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OfflineGrok
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Icelander]
    #7478767 - 10/02/07 09:00 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
But I was making a joke that I could ever really know this. It's just my best guess and I was making light of all those who continually post here and say God is this or that or God means this or this is what God wants or means. That to me is just self-important nonsense. IMO it's the result of severe anxiety and the need to know that someone or something (read father/mother figure) is looking out for them and will protect them from the chaotic nature of life and their conscious or unconscious fear of death and disintegration, physical and mental/emotional.




As I am on occasion one' them
Quote:

who continually post here and say God is this or that or God means this or this is what God wants or means


, can I assume that
Quote:

That to me is just self-important nonsense. IMO it's the result of severe anxiety and the need to know that someone or something (read father/mother figure) is looking out for them and will protect them from the chaotic nature of life and their conscious or unconscious fear of death and disintegration, physical and mental/emotional.


is directed at me to some degree?

I came onto "the scene" as it is with militant atheism and a rigid belief that death means DEATH and nothing else, and that I wasn't much more than the result of monkeys fucking. IMO this is probably without a doubt the most logical belief you can have about life, death, or God sans...something immense. This belief NEVER bothered me or caused me anxiety. I found it to be the most reasonable belief to hold at the time I found it rather appealing because I didn't have a need to feel like big daddy was going to wait for me at the end and hold my hand. Clearly that was how it is. However I have since had experiences which have given me deeper clarity in this...that couldn't have been more clear. Do I choose those beliefs, as opposed to ones that would seem on the surface to be much more rational, out of death anxiety? No! And if I gained more clarity in the issue that both discredited my current beleifs and reaffirmed those views I held previously, I would drop them. But whatever. Surely this whole splurge is too self-important for you. 

Your "O" is littered with "self-important nonsense" imO and doesn't apply to everyone. Just like you claim you can't know God or whatever, how the f could you know :whoa:DEATH ANXIETY:whoa: drives everyone's spiritual beliefs, as you seem to be asserting?! Or is it nothing more than the same sort of "supposed" mere speculation you're ragging on here? I don't disagree that the main value people derive from religious and often times spiritual beliefs is one keeps them dwelling on fearful notions of having no God, no afterlife or punishment for the wicked, etc. But it sure as hell, or should I say pumpkins being as though we all know pumpkins are a for sure thing, doesn't apply to everyone.


--------------------
Entropy is increasing.
To send me a PM, go to my journal

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Offlinestellar renegade
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Grok]
    #7479226 - 10/02/07 11:02 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

God's nature is expounded by everything that exists. The remarkable thing is not that we could see G-d's nature, but that we often don't. I believe that if we were simple enough to learn the most humbling lessons we would be able to clearly see G-d all around us.

Or let's come from the other side. It is not that we can fully know the vastness that is G-d, but that we can openly percieve aspects of Him/Her/It. The process by which we would come to this perception would not be one of learning, but of unlearning.

Besides, we make statements about life all the time, why not about the Supreme Being? "You can't know anything about the Supreme Being or ultimate reality" - this in itself is a statement about ultimate reality.


--------------------
"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou

"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald

Edited by stellar renegade (10/02/07 11:03 PM)

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OfflineYosefxp
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #7479469 - 10/03/07 12:44 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Huehuecoyotl said:
Quote:

Behavioural science has disproved the existence of free will.




I am afraid you are mistaken. Behavioral science is still such a little understood field that it can hardly be taken for hard science. All it consists of are unproven theories...not laws. There are no behavioral laws. To say that is has disproven free will is making a lot of erroneous assumptions.




Ha, you're talking to a person studying behavioural psychology and I can assure you it is well understood by those in it :laugh:. Read Science and Human Behavior by B.F. Skinner. Yes it was published over 50 years ago but as you clearly point out, most people still think it's all weak theories and wishy-washy.

It is hard science. Everything must be observable and measureable before behavioural psychology will even consider it.

And so far, every single bit of evidence collected goes against the idea of free will as being something which is not under the influence of anything observable and measureable. If we start talking about the idea of free will as an illusion of choice in our daily lives then sure, I'll agree free will exists.

But I'm also saying that it's theoretically possible to completely predict behaviour by a complete knowledge of the persons current environment, history and genetics. There is no magical 'free-will' that defies the laws of behavioural science.


--------------------
Well it's alright riding around in the breeze
Well it's alright if you live the life you please
Well it's alright doing the best you can
Well it's alright as long as you lend a hand

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Offlinefireworks_godS
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7479496 - 10/03/07 01:11 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Theoretically possible to predict such behavior; behavior, of course, being the manner in which an individual makes a choice in response to the environment, every single step along the way. Either human beings make choices, or they don't, and the idea that human beings do not make choices belies our present experience of reality.

Of course we can have a science of reviewing all aspects of one's environment that would piece together all the evidence to figure out what brought a human to make the choices that they did... but it isn't as though a choice is being made, and I don't see behaviorial science predicting anyone's choices until after they happen. :smirk:


--------------------
:redpanda:
If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you

:heartpump: :bunnyhug: :yinyang:

:yinyang: :levitate: :earth: :levitate: :yinyang:

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OfflineBlueCoyote
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7479501 - 10/03/07 01:12 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

All what behavioral science, in the field of differential psychology, does so far is to find some personality parameters which can significantly predict the behaviour of a person.
Since there are many varying models which most don't cover human behaviour completely (don't represent it perfectly), the absolute predictability of one's behaviour still stays an unproven hypothesis as well. The personality-'factors' have not yet been identified very well, as far as I know.
(Of course every researching psychologist on this field claims to have found them!)

That what discerns humans behaviour from Skinners Black-Box, used on the field of Pavlov, is what does make behavioral psychology interesting.


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7479642 - 10/03/07 03:21 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Ha, you're talking to a person studying behavioural psychology and I can assure you it is well understood by those in it :laugh:. Read Science and Human Behavior by B.F. Skinner. Yes it was published over 50 years ago but as you clearly point out, most people still think it's all weak theories and wishy-washy.





And it’s 50 years old for a reason :smirk:

The problem with behaviorism is that it only studies, analyzes the visible/obvious aspect of the human psyche. It’s very much like treating a bruise by covering it with make up.
The fact is that we’re much more than what our surface acts, so behaviorist psychology will never be able to determine or predict our future actions, but on a very limited area.
What drives us, what motivates us comes from a so much deeper and subtle place of our minds, so how can something as rudimentary and superficial “science” like behaviorism be able to prove the inexistence of free Will?

People resemble in many ways, and most of their mental activities are alike. But MOST doesn’t mean ALL. And each of us have unique experiences (not “magical” in the dumb sense that you’re implying), and those experiences can never be anticipated. It is exactly those mental processes that makes all this theory dismember, because even if, statistically speaking, the unexpected is mostly taken to account, the way it will actually manifest can never be estimated. Therefore, this all predicting business works on very limited aspects of our lives.


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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OfflineCherk
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Icelander]
    #7480460 - 10/03/07 10:59 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

you should center god where your spinal cord meets the brain
and explode like a million orgasms until you're glorly is enough
to start the big bang


--------------------
I have considered such matters.

SIKE

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OfflineCherk
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Cherk]
    #7480470 - 10/03/07 11:00 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

you can actually meet the guy and become friends with him


--------------------
I have considered such matters.

SIKE

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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Cherk]
    #7480478 - 10/03/07 11:03 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

What god?


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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OfflineCherk
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Icelander]
    #7480480 - 10/03/07 11:03 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

hahah just watch this feeling come
and do whatever it takes not to cry
and when it comes again and you cant help cryin
do it away from the women
then come back again and instead of crying
tell the old man next to you that its ok to cry
and go on getting laid
then sleep and dream of god


--------------------
I have considered such matters.

SIKE

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OfflineCherk
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #7480482 - 10/03/07 11:04 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

there can only be one god if its really god we're talking about


--------------------
I have considered such matters.

SIKE

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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Cherk]
    #7480484 - 10/03/07 11:05 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Hmmm from my perspective, I see no god. :strokebeard:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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Offlineshakercee
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Cherk]
    #7480502 - 10/03/07 11:09 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

you should center god where your spinal cord meets the brain
and explode like a million orgasms until you're glorly is enough
to start the big bang




You are talking kundalini, right. I have read quite a interesting articles on that.  Some point out that you would need safeguards, otherwise you might experience the big crunch :nut:


--------------------
Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy - Ambrose Bierce

Medical science has confirmed what the male world has known intuitively for millenia: that scratching your ass is a great aid to complex thinking.

Its God's responsibility to forgive the terrorist organizations such as Jaish, Lashkar etc.
Its our responsibility to arrange the meeting between them and god."
- Indian Armed Forces

"Hey Monkey!! Get Funky" - Tarzan and Jane

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OfflineCherk
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #7480507 - 10/03/07 11:10 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

don't you ever go to sleep and dream irritating things
like your friend holding a box and trying to tell you something very important about it, saying hey "its all in this box, this box is what you want"
and you understand but you won't fool yourself into thinking that whats around the box and inside the box and in your dream and whats out in the world has anything to do with why your friend is showing you the box because you're so pure and ignorant and full of trust and love...so you accept being irritated and wake up thanking god for letting you do your killing while you sleep?

your eyes are gods eyes!


--------------------
I have considered such matters.

SIKE

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OfflineCherk
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: shakercee]
    #7480517 - 10/03/07 11:13 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

safeguards against what?
the glory is infinite
some say you can't glorify god, but Im sure gonna die tryin


--------------------
I have considered such matters.

SIKE

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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Cherk]
    #7480521 - 10/03/07 11:14 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

You're probably talking about the placebo effect.

And you can't be ignorant and full of love in the same time, they are conflicting terms. :shrug:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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OfflineCherk
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #7480532 - 10/03/07 11:18 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

i think a suicide bomber is ignorant and full of love
isn't communication for destroying my subjective view of objectivity?
I can't blow forrests down alone


--------------------
I have considered such matters.

SIKE

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Offlineshakercee
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Cherk]
    #7480546 - 10/03/07 11:20 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

i think a suicide bomber is ignorant and full of love




That's the problem with God lovers; you lose the grasp on reality.


--------------------
Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy - Ambrose Bierce

Medical science has confirmed what the male world has known intuitively for millenia: that scratching your ass is a great aid to complex thinking.

Its God's responsibility to forgive the terrorist organizations such as Jaish, Lashkar etc.
Its our responsibility to arrange the meeting between them and god."
- Indian Armed Forces

"Hey Monkey!! Get Funky" - Tarzan and Jane

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InvisibleCracka_X
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Icelander]
    #7480559 - 10/03/07 11:26 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

what a redundant topic


--------------------
The best way to live
is to be like water
For water benefits all things
and goes against none of them
It provides for all people
and even cleanses those places
a man is loath to go
In this way it is just like Tao        ~Daodejing

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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Grok]
    #7480643 - 10/03/07 11:44 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

I wasn't referring to you in-particular but if it seems to apply to you then it was also directed at you. Not personally though.

And like everyone else I am making my best guess. I certainly don't know what the "truth" is. But of course I will push my position to see if it holds water in debate. This is one of my main testing grounds for new ideas and behaviors for me. And of course it's best if I do all this to grow and develop myself which I do (along with other things).

In my personal study of myself and others death anxiety is subtle and likes to disguise itself as many other things. The idea being that we don't really want to think about death and so we distract and comfort ourselves. But it's just a theory and may not be true in all cases. Still I believe that death is the prime mover in our lives and the fact that we make laws forcing people to wear seat belts shows both sides of the spectrum of those that don't want anyone to die and those that don't believe they can die. Why the fuck would someone need to force you into wearing a seat belt?


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Cherk]
    #7480722 - 10/03/07 12:03 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

cherokee said:
i think a suicide bomber is ignorant and full of love
isn't communication for destroying my subjective view of objectivity?
I can't blow forrests down alone




No, the suicide bomber is full of shit, delusion, fear and yes... ignorance. All of those make him find comfort in the idea that he's fighting for love and "good". :rolleyes:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #7480733 - 10/03/07 12:04 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

:thumbup:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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OfflineYosefxp
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Icelander]
    #7481889 - 10/03/07 05:43 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Well we can sit here and argue the finer details of behaviour all we like but the fact of the matter is that every single thing we do (this includes public events like behaviour, speech and private events like thoughts and emotions) are shaped up and under control of our environment and genetics and neither of these things could possible be considered out of the realm of a god. (which was the original argument)

So you can re-define 'free-will' all you like but as I said before, it is not some magical force that cannot be predicted and thus it's completely possible to predict and control whatever you define 'free-will' to be.


--------------------
Well it's alright riding around in the breeze
Well it's alright if you live the life you please
Well it's alright doing the best you can
Well it's alright as long as you lend a hand

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7481992 - 10/03/07 06:12 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

And I'm gonna have to ask again: which god? :tongue:

Other that that, I'm going to have to ask you to reformulate your idea because it sounds kind of ambiguous.


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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OfflineGrok
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Icelander]
    #7483410 - 10/04/07 12:40 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
Why the fuck would someone need to force you into wearing a seat belt?




Culturally speaking, we are supposed to abhor the idea of our lives ending and take every every practical and often impractical step to ensure that this doesn't happen unexpectedly. To say that death is something to be unafraid of is an utter mockery of the manner in which 'we' conduct our lives.

As to the seatbelt issue, if I recall it's an economic in nature. Motorvehicle deaths are expensive and undoubtedly unpleasant for law enforcement and EMS to deal with. Enforcing the law can't cost that much, they gain revenue, prevent deaths (maybe?), and lower costs. But I agree, it is ridiculous. Just like motorcycle helmet laws. Same with any law that prohibits me from injecting cocaine. I wish they wouldn't push their cultural view of death on me but our laws tend to give personal freedom the backseat to whatever the ever-changing herd-mind has decided is right or wrong.


--------------------
Entropy is increasing.
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Offlinestellar renegade
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #7483577 - 10/04/07 01:43 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

MushroomTrip said:
Other that that, I'm going to have to ask you to reformulate your idea because it sounds kind of ambiguous.



Are you saying determinism is ambiguous? :what: A random decision-making process seems ambiguous to me.  On what basis do people make choices?  By means of some random force?  I think this idealogy is based on seeing some factors but not seeing all.  If someone makes a choice based on factors that you haven't seen, you tend to think the choice was random but really it was not, because there were reasons they had that you didn't know about.


--------------------
"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou

"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald

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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7483591 - 10/04/07 01:55 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

I was referring at the way he expressed himself. Read more careful next time. :smirk:
Also the idea of free will is not based on random decision making. It happens when you see much more than one deterministic factors, all of them leading to different possible outcomes, and choosing one of them.
Now tell me where did I say that determinism is ambiguous? :strokebeard:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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Offlinestellar renegade
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #7483668 - 10/04/07 02:52 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

You're right, I need to read more attentively. It wouldn't make sense for you to say, "I think I'm going to have to ask you to" if you're encouraging them to overhaul their worldview. hahah. Sorry!

About the rest, I was just discussing on another message board about determinism vs. free will and the idea I was hearing from the other guy is that free will is based on a random force. You don't know what the person is going to choose because one choice is just as likely as another.

Now, I consider this to be a practical outlook. When you're talking to someone you don't want to imply that they're just going to choose what they're going to choose regardless of anything else, because you're within the dynamic that's influencing their choice. And within that dynamic you very often do not know all that is going on and what somebody is going to choose. But I think after the fact you can see what factors went into it and what influenced them to make their final choice. You could very well be that missing link that causes them to make a good choice, and without your input they would not have chosen the better path.

Perhaps the problem is that many who believe in determinism try to make it seem as if it's only outside factors that determine a person's choice. That's not true at all. There are factors inside of a person, their private thoughts and feelings, which are helping it along and are utimately responsible for the deciding vote. But even though it is something within the person, it is still not random. My friend who I was talking to seemed to think that it was. Perhaps not and I may need to get clarification on that.

Anyway, I hope all that makes sense. If not I'll clarify in the morning maybe.


--------------------
"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou

"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7483700 - 10/04/07 03:16 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Well I don't know what your friend was taking about, but I was definitely not referring to random choice because there's obviously a contradiction between those two terms.
In my opinion, free will requires one's awareness in making decisions, while making random choices is quite the opposite. People make random choices only when they don't know what they want, and without knowing what we want, there is no freedom.


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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OfflineBlueCoyote
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7484380 - 10/04/07 10:37 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

The realm of 'spirit' may also be a factor in this behavioral model.
Perhaps we come through this to a measurement of the 'spiritual' :wink:


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7484403 - 10/04/07 10:44 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Perhaps the problem is that many who believe in determinism try to make it seem as if it's only outside factors that determine a person's choice. That's not true at all. There are factors inside of a person, their private thoughts and feelings, which are helping it along and are utimately responsible for the deciding vote. But even though it is something within the person, it is still not random. My friend who I was talking to seemed to think that it was. Perhaps not and I may need to get clarification on that.




What if you look at it as a whole. What's inside is connected to what is outside. You're not forced nor are you forcing. Everything is grooving :smile:

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Arp]
    #7485054 - 10/04/07 01:52 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Arp said:
What if you look at it as a whole. What's inside is connected to what is outside. You're not forced nor are you forcing. Everything is grooving :smile:



I agree. :thumbup:


--------------------
"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou

"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #7485064 - 10/04/07 01:55 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

MushroomTrip said:
Well I don't know what your friend was taking about, but I was definitely not referring to random choice because there's obviously a contradiction between those two terms.
In my opinion, free will requires one's awareness in making decisions, while making random choices is quite the opposite. People make random choices only when they don't know what they want, and without knowing what we want, there is no freedom.



No, I think he was saying that people make their own choices, but the reason for their choices is indeterminate. Actually, now I'm not sure what he's saying...


--------------------
"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou

"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald

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OfflineYosefxp
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7492813 - 10/06/07 09:56 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

stellar renegade said:
Perhaps the problem is that many who believe in determinism try to make it seem as if it's only outside factors that determine a person's choice. That's not true at all. There are factors inside of a person, their private thoughts and feelings, which are helping it along and are utimately responsible for the deciding vote. But even though it is something within the person, it is still not random. My friend who I was talking to seemed to think that it was. Perhaps not and I may need to get clarification on that.

Anyway, I hope all that makes sense. If not I'll clarify in the morning maybe.




Wrong. Behavioural Psychology doesn't ignore these, we call them private events (as opposed to public), we just tend to ignore them. And you can see why, if you're trying to treat an addict and they say to you they're gonna stop, or even if you are trying to psychoanalyse them or something to try see inside them, the fact of the matter is we are trying to stop them using a drug. We are trying to stop a behaviour and from a common sense point of view, the only proof we have of an effective behaviour change is if the addict actually stops taking the drug. Not what they tell you, not what family or friends tell you, not even what you believe.

But as far as these private events go from a subjective point of view, of course they seem to be in control of our behaviour but I would argue they are still completely caused by the environment. The only thing that confuses us is just that we are so complex that these reactions seem to bear no resemblance to the cause.

If I hit a billiard ball with a cue, the cause is very obvious; however if I say something nice to someone, that will bounce around inside their head and change somthing in there, then that will change something else, and something else, and something else...etc. And then weeks or months later that person might shout me lunch.

Just because we don't understand the causes of behaviour, attributing it to 'free-will' is just lazyness. So saying that a god created everything and then saying that we can go against his will is contradictory.


--------------------
Well it's alright riding around in the breeze
Well it's alright if you live the life you please
Well it's alright doing the best you can
Well it's alright as long as you lend a hand

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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7493317 - 10/07/07 12:59 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Wrong. Behavioural Psychology doesn't ignore these, we call them private events (as opposed to public), we just tend to ignore them. And you can see why, if you're trying to treat an addict and they say to you they're gonna stop, or even if you are trying to psychoanalyse them or something to try see inside them, the fact of the matter is we are trying to stop them using a drug. We are trying to stop a behaviour and from a common sense point of view, the only proof we have of an effective behaviour change is if the addict actually stops taking the drug. Not what they tell you, not what family or friends tell you, not even what you believe.




So, if your car doesn't work, all that matters and what is obvious is that it doesn't move and soon it will have to start moving because you have to go work.
And instead of looking at the engine or whatever else is inside of it, you just stay there thinking that... it has to work.
:sorry: but life has proved that it simply doesn't work this way.
What determines one individual to be a drug addict could (and is) totally different from what determines other drug addict to be hooked on drugs. Therefore, the methods of curing them (psychologically and not biologically) differ.

Quote:

But as far as these private events go from a subjective point of view, of course they seem to be in control of our behaviour but I would argue they are still completely caused by the environment. The only thing that confuses us is just that we are so complex that these reactions seem to bear no resemblance to the cause.




Yes but the interpretations towards the environment differ from person to person, and our actions are caused by those interpretations, not by the environment itself.
If we fail to see that, then it's so long personal responsibility, so long freedom.

Quote:

If I hit a billiard ball with a cue, the cause is very obvious; however if I say something nice to someone, that will bounce around inside their head and change somthing in there, then that will change something else, and something else, and something else...etc. And then weeks or months later that person might shout me lunch.




We're not billiard balls. :grin:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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OfflineYosefxp
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #7493614 - 10/07/07 06:00 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

MushroomTrip said:
So, if your car doesn't work, all that matters and what is obvious is that it doesn't move and soon it will have to start moving because you have to go work.
And instead of looking at the engine or whatever else is inside of it, you just stay there thinking that... it has to work.
:sorry: but life has proved that it simply doesn't work this way.
What determines one individual to be a drug addict could (and is) totally different from what determines other drug addict to be hooked on drugs. Therefore, the methods of curing them (psychologically and not biologically) differ.







Of course not, but if a person has a behaviour problem we can't just change the oil filter and have it fixed. The only way we can change someones behaviour is through the environment surrounding that person. We can't get the car working by waiting for the weather to change, we actually have to open it up and fix it. This is just not possible with humans (yet :wink:)

Quote:



Yes but the interpretations towards the environment differ from person to person, and our actions are caused by those interpretations, not by the environment itself.
If we fail to see that, then it's so long personal responsibility, so long freedom.






Of course that's the case...and that's why we use a Functional Analysis; to try and figure out what in the environment is maintaining a behaviour. Clearly people react differently to the same thing, but the reason for that particular reaction can be found in each persons history.

Personal Responsibility and Freedom are illusions anyway.

I mean look at the concept of blame. If I light a house on fire, people are likely to 'blame' me by saying I 'chose' to do it. They would look at themselves and say "Well I have the choice to light houses on fire, but I didn't because I 'choose' not to; therefore he 'chose' to do it and must be punished." However if someone held a gun to my head and said light that house on fire they would say that I had 'no choice'.

Clearly there is a contradiction! Either I had a choice in both situations or in neither.

We say I had no choice because the reason for my behaviour is clear. I had a gun to my head. However behaviour with a reason that is shadowed in time is much harder to see, and as you said, we all react differently to stimuli so it is even harder to find that clear reason.

In reality there is no clear reason, just a chain of causes and effects, stemming right back to time zero. Now this might send people into a spiral of despair; no freedom, no personal responsibility. What's the point in prison? You might ask. If we can't blame any individual for their actions, why are we punishing people? It's not their fault.

Fortunately there is still some logic behind our judicial system. We know reinforcement increases behaviour and punishment decreases behaviour. Thus the idea behind prison is that it should reduce the behaviour that the person was put in there for.

In reality though, it is a poor system. Outdated and ineffective. So if we really want criminals to change their behaviour, we need to stop thinking of them as 'people' with 'blame' attached to them and more like organisms responding to stimuli. With the right techniques, there is no good reason why we couldn't 'reform' criminals into functioning members of society. It's all a matter of understanding the contingencies maintaining that behaviour and then we can change it.

Quote:



We're not billiard balls. :grin:





Oh yes we are. :grin:


--------------------
Well it's alright riding around in the breeze
Well it's alright if you live the life you please
Well it's alright doing the best you can
Well it's alright as long as you lend a hand

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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7493648 - 10/07/07 06:52 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Of course not, but if a person has a behaviour problem we can't just change the oil filter and have it fixed. The only way we can change someones behaviour is through the environment surrounding that person. We can't get the car working by waiting for the weather to change, we actually have to open it up and fix it. This is just not possible with humans (yet :wink:)




Of course we can't change the oil filter, humans don't have such, I thought you knew by now. :wink:
How can we know what kind of new environment one must have in order to produce a change, if we don't know what are his inner feelings, fears and motivations?
Can't you see that what you're saying just doesn't make any sense?
While for one drug addict a kind of environment might work with great results, for the other, the same environment can be severely destructive, and, instead of helping him rid his addiction, all it would do is increase his addictive pattern.

Quote:

Of course that's the case...and that's why we use a Functional Analysis; to try and figure out what in the environment is maintaining a behaviour. Clearly people react differently to the same thing, but the reason for that particular reaction can be found in each persons history.




Functional analysis is a fucking waste of time and energy and it's proved to be so.
For the reasons that I stated earlier.
Each individual has different motivation, out inner feelings, our inner thoughts and the way they evolve inside each being are different.
Therefore, an observation of this king is something static trying to describe a something that's constantly changing.
And no, not anything can be found in each person's history, and there are people who gave up all that past bull shit and that live their lives on their own minds using their intention and determination.
Besides, you'll have to know the last and smallest and "insignificant" detail, and that is impossible to achieve. :smirk:

Quote:

Personal Responsibility and Freedom are illusions anyway.

I mean look at the concept of blame. If I light a house on fire, people are likely to 'blame' me by saying I 'chose' to do it. They would look at themselves and say "Well I have the choice to light houses on fire, but I didn't because I 'choose' not to; therefore he 'chose' to do it and must be punished." However if someone held a gun to my head and said light that house on fire they would say that I had 'no choice'.

Clearly there is a contradiction! Either I had a choice in both situations or in neither.




Clearly it is a contradiction, on that I agree with you.
What I don't agree with you on, is how you interpret it. :smirk:
In both cases he has more than one choice.
On the second case, where one could say I had no choice because I had a gun on my head, his statement is invalid because he DID had other choices, many other choices.
Such as let himself get shot, try to escape (run away), try to fight him, etc.
See? There are just a few from all the other possible choices that he could make.

Quote:

We say I had no choice because the reason for my behaviour is clear. I had a gun to my head. However behaviour with a reason that is shadowed in time is much harder to see, and as you said, we all react differently to stimuli so it is even harder to find that clear reason.




Bull shit.
It is indeed harder to see the reason, but it doesn't mean that it's impossible.
My conclusion?
Behaviorism is for lazy people who don't feel like looking beyond appearances. :grin:
Both the individual and the individual define each other, they influence each other. Thinking that it's only the environment who does that, makes of it look like it is something that exists independent from us. And from what I know, the environment consists of people. :strokebeard:

Quote:

In reality there is no clear reason, just a chain of causes and effects, stemming right back to time zero. Now this might send people into a spiral of despair; no freedom, no personal responsibility. What's the point in prison? You might ask. If we can't blame any individual for their actions, why are we punishing people? It's not their fault.

Fortunately there is still some logic behind our judicial system. We know reinforcement increases behaviour and punishment decreases behaviour. Thus the idea behind prison is that it should reduce the behaviour that the person was put in there for.





In reality there IS a clear reason, but there are also incapable people who prefer to think that there might no reason. That's a fact.
Think about how many things in a the past seemed to have no reason and now they do. Because someone was smart and dedicated enough to look for it and go through that incredible chain on ambiguity. :eek:
I know, I know, it sounds incredible, but it happens. :hehehe:

Quote:

In reality though, it is a poor system. Outdated and ineffective. So if we really want criminals to change their behaviour, we need to stop thinking of them as 'people' with 'blame' attached to them and more like organisms responding to stimuli. With the right techniques, there is no good reason why we couldn't 'reform' criminals into functioning members of society. It's all a matter of understanding the contingencies maintaining that behaviour and then we can change it.




Prison and punishing are a poor and ineffective method but not because of the reasons you specified.
It doesn't work because humans (their inner thoughts) don't react good to this method.
Because, in order for us to make a change, we have to use our reason.
Prison doesn't make appeal to our reason, it only uses fear and intimidation, stimuli to which most of us don't respond in a constructive way.

Quote:

Oh yes we are. :grin:




Oh no, you are :smirk:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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Offlinefireworks_godS
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7493657 - 10/07/07 07:04 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Yosefxp said:
Well we can sit here and argue the finer details of behaviour all we like...




Meaning what, that we can propose our personal viewpoint on the matter, as a way of presenting a topic for discussion, and then not specifically address what others have proposed in direct response to our viewpoint, only to later reassert our own perspective regardless? :strokebeard:

Our perspective is not accepted as having any relevance to reality without engaging alternate viewpoints in discussion in order to test them. :shrug:

Quote:


... but the fact of the matter is that every single thing we do (this includes public events like behaviour, speech and private events like thoughts and emotions) are shaped up and under control of our environment and genetics and neither of these things could possible be considered out of the realm of a god. (which was the original argument)




Ultimately, there is only reality; our existance as a gradient within reality, yet, clearly we experience a distinctness, we experience an occurence - something here is inevitably, undeniably happening.

Its a verb, which implies interaction. In every moment, we interact with reality. The interaction occurs, we can witness it, we experience it.

Our environment is just as much shaped and "controlled" by ourselves as we have personally been shaped and "controlled" by our environment. There is absolutely no way of determining how our environment will manifest itself thirty seconds from now, nor is there any way of determining how we will respond to reality.

Quote:


So you can re-define 'free-will' all you like but as I said before, it is not some magical force that cannot be predicted and thus it's completely possible to predict and control whatever you define 'free-will' to be.




No one has ever demonstrated this in regards to the choices and decisions that a human being makes. We are the system - we have no perspective that exists beyond ourselves to be able to determine how we will act before we actually do. We only have choices we can make in the present as to how we will act.

Tell me, where is the point of outlook from which you can determine how I will choose to act? No one is with you, your entire life, 24/7. We realize the nature of reality through interacting with it. My entire conception of reality is based upon the interaction of my sensory devices with the rest of the environment. Imagine a bat's usage of echolocation, if you will - the bat sending out signals, not knowing the nature of the aspect of reality it is capable of testing through echolocation until the environment's response reaches it. :wink:

Human beings don't have echolocation, but we have a vast amount of sensory information that we collect, as well as a superb manner of utilizing that information to assemble a wonderfully effective model of reality, which continues to evolve, the more we interact with reality, as a collective, and as individuals.

Now, what force is privledged to your mind's thought processes, let alone some observations of how you have manifested in the past?

Only you, far as I can tell. You are the only person that can determine how you will act, being the one with the most accurate, informed perspective on the most aspects of your nature as a human being..... and you determine this by acting.

Now, what does that tell you? :smirk:


--------------------
:redpanda:
If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you

:heartpump: :bunnyhug: :yinyang:

:yinyang: :levitate: :earth: :levitate: :yinyang:

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Offlinefireworks_godS
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #7493678 - 10/07/07 07:25 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

MushroomTrip said:

Quote:

Yosefxp said:
I mean look at the concept of blame. If I light a house on fire, people are likely to 'blame' me by saying I 'chose' to do it. They would look at themselves and say "Well I have the choice to light houses on fire, but I didn't because I 'choose' not to; therefore he 'chose' to do it and must be punished." However if someone held a gun to my head and said light that house on fire they would say that I had 'no choice'.

Clearly there is a contradiction! Either I had a choice in both situations or in neither.




In both cases he has more than one choice.
On the second case, where one could say I had no choice because I had a gun on my head, his statement is invalid because he DID had other choices, many other choices.
Such as let himself get shot, try to escape (run away), try to fight him, etc.
See? There are just a few from all the other possible choices that he could make.




If I had a gun pointed at my head, I would start to sing some kind of song. I'm not sure which. :shrug: Either way, it is clear that every individual is free to make any choice in a situation, consciously or not. The only way human beings are predetermined is if we predetermine ourselves, and this is never an effective means of deciding how to act in response to reality in this moment, as we never know what we are interacting with until this moment. :wink:

Anyways, the individual with a gun is an individual who seeks to control reality with a predestined plan. Its very if/then. Give me the money, or I'll shoot. If I point this gun at them, they will either A.), B.), or C.)

Strange, yosefxp, your options for how to act are the same ones the individual with the gun is expecting. Its an evasion of personal responsibility to allow another individual to determine how you are to act, even if you consciously decide to act in a way that might correspond with their expectations. We decide how to act, even if the present situation narrows the manner in which reality will respond to our choice, bringing us to the necessity to find and act upon our priorities.


--------------------
:redpanda:
If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you

:heartpump: :bunnyhug: :yinyang:

:yinyang: :levitate: :earth: :levitate: :yinyang:

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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: fireworks_god]
    #7493691 - 10/07/07 07:38 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

If I had a gun pointed at my head, I would start to sing some kind of song. I'm not sure which. :shrug:




Sounds like an excellent choice to me. :smirk:
I shall buy a water gun then. :hehehe: 

Quote:

Either way, it is clear that every individual is free to make any choice in a situation, consciously or not. The only way human beings are predetermined is if we predetermine ourselves, and this is never an effective means of deciding how to act in response to reality in this moment, as we never know what we are interacting with until this moment. :wink:




Yes, it's ineffective and it is something that people are slowly starting to become aware of.
I think that the main reason for which people choose to predetermine themselves is because this kind of attitude creates a fake feeling of certainty, of protection. And also because of the education. People see other people predetermining themselves and their actions, so they start doing it too without filtering through reason.
Of course, once we start reasoning and putting in balance what's more effective, once we become aware of the fact that we're not exactly the same persons we used to be minutes ago, things change and instead of finding a fixed idea, we choose to let it evolve along with us. :mushroom2:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7493845 - 10/07/07 09:41 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

"The Truman Show" is an excellent example of the failure of pure behaviorism to control the complex reactions and responses of a human being. Even in an environment subject to near-perfect control, Truman's behavior was NOT controlled OR predictable.

Yes, we are strongly affected by our conditioning, but I maintain that we always have the option to make the difficult choice, to say "you're going to have to KILL ME" rather than give in to the pressure.

We each interpret our environment through a unique filter, and the quality of that filter is subject to alteration from within. THIS is where the real changes may occur, THIS is where our power resides, in our cognition and Will.

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Veritas]
    #7496286 - 10/08/07 04:18 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

MushroomTrip, it's very clear that you don't fully understand what a Functional Analysis is so I'll try to explain.

It is when we look at a behaviour and we figure out the function of it. We then look at the environment and find out what is maintaining that behaviour and this allows us to alter the environment and thus remove the contingencies controlling the behaviour.

When this is used in conjunction with some kind of behavioural therapy it is extremely effective.

When you say you had a choice if someone had a gun to your head, you are clearly talking about the illusion of choice. If I 'choose' something at a point in time, then theoretically, if we could exactly re-create those exact conditions, I should choose the exact same thing again right? Surely I would go through the exact same 'reasoning' processes the second time around. Unless you believe your reasoning is controlled by something under no influence of the environment..something out of this world (Dualism anyone?).

One could apply the same logic to gravity. If I drop something it COULD shoot straight up in the air, go sideways, or disappear completely. It's logically possible but it's just the cause and effects are so clear for something like that so that we can agree that it is not physically possible.

The same processes apply for behaviour, if I hold a gun to someone's head and say 'scratch your nose', you again could say to me that that someone COULD sing a song, try to run or just refuse but you can't honestly believe that would happen.

You talking about prison is a great example. You claim it's ineffective because of humans 'inner thoughts' and 'reason'. But it has been proven experimentally in animals that punishment is a far worse method of reducing behaviour than reinforcement. If I want to decrease a behaviour in a rat, the best way is to reinforce an incompatible behaviour to replace it. Not to just flat out punish as our prison system tries to do. This might extinguish the behaviour eventually but as we can see with the prison system, it's far from ideal.

So when you attribute our rejection of the prison system to our 'inner thoughts' and 'reason', you are guilty of creating a mentalism to try to explain something which can easily be explained by the principals of reinforcement and punishment.



Fireworks_god: of course I am not trying to shut down discussion I'm just trying to point out that we're interested in the big picture here.

Clearly we change our environment as our environment changes us, but we aren't the 'initiator' or the 'unmoved mover' so to speak. We are part of a chain of cause and effects. Just as a billiard ball hits another which in turn strikes a wall, comes back and hits the first ball away. It's possible for the chain to come back around but something had to have hit the ball in the first place.

Your point about you being the best predictor of your own behaviour just goes to show that while behaviourism can theoretically predict behaviour exactly, in practice it would be impossible due to the incalculable number of things we have affecting us. We can however, usually predict general behaviour, hence advertising.

However, we make predictions about our own behaviour all the time and are completely wrong frequently. How many millions of people say they're going to start exercising, or not eat desert, or not drink this weekend? We say things like "I'm never going to drink again" and we can be 100% sure of ourselves at the time, mainly due to the hangover, yet a week later when we feel fine we don't think twice about having another drink. Perhaps we aren't in as much control of our behaviour as we think...

You might call it an evasion of personal privacy but I call it science. Behaviourism is the science of behaviour. Many people didn't like it when science told them the earth was the center of the universe, or the earth was round, or that the earth is older than 10,000 years (or whatever creationists believe) but eventually we began to understand the science behind these theories and now we give them the credibility they deserve.

A science of behaviour is a scary one because it does seem to attack things we hold dear, like free will and personal responsibility. However I have only ever seen evidence for it, none against it. So as far as I'm concerned; if you don't believe it, prove me wrong!


--------------------
Well it's alright riding around in the breeze
Well it's alright if you live the life you please
Well it's alright doing the best you can
Well it's alright as long as you lend a hand

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OfflineYosefxp
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Veritas]
    #7496293 - 10/08/07 04:25 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Oh and Veritas, where does this filter come from I ask if not from the environment? Do newborn babies have it?

And the Truman show does NOT disprove behaviourism at all. It could never claim to completely control behaviour, not for a long long time at least. As you pointed out, it's far too complex. Look at animals who lash out at their owners, comparatively simple next to us yet still unpredictable. There's nothing unique about humans, we are just more complex.

And please define this 'cognition' and 'will' for me...I would love to know what you mean.


--------------------
Well it's alright riding around in the breeze
Well it's alright if you live the life you please
Well it's alright doing the best you can
Well it's alright as long as you lend a hand

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7496683 - 10/08/07 08:54 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

MushroomTrip, it's very clear that you don't fully understand what a Functional Analysis is so I'll try to explain.

It is when we look at a behaviour and we figure out the function of it. We then look at the environment and find out what is maintaining that behaviour and this allows us to alter the environment and thus remove the contingencies controlling the behaviour.

When this is used in conjunction with some kind of behavioural therapy it is extremely effective.




I fully understood what you said from the first place and if you had chosen to pay enough attention to it, you would have understood that, because of the examples and the reasoning I gave you.
Instead of that, each time I come with solid arguments against your doctrine, all you do is come back and say exactly the same things, plain talking, no examples or arguments which could prove me wrong.
Of course, we could go on like that for ages, and nothing will change unless you decide to actually start to debate, instead of saying the same things all over again.
I hope you have the necessary maturity and discernment to realize the points that I have brought to discussion, and I invite you to take them piece by piece and logically dissolve them. It's the inly way in which this discussion can become fruitful.
Behaviorism refuses to take to account the theory on consciousness and cognitive psychology, it tries to diminish consciousness to simple physical processes, when there's no actual research to prove that. All that's been showed and validated until now is that those physical processes and consciousness influence each other, which is something entirely different.

Quote:

When you say you had a choice if someone had a gun to your head, you are clearly talking about the illusion of choice. If I 'choose' something at a point in time, then theoretically, if we could exactly re-create those exact conditions, I should choose the exact same thing again right? Surely I would go through the exact same 'reasoning' processes the second time around. Unless you believe your reasoning is controlled by something under no influence of the environment..something out of this world (Dualism anyone?).




No, it's not the "illusion" of choice, is choice itself. We do always have a choice and some people simply choose something else than conforming. Also the history is a whiteness to the fact that more and more people are starting to have this awareness and realization that they're not obliged to conform, as a result of our consciousness becoming more active and expanded with the passage of time.
This of course comes a contra argument to what you're trying to sustain here.
Behaviorism was a description (poor description) of what humanity used to be decades ago, and since then a lot have changed, things which left the behaviorist dogma somewhere way behind and in a cloud of dust.
And no, I wouldn't choose the exact same thing over and over, and none of us would. Thinking otherwise is an illusion.. Even if you could re-create the exact same condition that made an individual decide to one thing over another, you still can't get the same results because the individual would not be same anymore.
Like I said the last time, we're constantly changing and refusing to see that doesn't mean that it is not happening.
Self actualizing and acknowledging self-actualizing is linked to that level of awareness I was earlier talking about. And it's when an individual realizes that "the old ways" are not serving him good enough, so he decides to become active in his own life, instead of just being just a passive observer. Some of the realizations we reach at this stage is that we're not what we do (or in other words we stop identifying with merely our actions), self acceptance, acknowledging the fact that we're not dependent on others in order to feel good and centered, self actualization.

Quote:

One could apply the same logic to gravity. If I drop something it COULD shoot straight up in the air, go sideways, or disappear completely. It's logically possible but it's just the cause and effects are so clear for something like that so that we can agree that it is not physically possible.

The same processes apply for behaviour, if I hold a gun to someone's head and say 'scratch your nose', you again could say to me that that someone COULD sing a song, try to run or just refuse but you can't honestly believe that would happen.




No it's not the same thing.
I even refuse to explain why it's not the same because I consider your example so out of line and ridiculous that there's no need for an explanation.
Basically you you just assume that each of us, if we had a gun pointed at our temples, would just conform and to what the one who threatens us is telling us to do. This is simply untrue and unsustained. :shrug:

Quote:

You talking about prison is a great example. You claim it's ineffective because of humans 'inner thoughts' and 'reason'. But it has been proven experimentally in animals that punishment is a far worse method of reducing behaviour than reinforcement. If I want to decrease a behaviour in a rat, the best way is to reinforce an incompatible behaviour to replace it. Not to just flat out punish as our prison system tries to do. This might extinguish the behaviour eventually but as we can see with the prison system, it's far from ideal.

So when you attribute our rejection of the prison system to our 'inner thoughts' and 'reason', you are guilty of creating a mentalism to try to explain something which can easily be explained by the principals of reinforcement and punishment.




You example fails from the start because rats are simply not the same thing with humans when it comes to intelligence, awareness, and any other mental process.
Also reinforcement and punishment are pretty relative terms.
We as humans are much more complicated than a mechanical series of chains and effects, I've already been through that and I hate repeating myself, so I think I'll just wait for you to really answer the questions I raised, instead of repeating the same thing each time you reply.

Quote:

Clearly we change our environment as our environment changes us, but we aren't the 'initiator' or the 'unmoved mover' so to speak. We are part of a chain of cause and effects. Just as a billiard ball hits another which in turn strikes a wall, comes back and hits the first ball away. It's possible for the chain to come back around but something had to have hit the ball in the first place.




Leaving aside the fact that it's ridiculous to compare people with billiard balls, just out of curiosity, what is, in your opinion, that "something" that hits the ball? :strokebeard:

Quote:

Your point about you being the best predictor of your own behaviour just goes to show that while behaviourism can theoretically predict behaviour exactly, in practice it would be impossible due to the incalculable number of things we have affecting us. We can however, usually predict general behaviour, hence advertising.




No, you are twisting his words.
What he wanted to emphasize was that we are our own best predictors in the sense that we can always choose to become aware of the fact that our choices are far from being limited and restricted and that empowering ourselves with personal responsibility is what opens the door to a whole new set of multiple outcomes, from  which we have the liberty to, of course, choose. :smirk:

Quote:

However, we make predictions about our own behaviour all the time and are completely wrong frequently. How many millions of people say they're going to start exercising, or not eat desert, or not drink this weekend? We say things like "I'm never going to drink again" and we can be 100% sure of ourselves at the time, mainly due to the hangover, yet a week later when we feel fine we don't think twice about having another drink. Perhaps we aren't in as much control of our behaviour as we think...




We are only responsible for what we do, and your example aways regards an illusory group of others. This can't be right and it's not relevant to this discussion because then I can always say yes but then there are others which say I won't eat desert and they don't, I will never drink again and they don't and so on.
So perhaps we should have the common decency in allowing ourselves to be our own "judges". The fact that some people can't be in control of their own lives, does not, by any chance, prove that personal responsibility doesn't exist. :grin:

Quote:

You might call it an evasion of personal privacy but I call it science. Behaviourism is the science of behaviour. Many people didn't like it when science told them the earth was the center of the universe, or the earth was round, or that the earth is older than 10,000 years (or whatever creationists believe) but eventually we began to understand the science behind these theories and now we give them the credibility they deserve.




What you're saying hare is so full of BS that I don't even know where to begin in showing you that.
Perhaps you should read The Fallacies of Philosophical Debate and see with your own eyes how flawed this statement of yours is.

Quote:

A science of behaviour is a scary one because it does seem to attack things we hold dear, like free will and personal responsibility. However I have only ever seen evidence for it, none against it. So as far as I'm concerned; if you don't believe it, prove me wrong!




No, allow me to contradict you.
It is far more convenient for lots of people to believe that there's no such thing as personal responsibility, even if in the same time they are being deprived of freedom to.
Why? Because many people feel free of any WORRIES when thinking that they don't have to suffer the consequences for their actions.
Also, you are the one who made the claim that there's no such thing thing as free will, so you are the one who has to prove it, not the other way around.
If you observe carefully this thread, you didn't come up with ANY prove until now. :nono:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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OfflineBlueCoyote
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #7497197 - 10/08/07 11:52 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

:thumbup:
I haven't known that Behaviorism (used upon humans) is alive still, yet :eek:
It really is time to look into the (Skinner's) black box (as you said, via cognitive science) !

edit: Yosefxp: Your assumptions work for animals only, and in large behaviorism on humans can only be applied in regards to their vegetative nervous system, not the central nervous system.


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

Edited by BlueCoyote (10/08/07 11:59 AM)

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7497216 - 10/08/07 11:56 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

There's nothing unique about humans, we are just more complex.

Good good good.:thumbup:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Icelander]
    #7497408 - 10/08/07 12:35 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Some of us are more unique than others! :sun:


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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #7497541 - 10/08/07 01:20 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

I heard this statement from a Jewish person. "We are just like everybody else, only more so."


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #7499660 - 10/08/07 09:52 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Firstly I would like to apologise...I am under alot of stress at the moment so if my arguments seem incoherent at times I assure you they are in my head :laugh:. I'm just having trouble getting them out so please be nice I am still new at this. :smile:

Quote:

MushroomTrip said:
I fully understood what you said from the first place and if you had chosen to pay enough attention to it, you would have understood that, because of the examples and the reasoning I gave you.
Instead of that, each time I come with solid arguments against your doctrine, all you do is come back and say exactly the same things, plain talking, no examples or arguments which could prove me wrong.
Of course, we could go on like that for ages, and nothing will change unless you decide to actually start to debate, instead of saying the same things all over again.
I hope you have the necessary maturity and discernment to realize the points that I have brought to discussion, and I invite you to take them piece by piece and logically dissolve them. It's the inly way in which this discussion can become fruitful.
Behaviorism refuses to take to account the theory on consciousness and cognitive psychology, it tries to diminish consciousness to simple physical processes, when there's no actual research to prove that. All that's been showed and validated until now is that those physical processes and consciousness influence each other, which is something entirely different.






When we have a problem behaviour, say a child tantruming in the supermarket, what a functional analysis does is looks at the behaviour, knowing that cause of it will probably be different from another childs tantruming, and tries to find out why the behaviour is being maintained. Alot of people will assume that because two behaviours have similar topographies they probably have similar causes. Behaviour problems such as overeating are usually assumed that the person has no 'self control'. A functional analysis will look at that behaviour and work out the reinforcement/punishment congintencies that are maintaing that behaviour. We know people react differently to different things, and this is why a functional analysis is so hard. Many people have eating disorders but the congintencies maintaining that behaviour will probably be different in each person. Books that try to tell you how to control your child in a supermarket or how to control your eating are poor, a good name for that is 'cook-book psychology' as this assume similar behaviours have similar congintengies. 

As far as your claim about research...every single bit of evidence supports the idea that we are nothing more than advanced animals. As with my rat example, animals respond exactly the same way we do to punishment. They are affected in the exact same way as they also prefer reinforcement to punishment. Yet even though humans and rats respond the same to prison like punishment, you still claim our response is due to 'intelligence' and 'awaremess'. All the scientific evidence shows that we react in exactly the same way to reinforcement and punishment as other animals do in reguards to response rates, response patterns etc...to that the exact same causes create the exact same effects for different reasons is something which must be proven before it can be accepted.


Quote:


No, it's not the "illusion" of choice, is choice itself. We do always have a choice and some people simply choose something else than conforming. Also the history is a whiteness to the fact that more and more people are starting to have this awareness and realization that they're not obliged to conform, as a result of our consciousness becoming more active and expanded with the passage of time.
This of course comes a contra argument to what you're trying to sustain here.
Behaviorism was a description (poor description) of what humanity used to be decades ago, and since then a lot have changed, things which left the behaviorist dogma somewhere way behind and in a cloud of dust.
And no, I wouldn't choose the exact same thing over and over, and none of us would. Thinking otherwise is an illusion.. Even if you could re-create the exact same condition that made an individual decide to one thing over another, you still can't get the same results because the individual would not be same anymore.
Like I said the last time, we're constantly changing and refusing to see that doesn't mean that it is not happening.
Self actualizing and acknowledging self-actualizing is linked to that level of awareness I was earlier talking about. And it's when an individual realizes that "the old ways" are not serving him good enough, so he decides to become active in his own life, instead of just being just a passive observer. Some of the realizations we reach at this stage is that we're not what we do (or in other words we stop identifying with merely our actions), self acceptance, acknowledging the fact that we're not dependent on others in order to feel good and centered, self actualization.





Question: would you punish someone for lighting a house on fire if you knew they had a gun to their head while being told to do it? Why or why not? You claim he still had a choice so why not punish him for that choice? You might cite intent. He didn't want to burn down the house. But you claim he still had a choice so at some point for him to do it he must have wanted to. Another example: what about the child with a bad upbringing who lights a house on fire? He had intent..would you punish him? Why or why not?

Behaviourism was not a description of humanity in the 50's. It is an idea based on experimental data. Just like any other science.

Of course you'd choose the same thing, try the thought experiment where you 'choose' something and then go back in time to the choice point again. Why would you 'choose' anything different? Of course it's physically impossible to do this as you rightly pointed out, we are constantly changing.

Quote:



No it's not the same thing.
I even refuse to explain why it's not the same because I consider your example so out of line and ridiculous that there's no need for an explanation.
Basically you you just assume that each of us, if we had a gun pointed at our temples, would just conform and to what the one who threatens us is telling us to do. This is simply untrue and unsustained. :shrug:






It IS the same thing and that's my point. We just happed to observe the cause-effect relationship of gravity so often that there's no doubt left in our minds. I don't assume that's exactly what everyone will do, we are much more complex. It's like me kicking a soccer ball, so many factors are at work so while the balls path is relatively predictable, I can't say what exactly will happen. As I can't be exactly sure what will happen someone is asked to scratch their nose with a gun to their head. I can however be reasonably certain.



Quote:


You example fails from the start because rats are simply not the same thing with humans when it comes to intelligence, awareness, and any other mental process.
Also reinforcement and punishment are pretty relative terms.
We as humans are much more complicated than a mechanical series of chains and effects, I've already been through that and I hate repeating myself, so I think I'll just wait for you to really answer the questions I raised, instead of repeating the same thing each time you reply.




If we react the same, how does intelligence, awareness or any other mental processes factor in?

Reinforcer: Something which increases the likelyhood of the behaviour is it paired with re-occuring.
Punisher: something which decreases the likelyhood of the behaviour is it paired with re-occuring.

Of course we are more complicated, that's what makes us the top of the food chain :laugh:. But that doesn't change the fact that we are just responding to contingencies like everything else. Just because we cannot immediately see the chains does not mean they don't exist.

Quote:


Leaving aside the fact that it's ridiculous to compare people with billiard balls, just out of curiosity, what is, in your opinion, that "something" that hits the ball? :strokebeard:






The cue.


Quote:


We are only responsible for what we do, and your example aways regards an illusory group of others. This can't be right and it's not relevant to this discussion because then I can always say yes but then there are others which say I won't eat desert and they don't, I will never drink again and they don't and so on.
So perhaps we should have the common decency in allowing ourselves to be our own "judges". The fact that some people can't be in control of their own lives, does not, by any chance, prove that personal responsibility doesn't exist. :grin:









Quote:



What you're saying hare is so full of BS that I don't even know where to begin in showing you that.
Perhaps you should read The Fallacies of Philosophical Debate and see with your own eyes how flawed this statement of yours is.






That is a very long post, care to point me in the right direction? I'm just saying that as science progresses, resisitance to it's ideas are normal.


Quote:



No, allow me to contradict you.
It is far more convenient for lots of people to believe that there's no such thing as personal responsibility, even if in the same time they are being deprived of freedom to.
Why? Because many people feel free of any WORRIES when thinking that they don't have to suffer the consequences for their actions.
Also, you are the one who made the claim that there's no such thing thing as free will, so you are the one who has to prove it, not the other way around.
If you observe carefully this thread, you didn't come up with ANY prove until now. :nono:




Ha, do you really believe that I am talking about a society in which we don't punish anyone for anything? That because there is no personal responsibility there are no consequeces?? If someone does something wrong, that behaviour becomes the target of change. If punishing decreases the chance of that behaviour occuring again then we should consider it. However reinforcement is a much more effective alternative.

I believe that this 'free-will' doesn't exist. Your asking me to prove a negative; I don't have to prove it, the burden of proof lies in your corner. You are creating this 'free-will' thing. Show it to me, show me what it does. As far as all scientific edivence goes, we are just reacting to contingencies; just like all other organisms. Show me that we aren't.


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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #7499673 - 10/08/07 09:55 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

BlueCoyote said:
:thumbup:
I haven't known that Behaviorism (used upon humans) is alive still, yet :eek:
It really is time to look into the (Skinner's) black box (as you said, via cognitive science) !

edit: Yosefxp: Your assumptions work for animals only, and in large behaviorism on humans can only be applied in regards to their vegetative nervous system, not the central nervous system.




Ha, behaviourism is actually growing as of late. More and more people are starting to get Skinners ideas as they were so far ahead of their time. Especially his book Verbal Behaviour.

People like Noam Chomsky criticised it at the time but then people like that also said animals could never learn language...Skinner never said that.

As for your last statement, you seem to be thinking of Classical/Pavlovian conditioning. Behaviourism deals mainly with Operant conditioning which works exactly the same in humans and animals.


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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7500994 - 10/09/07 09:49 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

When we have a problem behaviour, say a child tantruming in the supermarket, what a functional analysis does is looks at the behaviour, knowing that cause of it will probably be different from another childs tantruming, and tries to find out why the behaviour is being maintained. Alot of people will assume that because two behaviours have similar topographies they probably have similar causes. Behaviour problems such as overeating are usually assumed that the person has no 'self control'. A functional analysis will look at that behaviour and work out the reinforcement/punishment congintencies that are maintaing that behaviour. We know people react differently to different things, and this is why a functional analysis is so hard. Many people have eating disorders but the congintencies maintaining that behaviour will probably be different in each person. Books that try to tell you how to control your child in a supermarket or how to control your eating are poor, a good name for that is 'cook-book psychology' as this assume similar behaviours have similar congintengies.




And where did I ever state that the self help books would help in a way? Most of them, if not all, are total BS, so on that we agree.
However, this doesn't prove anything more but their inefficiency, not the fact that we have complex and elaborated inner thoughts, the kind which behaviorist psychology could never deduce, and that's because it only emphasizes the surface of the human psyche.
Also, there are parents who simply have no clue how to raise their children, who have no clue what their children need or don't need, so it's only natural for those less fortunate kids to become hysterical in stressful situations, such as the one you gave as example.
It is true that most people who have self-control issues do so because of the environment they live in, but it is also because they indulge themselves in that pattern. They are aware of their damaging habits, but still they continue. It seems that laziness is one of our main characteristics, but we can always beat that through using our Will.

Quote:

As far as your claim about research...every single bit of evidence supports the idea that we are nothing more than advanced animals. As with my rat example, animals respond exactly the same way we do to punishment. They are affected in the exact same way as they also prefer reinforcement to punishment. Yet even though humans and rats respond the same to prison like punishment, you still claim our response is due to 'intelligence' and 'awaremess'. All the scientific evidence shows that we react in exactly the same way to reinforcement and punishment as other animals do in reguards to response rates, response patterns etc...to that the exact same causes create the exact same effects for different reasons is something which must be proven before it can be accepted.




Yes, we are complex animals. I didn't say that, as opposed to the other living beings which inhabit this planet, we are "magical beings". I am aware of what we are, but this doesn't mean that we don't possess consciousness. Simply because the other animals have it too. Only that since we're more advanced (biologically speaking), it is highly possible that our degree of awareness is bigger too.

Quote:

Question: would you punish someone for lighting a house on fire if you knew they had a gun to their head while being told to do it? Why or why not? You claim he still had a choice so why not punish him for that choice? You might cite intent. He didn't want to burn down the house. But you claim he still had a choice so at some point for him to do it he must have wanted to. Another example: what about the child with a bad upbringing who lights a house on fire? He had intent..would you punish him? Why or why not?

Behaviourism was not a description of humanity in the 50's. It is an idea based on experimental data. Just like any other science.

Of course you'd choose the same thing, try the thought experiment where you 'choose' something and then go back in time to the choice point again. Why would you 'choose' anything different? Of course it's physically impossible to do this as you rightly pointed out, we are constantly changing.




I wouldn't punish anyone, simply because I think that punishing is a medieval technique, something that has to get out of our mentalities as soon as possible.
That is to say, I wouldn't punish those who apparently had "no other choice", and I wouldn't punish those who did a "bad thing" "on purpose"  either.
I still think that there's no such thing as the lack of any other choice than the so called imposed one.
Getting back to the individual threatened with the gun on his head, I would say that, besides the fact that he has so many other options than just submitting, if he were to burn the house as told, his intention would be not to lose his life.
For others, it is far more important not to submit.
And others yet, just have better nerves and prefer to exploit their abilities and try to get out of the situation. :grin:
See? Many choices. :bongload:

Quote:

It IS the same thing and that's my point. We just happed to observe the cause-effect relationship of gravity so often that there's no doubt left in our minds. I don't assume that's exactly what everyone will do, we are much more complex. It's like me kicking a soccer ball, so many factors are at work so while the balls path is relatively predictable, I can't say what exactly will happen. As I can't be exactly sure what will happen someone is asked to scratch their nose with a gun to their head. I can however be reasonably certain.




Let me remember you the other options that you gave as example:

Quote:

One could apply the same logic to gravity. If I drop something it COULD shoot straight up in the air, go sideways, or disappear completely. It's logically possible but it's just the cause and effects are so clear for something like that so that we can agree that it is not physically possible.




Your other alternatives which I emphasized in your quote are absolutely impossible to happen when we consider the law of the gravity.
This is exactly why I wouldn't even bother to explain hoe ridiculous your example is, because there's no comparison between the human mind and the laws if the gravity. :shrug:
Unless the object you decide to drop would be a bird and until it would have reached the ground, it decides to fly away, which leaves a lot of new room for speculation. :smirk: :sherlock:

Quote:

If we react the same, how does intelligence, awareness or any other mental processes factor in?

Reinforcer: Something which increases the likelyhood of the behaviour is it paired with re-occuring.
Punisher: something which decreases the likelyhood of the behaviour is it paired with re-occuring.

Of course we are more complicated, that's what makes us the top of the food chain :laugh:. But that doesn't change the fact that we are just responding to contingencies like everything else. Just because we cannot immediately see the chains does not mean they don't exist.




Read the above.

Quote:

The cue.




I was hoping that you understood my question.
Let me make it easier for you. :grin:
If we are the equivalent of billiard balls, what would be the equivalent of the cue? :strokebeard:

Quote:

That is a very long post, care to point me in the right direction? I'm just saying that as science progresses, resisitance to it's ideas are normal.




I recommend you to read all of it. :thumbup:

Assuming that somewhere in the future behaviorism will be fully validated, just because this is how it happened to so many other theories in the past, is NOT a prove for it actually being efficient or that it will ever be proven to be so.

Quote:

Ha, do you really believe that I am talking about a society in which we don't punish anyone for anything? That because there is no personal responsibility there are no consequeces?? If someone does something wrong, that behaviour becomes the target of change. If punishing decreases the chance of that behaviour occuring again then we should consider it. However reinforcement is a much more effective alternative.




And what do establish what is good or bad, so you can "educate" it the "right" way?
Are we talking here about a proper sustaining of a social model which imposes a certain conduit, are we talking about what's good for each individual, what are YOU talking about exactly when you refer to someone doing something "wrong"?

Quote:

I believe that this 'free-will' doesn't exist. Your asking me to prove a negative; I don't have to prove it, the burden of proof lies in your corner. You are creating this 'free-will' thing. Show it to me, show me what it does. As far as all scientific edivence goes, we are just reacting to contingencies; just like all other organisms. Show me that we aren't.




That is what I keep doing since the beginning of our discussion.
I've been presenting you the numerous other possibilities, the ones you simply refuse to take to account each time you reply, and when you do you come up with ridiculous examples such as the law of gravity, and in the same time failing to prove your point.


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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7501251 - 10/09/07 11:11 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Wow, I think the resurrection of behaviorism is creepy :eek:
Even 50 years ago, it was used to defy the possibility of free will. I thought the discussion was off the table.
I have to inform me more about the recent tendencies it took form into. For me it sounds quite ignorant, as I studied cognitive psychology and differential psychology, too and yet there have not been made out these 'private' factors how behaviorism calls them, or these external variables which 100% predict ones internal choice and the resulting behaviour. Even absolutely reliable internal factors (personality constants) are not possible to detect for many reasons. One is, they constantly change and not only for external reasons or causes :wink:

Thanks for the hint :wink: As I said, I have to inform me better and be more aware of strange things happening in my fields of interest :smile:

edit, to bring it a little nearer back to thread:
So, we finally can blame GOD for all that misery, and have no real responsibility in all of that. Only programmed to behave. I am not ready to believe this yet, but that doesn't matter anyways :wink:


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

Edited by BlueCoyote (10/09/07 11:36 AM)

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #7525999 - 10/16/07 11:03 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Ok I'll give this another go...

Instead of going through your post point by point and then getting a point by point reply I'll try and pull it all together.

I would like you to define for me, what it is exactly that you are defending. I believe it is the idea that our behaviour is not completely controlled by the environment which I find wrong.

You talk about our behaviour as being controlled by these inner thoughts and feelings. You use words like reason and consciousness to describe them but where did these things come from? Does a 1 second old baby have reason?

So please tell me what you are defending and we can start to make this debate more cohesive.


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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7526847 - 10/17/07 07:48 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

I did that lots of times until now and each time you answered basically the same thing - that you still believe that each action and feeling of ours is controlled by the environment and this obviously is getting us nowhere.
I guess we'll just have to either agree or disagree on this. :shrug:


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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7528643 - 10/17/07 05:22 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

You talk about our behaviour as being controlled by these inner thoughts and feelings. You use words like reason and consciousness to describe them but where did these things come from? Does a 1 second old baby have reason?




Yes, a human has the beginnings of reason while still in utero

Quote:

Reason
The capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought; intelligence.




If our behavior were completely controlled by the environment, we would be helpless puppets.  Of course our behavior originates from within, as this is where we process and interpret the incoming stimuli of our environment, and determine an appropriate reaction or response.  (The latter of the two being more reflex than reason.)

I'm not sure what your confidence in behaviorism is based upon, as my studies (both independent and upper-level university) in psychology all reflected the current understanding that pure behaviorism was discarded after the 1960's.  Cognitive-behavioral therapy is the current model, and is far more predictive and reasonable than Skinner's model of humans as mindless robots.  :tongue:

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Veritas]
    #7528708 - 10/17/07 05:44 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

I have long aspired to be a mindless robot. I am going to join a church and the Republican party and complete my mission. :yesnod:


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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #7528748 - 10/17/07 05:55 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

I thought you already did :confused:


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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #7529471 - 10/17/07 10:21 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Lol yeah ok, let's agree to disagree.

And cognitive psychology is good if you like hypothetical constructs and hundreds of unprovable theories. All these reasoning and thinking skills must come from somewhere, surely a baby doesn't posess them. They must be learnt.

And CBT is derived from radical behaviourism.


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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7529484 - 10/17/07 10:26 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

I am no longer interested in continuing this discussion with you because it leads nowhere and because you systematically refuse to answer my points.
Therefore we'll just have to disagree.


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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7531833 - 10/18/07 03:50 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

All these reasoning and thinking skills must come from somewhere, surely a baby doesn't posess them. They must be learnt.




Yes, and who learns?  What capacity must we possess in order to learn?  C'mon, we are not passively sitting there, containing environmental cues.  :rolleyes:

Quote:

And CBT is derived from radical behaviourism.





Nope, sorry, CBT is based upon the philosophy proposed by Epictetus, and was refined and expanded-upon by Albert Ellis. (The greatest psychologist of our time, IMO.)  Behaviorism came later, and was based upon animal studies.  (You've heard of Pavlov?)  Again, there are no reputable psychologists who still propose that behaviorism is the key to understanding humans OR long-term behavioral change.

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Veritas]
    #7531852 - 10/18/07 03:54 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

The greatest psychologist of our time, IMO.

I agree, there is none better.


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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Icelander]
    #7532664 - 10/18/07 07:03 PM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Our nervous system learns. Like any other animal.

According to wikipedia, CBT "developed out of behavior modification, Cognitive Therapy and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy". Behaviour modification is pretty much behaviourism so it definately has a part to play.

So to clarify, I'm not talking about regular behaviourism but radical behaviourism. Here's what wikipedia says
"Radical Behaviorism which unlike methodological behaviorism did not require truth by consensus so it could accept private events such as thinking, perception and emotion in its account. Also, unlike all of the other Behaviorisms - Tolman, Hull, Clark and others - Skinner's version radically rejected mediating constructs and the hypothetico-deductive method, instead offering a strongly inductive, data driven approach that has proven to be successful in dozens of areas from behavioral pharmacology to language therapy in the developmentally delayed."


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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7534637 - 10/19/07 09:36 AM (16 years, 5 months ago)

Sorry, but you clearly do not understand human learning if you believe that it is based in the nervous system.  :lol:

Behavior modification is NOT the same thing as Behaviorism.  Skinner and his followers proposed that humans were masses of conditioned reflexes.  This is an overly-simplistic, mechanistic, absurd description of the complexity of human learning and the behavior which results from thoughts and experiences.

Plus, any father who thinks that putting an infant in a BOX is a great way to parent gets a big :thumbdown: from me.

Check out Albert Ellis if you are interested in a comprehensive approach to changing behavior from within.

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Veritas]
    #7538153 - 10/20/07 02:49 AM (16 years, 4 months ago)

Inbetween I informed myself a bit. I came to the interesting conclusion, that Yosefxp is right to a very large  percentage. That means, the choice of a human might be indeedly very largely influenced by the environment.
Maybe, a good example HOW MUCH we are unconsciously influenced by our environment does Derren Brown give, for example here:

He's a master in mind control and I really begin to wonder how much of our choice is really our choice. Whatch as much of him as possible and one begins to understand.

But even if it's a very small percentage, that originally is our own free choice, it will be enough to hold my original argument :wink:
["Our free will reaches out of the realms of g*d.
At least g*d left us this little room for experiencing reality, by creating or decreating it for and by ourselves, so this is reaching into g*d's' limit(s)"]
IMHO, the key is to 'find' and 'use' this tiny space :heart:


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

Edited by BlueCoyote (10/20/07 02:58 AM)

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #7539565 - 10/20/07 02:52 PM (16 years, 4 months ago)

No matter how you slice it, influenced is not the same as controlled.  We DO use our minds to process incoming data from our environment, we either react or respond, depending upon how much self-awareness and self-control we possess.  This means that WE are in the driver's seat, and not our environment.  :shrug:

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Veritas]
    #7540582 - 10/20/07 07:48 PM (16 years, 4 months ago)

Wow, we don't learn with our nervous system? How the hell do we learn then? It is very hard to take you seriously when you claim something as absurd as that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nervous_system

Classical conditioning is all about conditioned reflexes. Skinner and behaviourism talk about operant conditioning aswell which so far has proven to be 100% accurate when talking about behaviour. And as far as simplicity goes; yes it is based on simple principles but real behaviour is very complex as you have thousands of contingencies operating on you simultaneously, making human behaviour relatively unpredictable. NOT overly simplistic.

And you really need to do your research and stop believing urban legends. It's called an air crib and people use them all the time, they're a great idea.


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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7540710 - 10/20/07 08:25 PM (16 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

Behaviorism is a psychological movement that can be compared with philosophy of mind. The basic premise of radical behaviorism is that the study of behavior should be a natural science, such as chemistry or physics, without any reference to hypothetical inner states of organisms.




So Skinner denies any significance on the part of consciousness or spirituality? I don't know behaviorism all that well, but it seemed to imply that all our actions are just reactionary and conditioned. This might be true on an animalistic level, but what about our intellect and spirituality (awareness)?


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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: EternalCowabunga]
    #7540736 - 10/20/07 08:34 PM (16 years, 4 months ago)

"...influenced is not the same as controlled..."
But the gap between influence, manipulation and control is quite small...
I don't want to overlook that gap :wink:


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7540772 - 10/20/07 08:44 PM (16 years, 4 months ago)

Yes, I should have distinguished between the CNS and the PNS.  My bad.

As for operant conditioning, it has proven 100% accurate according to whom?  For clarity's sake:

Quote:

A process of behavior modification in which the likelihood of a specific behavior is increased or decreased through positive or negative reinforcement each time the behavior is exhibited, so that the subject comes to associate the pleasure or displeasure of the reinforcement with the behavior.




You're not seriously proposing that all varieties of human behavior are explained by this theory?


Here's Skinner's so-called "air crib"



People use these all the time, hmm?  Boy, there are some weirdos out there.  Putting a human infant into a wood and plexiglass-encased box is inhumane and sick.  It's bad enough that people stick their contact-starved infants in regular cribs & let them "cry it out."  Let me break this down for you:  humans are primates.  Primates need a great deal of contact, particularly during infancy.  To leave a primate in a box which prevents human contact, especially for the extended periods advocated by Skinner, is a great way to plant the seeds of sociopathology.  :thumbdown:

Additionally, an essential part of infant learning is exploration.  If you leave an infant encased in a box, no matter that the glass allows them to view the outside world, they are denied the neurologial stimulation which children receive when they are either carried or allowed to crawl around the home.  No matter how many fancy toys you might put in their enclosed "air crib," it cannot equal the variety of stimulation available in the outside world.

I have studied Skinner and Behaviorism in great detail, as I majored in Psychology.  Skinner's ideas are interesting, and have some application, but they are far from comprehensive or explanatory of all human actions.  His negligence of human cognition leaves a gaping hole in his theory, and this fact is well-accepted in the field of psychology.  Perhaps when you take Psych 102 you'll hear more about it.  :wink:

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OfflineYosefxp
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Veritas]
    #7541353 - 10/21/07 01:16 AM (16 years, 4 months ago)

Yes that's exactly what I am proposing :wink:. And all the evidence is pointing in that direction...

As far as the air crib goes...that was the 40's or 50's I believe and everything from then looked scary because it wasn't designed to be aesthecially pleasing like everything is nowadays.

It makes no sense that Skinner would advocate leaving the baby in there for extended periods of time, at the cost of human contact as he believed that almost all our behaviour is learnt, very little is innate, so isolating a baby in a box would almost definately screw it up like you're suggesting. So please show me where Skinner said that as I can't believe it. As a side note one of my lecturers was very good friends with Skinners daughter Deborah and she sounds like a normal, intelligent person. Not a sociopath.

So you studied behaviourism in great detail? Did you study private events? Wikipedia: "Behaviorism (also called learning perspective) is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things which organisms do — including acting, thinking and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors."

So what are you talking about? Even my earlier quote off wikipedias entry on Skinner says "Radical Behaviorism which unlike methodological behaviorism did not require truth by consensus so it could accept private events such as thinking, perception and emotion in its account."

I'm sorry but I know all this at second year so if it was your major then you must have forgotten it all. It was radical behaviourisms acceptance of private events, among other things, that revived behaviourism in the 40's and 50's and is one of the reasons behaviourism still exists today.

And when you say that the field of psychology has that idea of behaviourism then I can see why so many people are against it.


--------------------
Well it's alright riding around in the breeze
Well it's alright if you live the life you please
Well it's alright doing the best you can
Well it's alright as long as you lend a hand

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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: "God the Creator" [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7543523 - 10/21/07 04:43 PM (16 years, 4 months ago)

I think that we shall have to agree to disagree on this subject. My in-depth studies of psychology, which have spanned the past several decades, have made it clear to me that Behaviorism's approach to human cognition is both shallow and incomplete. You are certainly free to revere Skinner's approach, as it may better agree with your POV.

I definitely agree more with the psychological approaches of Albert Ellis (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy), Abraham Maslow (Hierarchy of Needs, Self-Actualization), Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow) and the many brilliant and empathic psychologists who have researched human attachment.

In my opinion, and my experience of caring for young children since 1975, babies need near-constant contact with their primary caregiver during infancy. Any convenience which interrupts this contact is detrimental to optimum emotional development. This includes Skinner's "air crib," regular cribs which are popular in Westernized societies, baby swings, baby seats, play pens, and all other dehumanized structures designed to contain and temporarily distract infants from their innate need for physical contact.

It is not a matter of these items not being "aesthetically pleasing," as you put it, but rather an objection to the parenting philosophy of distancing infants from the embrace they so ardently desire and so deeply require. I would hazard a guess that much of the depression and aggression we see in adults is rooted in that isolation during their infancy. The despair of an infant is a terrible thing to witness, and no one who has seen and felt that heartbreak could advocate for anything but immediate and on-demand holding and nurturing.

We have ventured so far off topic, I cannot see even a vague relation to the original post, so I will close with this. If you have further interest in this discussion, I suggest a thread in Physical & Mental Well-Being.

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