Would it be 'wrong' to choose to be gay?

[feral chile]

but if it's informed by our innate drives, physiology and experience, then how is it 'us' who makes the choice?

While my experiences might be 'mine' alone, unless they can be completely separated from my innate drives and physiology - which they can't - then those experiences are not mine and the same applies.

I remember that you've before presented how psychology gets used to help sell stuff, because us humans get attracted to some sales set-ups over other set-ups .... which of course gets to mean that free choice is not happening. Our ability to make that supposed 'free choice' is pre-shaped by everything prior to that (including what might be 'natural instincts').

A bee is attracted to bright colours for the benefit of its lifecycle, and not its free choices. Us humans get attracted to food displays of particular colours.

It's human arrogance that says we're doing something different to the bees. We like to believe ourselves as somehow special when we're no different to other animals.

[eFestivals]

it's not always arrogance that makes us think we're different. Arrogance implies that we think we're 'better'.. I don't, I just think we're different. Maybe animals ponder the complicated concepts of choice, free-will, etc etc... maybe they've done all the thinking and know the answers...

that's the whole point, there's been no thinking at all, just a statement that we're different *AND* better than other animals.

It's an idea based in no evidence at all, because there's no way to collect that evidence. Someone mentioned above an idea that humans have an imagination that animals don't. Fair enough, maybe it's right ... but there's no way to test it.

Just because we've evolved in a different way to other animals doesn't mean that's because we have brain traits that they don't. Who knows, it might be all down to only opposable thumbs and time, and nothing 'brain' at all.

But that lack of evidence hasn't stopped a whole raft of 'knowledge' being cooked up on the evidence-free basis that we have brain functions that animals do not &/or cannot have. Which is where my 'arrogance' idea steps in.

[eFestivals]

Agree with this... Just thinking something is different doesn't mean you think its better or worse! The drive for equality runs off this idea that we are all the same and should all do and be the same things.

that's not what i'm meaning. I'm on about 'brain traits' - eg: imagination, or conciousness - that branches of 'knowledge' say that humans have that animals do not.

[Guest]

that's not what i'm meaning. I'm on about 'brain traits' - eg: imagination, or conciousness - that branches of 'knowledge' say that humans have that animals do not.

[eFestivals]

I'm very sympathetic to what you're saying here, as I believe our choices are influenced by far more factors than traditional proponents of free will would like to think.

I certainly think a lot of what we're attracted to is predetermined, it's usually choices after that which tend to be more open to choice - 'not free to choose what we want' in the sense that most of what we want is conditioned by our primary and secondary needs - food, shelter, warmth, security, status - the means we use to get them also depend on our skills and environmental options.

Mostly, though, proponents of free will accept these limitations. It's manipulation that they object to. And becoming aware of how our responses have been conditioned, and trying to change that - is that need also conditioned? That resistance, that unwillingness to accept being controlled - that for me is part of free will. And being aware of just how much our choices are conditioned, helps us to resist it, or at least manipulate it to our advantage.

and yet all of those things could exist in all the same ways for animals too - and yet the proponents of the free will idea will certainly not credit those animals with the same.

[eFestivals]

well, that's a whole other topic... whether animals have imagination, or choice...

but that doesn't make any difference to whether us humans have choice

it certainly changes our whole intellectual idea of what is choice, and so does make a difference.

[Guest]

it certainly changes our whole intellectual idea of what is choice, and so does make a difference.

[philipsteak]

Yeah I agree. It takes quite a lot of anger/ignorance to want to protest about it IMO.

[Ed209]

well, that's a whole other topic... whether animals have imagination, or choice...

but that doesn't make any difference to whether us humans have choice

[Guest]

Of course it does. If there's other animals that have choice then that would surely mean humans, being the most intelligent animal, would have choice also.

I have to believe there's no such thing as free will. We're just a complex collection of complex molecules doing complex chemical reactions according to the laws of nature, I struggle to see how free will can fit into that.

Edited January 14, 2013 by tonyblair

[Ed209]

if you believe that you have no choice, then I understand why you believe you have no choice in reaching that conclusion

if you come from the premise that (maybe) we do have choice, it doesn't have to follow that other animals do

there is the possibility that we might not be the most intelligent

[Guest]

I posed it as a one way argument, other animals having choice would imply that we have choice. Us having choice does not imply other animals have a choice.

[eFestivals]

humans, being the most intelligent animal

there's some more of that human arrogance.

Just because we do things differently doesn't get to mean it's being done with a greater intelligence.

It might be the case that (say; i'll take my cue here from D.A. ) dolphins have done the whole build-a-civilisation thing before (billions of years ago, and all evidence is long lost), and found out it was a crap idea. Or perhaps they never bothered doing it, because they're smart enough to know it's crap before they did it. Who knows?

All we do know is that we do things differently. That's the start and end of it.

[Ed209]

that's your choice...

[Guest]

All we do know is that we do things differently. That's the start and end of it.

[Guest]

no its not

[eFestivals]

aren't you curious about any aspect of the human condition?

I am, which is precisely why I'm pointing out the lies in the standard thinking.

If you go with those lies then that takes you further from the truth not nearer to it.

[Guest]

I am, which is precisely why I'm pointing out the lies in the standard thinking.

If you go with those lies then that takes you further from the truth not nearer to it.

Edited January 14, 2013 by tonyblair

[eFestivals]

don't take this the wrong way, but how do you get to be so sure of these things?

lies? Who's lying?

I stop and think about it. And what I think is that we can only think that we think.

Me, I'm only sure of my own existence, but that I might as well place as much belief in my own thoughts as I could in other people's thoughts. After all, I've as much chance as being right as anyone else has.

Others - such as much that is being discussed in here - reckon that we know exactly how and why we think (which is a lie), and present any one of the schools of knowledge built on that lie as certainties that are beyond question. Or alternatively they claim to know from their thoughts exactly what "god's plan" is for man and so can say what is right and wrong for any moral issue.

I reckon there's often a bigger truth to be known by breaking down those claims of certainty from others into their constituent parts - so that if being gay is a choice or a disease then so is being straight, and so nothing about either's origin matters towards anything compared to the opposite.

[feral chile]

and yet all of those things could exist in all the same ways for animals too - and yet the proponents of the free will idea will certainly not credit those animals with the same.

[Guest]

So what if I choose to be straight ? So what if someone chooses to be gay ?

You say it like it makes a difference to anything ?

[eFestivals]

So what if I choose to be straight ? So what if someone chooses to be gay ?

You say it like it makes a difference to anything ?

No, the exact opposite. It doesn't matter at all. It matters so little that there's no point it all to this thread (aside from tony's original point of trying to graspd what angle the writer of that article was coming from).

Any 'flaws' that someone might attach to the fact of someone being gay (thru choice, or not) apply equally to those who are straight. It logically can't be any other way.

[Guest]

ultimately, nothing, well almost nothing we do or think makes any difference in the long run...

but, it's quite plain that we have many choices, from the moment we wake up - "shall I get up, or stay in bed?" - to pretty much everything that you do until you go back to bed. I think that realising where we have choices could be very empowering and liberating. How many people justify their actions by saying "well, what else could I do?", when there might have many other options, or, "well, that's the type of person I am.."....

choose to be a different kind of person then

[feral chile]

I posed it as a one way argument, other animals having choice would imply that we have choice. Us having choice does not imply other animals have a choice.

I don't think anyone or anything has choice though so its a pointless search from my viewpoint. But from a perspective of the believers in choice and free will its a crucial search, albeit an impossible one.

[feral chile]

You do have choice and free will to do any thing you want... You just need to be prepared to accept the consequences...