I'm paraphrasing but: >A man can surely do what he likes with his life, but he has no control over what he ends up liking in life.
Basically you have free will, but not to choose what you like. You can't force yourself to like blondes or carrots or baseball. You like what you like, you don't like what you don't like. You have no conscious control over this. This explains why people fail so often at their "dreams". They're in love with the "idea" of being a doctor/musician/adventurer but not the actual act of doing those things, so they never pursue them with any sincerity. I'm in love with the "idea" of being a personal assistant/bodyguard with military experience for a powerful businessman but not the reality, which is why I'll never be that. Advertising works on the same principle, you want to be that happy, healthy guy in the ad eating a delicious Whopper, you love the idea of that. I mean, it must be good if he's so happy eating it. So you go buy the burger. And you know it's gonna leave you with nothing but shame, but you do it anyway because people love living in fantasy like this.
This entire world is crafted to capitalise on this flaw in human nature, in conjunction with supporting flaws like how discarding comfort is the hardest thing in the world. My point is, stop beating yourself up about being a "failure", if you truly wanted that thing you'd be on your way to get it.
Do you consciously remodel your brain to adapt to be stimulated by things you want it to be stimulated by? No? Oh...
Elijah Gutierrez
So what's the difference between a surgeon rewiring your brain to state X, and slowly consciously conditioning it to state X?
Ryder Turner
Choice is a superposition of potentialities, but it is limited, this is what he means: we can choose between them if we really force ourselves, but we didn't choose our options, nor our preferences (the hierarchy of the options); rarely are two choices of equal intensity, but even when they aren't we can power our will to the choice of the lesser. But even the gods were entranced by Orpheus' song.
>and slowly consciously conditioning it to state X? You couldn't name a process or routine for someone who hates baseball and finds it dull to find it enjoyable. Even if you can learn to like things you didn't always, there's limiting factors. It's not lego, you can't just move bits exactly where you want them. Neuroplasticity just lets you bend the rules slightly, not break them. You can wean a whiskey lover into loving vodka, but trying to get him to love prune juice is probably impossible.
Grayson Taylor
I don't think anyone has done a truly deep investigation into self remodeling of desire. Desire can certainly be changed by external factors but it seems like at least in some areas we're very resistant to making the change ourselves. Reminded me of this old post you might find interesting. slatestarcodex.com/2013/05/19/can-you-condition-yourself/
Cameron Ward
you must still be young
things I loved for many years have played themselves out, and I find things I disliked to be new and refreshing
also if you force people to do things they claim to "hate", they can learn to find them pleasurable
Perhaps, but you do have a choice to like or not like the only thing that truly matters: God. Your lesser likes could just be ordained by irrelevant fancy since their Objects cannot truly reciprocate, and the relevance of like unto God subsumes them all.
Cameron Gray
>you must still be young Please don't start this stupid little game, it's pathetic and sad. I'm 34 now shut up. >things I loved for many years have played themselves out, and I find things I disliked to be new and refreshing Such as? >also if you force people to do things they claim to "hate", they can learn to find them pleasurable "SOMETIMES". Not always.
Easton Parker
Desire is founded on Habit. But you shouldn't be too binary, yes we can transform but we can't break the form. What one finds pleasurable and indulge in isn't necessarily what one's essence yearns for; it is why addicts are depressed, they're unfulfilled. We cannot change this deepest yearning, but we can fool ourselves into another (and enjoy it). But in the last chapters of our life we will find ourselves torn and regretful.
>Like all childless (because of their lifestyle) middle aged women.
>Perhaps, but you do have a choice to like or not like the only thing that truly matters: God But not to believe in God. I don't believe in God and nothing anyone does or says will change that.
Dylan Ross
Why not
Leo Reed
Because I just don't. I never have, even though I was raised religious. I never believed in it, I always thought it was bullshit lip service.
John Scott
Ask and you shall receive, the Lord loves those who loves him, and those who seek him find him, etc
Joshua Reed
>I'm 34 now shut up still young. over 40 is the magic number :^)
and yes reality is not as glamorous as fantasy. oh well
Gavin Myers
That's not how it works.
God has nothing I want.
Jayden Torres
>foods, hobbies, interests, politics, entertainment, whatever Well did you "hate" spaghetti or did you just never eat it and thought you hated it? That's an important distinction. Is there anything you genuinely hated that you later 180'd on?
Josiah Diaz
That is how it works. You just don't want it
Samuel Thompson
So you do believe in other things?
Cooper Barnes
I think there's a materialist way to look at this. The brain is made of a general purpose neural network in the cerebrum and networks with optimized geometries for fixed functions in the rest of the brain. The optimized functions of the brain are normally not programmable and can represent fixed drives. Cerebral desire seems to be infinitely plastic. An unsolved question is how extensive are the fixed drives into higher level life. Another is in what situations can the cerebrum override the fixed drives.
Luke Foster
>food peoples's palettes change heavily as they go from kids to adults, but if a food makes you physically ill I guess there's no changing that
I guess I once hated classical music, opera, politics, simplicity, philosophy, literature, work, religion, quite more too
Ryder Price
Causality still applies. Even if you could will your will over time, you cannot will the will that wills your will. Ultimately, there's a reason you do something, and you cannot create that reason from nothing.
Thomas Moore
Can you give some evidence for the factual basis of your religion or are you trying to sell a consensual hallucination?
Asher Bailey
Do you want to believe?
Thomas Diaz
Doesn't exactly answer my question.
Juan Parker
All we find in matter is a changing image 'through a glass darkly' of eternity.
If you don't want to believe, no amount of evidence is possible to convince you. The first piece of evidence for you is the small size of the human brain. The reasonable man understands the limits of his own reasons. Wisdom begins with humility
Asher Butler
>If you don't want to believe, no amount of evidence is possible to convince you That sounds an awful lot like bullshit to me.
Christopher Wright
That's what I said. We can't change or deepest desires (we often don't know what they truly are). But we can change our habits, and every day tastes, "acquired tastes".
Evan Bailey
Pride doesn't lead you to God. Those with large egos hate this fact
Owen Gutierrez
I've never seen any evidence of God, not even a feeling. Why should I blindly believe in something that all my senses and reasoning tell me doesn't exist?
David Perez
Do you have duties? Why? What are those values? Are you an Epicurean seeking the best pleasure? Or a hedonism who only seek delusions?
Nolan Martin
Have you read the New Testament? Or how about any theological works?
>Do you have duties? No. No one "has" to do anything. >Are you an Epicurean seeking the best pleasure? Or a hedonism who only seek delusions? The only thing I "seek" is avoiding worthless suffering.
Landon Nguyen
Not him but I've read most of the OT and all of the NT and while I think it has some of the best ancient philosophy it certainly doesn't have any evidence of the truth of the religion.
Duties are our own. Values we find. Duties are the self-obligation to uphold what we value, they are in ourselves.
Ian Wright
>The Negro is genetically predisposed to liking chicken and watermelon.
Joshua Morris
Nothing exists without value, all objects are tools of the imagination to fulfill all value, there are things in themselves, the world is our presentation. Belief pre-exists, it is the why of all action.
Julian Hughes
*No* things in themselves*
Let us begin with Zeus, whom we mortals never leave unspoken. For every street, every market-place is full of Zeus. Even the sea and the harbour are full of this deity. Everywhere everyone is indebted to Zeus. For we are indeed his offspring
Hunter Adams
Belief is best understood through Bayesian probability not metaphysics. Intelligence exists to solve the problem of how to continue existing.
William Edwards
Stop speaking like you're in the bible.
This is part of why people write bible retards off so quickly, you run around calling others prideful while reeking of a holier than thou attitude of superiority.
Aaron Cruz
We all live in Flux. I'm not christian/jew/muslim
Cameron Howard
>Basically you have free will Rofl
Jayden Bennett
I haven't read the thread but that Schopenhauer quote has nothing to do with whatever you're saying in the OP
Daniel Gray
no, it's pretty close. he responded to blanks state memes of enlightenment.
>The will indeed came to be regarded as an act of thought, and to be identified with the judgment, especially by Descartes and Spinoza. According to this doctrine every man must become what he is only through his knowledge ; he must enter the world as a moral cipher come to know the things in it, and thereupon determine to be this or that, to act thus or thus, and may also through new knowledge achieve a new course of action, that is to say, become another person. Further, he must first know a thing to be good, and in consequence of this will it, instead of first willing it, and in consequence of this calling it good. According to my fundamental point of view, all this is a reversal of the true relation. Will is first and original ; knowledge is merely added to it as an instrument belonging to the phenomenon of will. Therefore every man is what he is through his will, and his character is original, for willing is the basis of his nature. Through the knowledge which is added to it he comes to know in the course of experience what he is, i.e., he learns his character. Thus he knows himself in consequence of and in accordance with the nature of his will, instead of willing in consequence of and in accordance with his knowing. According to the latter view, he would only require to consider how he would like best to be, and he would be it ; that is its doctrine of the freedom of the will. Thus it consists really in this, that a man is his own work guided by the light of knowledge. I, on the contrary, say that he is his own work before all knowledge, and knowledge is merely added to it to enlighten it. Therefore he cannot resolve to be this or that, nor can he become other than he is ; but he is once for all, and he knows in the course of experience what he is. According to their doctrine he wills what he knows, but i say: he knows what he wills.
from other passages it's clear that schopenhauer didnt deny value of self-improvement or changing attitudes with age, but he saw it always downstream from fundamental character which must be discovered and cannot be changed. probably he would feel vindicated by HBD research.
Truly, Schopy is the rightful inheritor of Platonism from Damascius and Eriugena.
Daniel Gonzalez
Knowledge for Schopenhauer is whatever suits the Will for its purpose. Knowledge is a function of the Will. That's his entire point -- and the Will in humans is supremely manifest in the struggle for procreation. He is basically saying that suffering is unavoidable, in that you will always be a slave to your will to life. The only way out is becoming an ascetic sage (in which only a few individuals per century succeed: Schopenhauer himself mentions Jesus Christ, the Buddha, Franciscus of Assisi and Madame de Guyon as his examples) or, for the average human, to at least live a life of compassion.
>Basically you have free will, Alright, continue >but not to choose what you like Stop right there. In-core-ect.
Blake Edwards
Cool post! You've completely misunderstood schopenhauers point, but still got a meaningful idea out of it!
William Sanders
Imagine believing this
Lincoln Hernandez
>the actual becoming >the cope being
Ayden Thompson
>you will always be a slave to your will to life Nonsensical, it is the will that makes you feel enslaved to or free from external forces in the first place.
