---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote :
--In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : From: "curtisdeltablues@..." <curtisdeltablues@...> ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : Exactly. That is what makes discussions or arguments about *whether* we have free will or not so BORING to me. They're completely unproductive -- a point that can never be proven one way or another. It's as silly as trying to debate the existence of God. Total waste of time. C: I don't doubt that it isn't interesting to you, so it would be a waste of your time. But in a broader sense the inquiry into where our free will starts and ends is highly useful in neuroscience. To measure brain activity that precedes our subjective experience of choice tells us a lot about how our brain communicates with itself. Not seeking to argue but just to understand, what would be the conceivable *value* of learning that you had no fuckin' free will? I'll wait. :-) :-) :-) C: It changes a lot of things in how we understand what it means to be human. We think of ourselves as such volitional beings, but it my be that this is an illusion created by lagtime in our brains. The obvious next step, since in my life volitional choice would be of immense value, would be to ask how this mechanism works and how can we hack it to make personal changes we want. Our species is famous for acting against our own best self interest and understanding what we can control and what we can't could help us both explain and modify this human delemma. My approach to how I make changes in my own life has already been altered by even a cursory understanding of how my self perception is at variance to the measurable reality. I am a bit more understanding with myself and approach change as a rally rather than a command. It also breeds compassion about other people's failings. I'm not sure even you could convince Bawee of this but I enjoyed reading this. It's not that I necessarily agree but I love the spirit of you actually having disagreed with him. One's own two feet are good for standing on.
