Seeing Things Differently -DanP the apologist excuse.

[I Have Questions]

Does the 7 year old child of Mormon parents in Utah really have a free will choice about being baptised at 8 years old?

Does the born-in-the-the church married man, with a Mormon spouse, Mormon parents, a Mormon boss at work, and a social group entirely consisting of Mormons, have a free will choice about their religious belief and in attending church?

Do people have a free will choice about their sexuality?

Do people have a free will choice about what their native language is?

Genetics, nurture, experience and environment will ensure that you don’t make any decision based on pure cognitive freedom (free will).

Perhaps no true free will. But a choice is available. The consequences of the choices make them cost.

They could leave Utah, leave their family.
They could be disfellowshipped and frowned upon.
They could choose to stay and live with it, choosing to stay is still a choice.

The cost here is that they either live life in a way that they would rather not but have their family and friends. Old Testament they can leave and possibly risk losing those relationships.

So they have will but not free.

A person may ignore the attractions they feel and that is their choice. They may choose to explore that. Both choices are present. But they wouldn't be free to turn it off.

The cost is to be in a relationship with someone you aren't attracted to to fit in with expectations of society (although this is changing) at the cost of having a level of intimacy that would only be available when with someone you are attracted to. Or go against family, expectations, have anxiety about the difficulties that might be perceived in coming out to people. The choices are available. The person is free to make that choice but the choices come at a cost.

A person is born into their native language and they can't decide at birth to change that. But if they decide to make the choice to learn a new language, the choice is there. The free choice is lost when it comes to accessing the other language and their ability to retain and learn said language.

I don't believe in pure cognitive freedom. Even our brains and how they work limit us. A person with severe learning difficulties can't just decide to go to university with no prior education. But would it occur to that person to even consider that option? Their sense of freedom would be lost if they had the desire but no doors opened to allow them to do it.

I struggle. I find it hard to understand people's expressions, intentions and sometimes what they say. I feel limited because when I try to make conversation the anxiety I feel can make me shut down. Now I have a choice realistically to ignore that and just assume that I know what the intentions are. But I haven't worked out how to do that. I actually find it easier to understand conversations through text and email. The expressions and energy's makes me not sure about what is said. I pick up subtle changes in people's stance, and face but I can't see my own. I'm not aware of what my body looks like to others. I feel this hinders my freedom to choose in some ways because I can't control the panic and anxiety.

Edit: I didn't write old testament. Autocorrect did. I'm not going to proof read and edit this. Going to go get settled. Night

Personally I don’t think having a choice and having free will are the same thing. The term “free” means to me that your decision to act, or to choose, is not influenced by other influential factors. Choices are always influenced by other factors - nature, nurture, experiential, and environmental.

I don’t believe there exists an example of a decision a person could make that isn’t influenced by one or more of those factors. And so free will doesn’t exist. One doesn’t choose one’s birth biology. One doesn’t choose one’s birth country. So even if on day 1 of your life you have an ability to make a choice free of any existential factors, you still are bound by the inherent drive to survive. Babies don’t choose to feed because they make a free will determination.

[I Have Questions]

Do people have free will in how they respond to criticism or a bit of raillery? Or are they programmed into predictable responses?

A fellow I know compulsively sorts everyone online into either believers in a 'creator God,' or hopelessly nihilistic atheists. This same fellow has a seeming inability to read source material--even that he himself quotes or links to. Does even he have the ability to exercise free will?
edit: Because I apparently don't proofread before I post.

I’m baffled as to why you keep wasting your time with such a fellow. The results are always the same.

[Imwashingmypirate]

Perhaps no true free will. But a choice is available. The consequences of the choices make them cost.

They could leave Utah, leave their family.
They could be disfellowshipped and frowned upon.
They could choose to stay and live with it, choosing to stay is still a choice.

The cost here is that they either live life in a way that they would rather not but have their family and friends. Old Testament they can leave and possibly risk losing those relationships.

So they have will but not free.

A person may ignore the attractions they feel and that is their choice. They may choose to explore that. Both choices are present. But they wouldn't be free to turn it off.

The cost is to be in a relationship with someone you aren't attracted to to fit in with expectations of society (although this is changing) at the cost of having a level of intimacy that would only be available when with someone you are attracted to. Or go against family, expectations, have anxiety about the difficulties that might be perceived in coming out to people. The choices are available. The person is free to make that choice but the choices come at a cost.

A person is born into their native language and they can't decide at birth to change that. But if they decide to make the choice to learn a new language, the choice is there. The free choice is lost when it comes to accessing the other language and their ability to retain and learn said language.

I don't believe in pure cognitive freedom. Even our brains and how they work limit us. A person with severe learning difficulties can't just decide to go to university with no prior education. But would it occur to that person to even consider that option? Their sense of freedom would be lost if they had the desire but no doors opened to allow them to do it.

I struggle. I find it hard to understand people's expressions, intentions and sometimes what they say. I feel limited because when I try to make conversation the anxiety I feel can make me shut down. Now I have a choice realistically to ignore that and just assume that I know what the intentions are. But I haven't worked out how to do that. I actually find it easier to understand conversations through text and email. The expressions and energy's makes me not sure about what is said. I pick up subtle changes in people's stance, and face but I can't see my own. I'm not aware of what my body looks like to others. I feel this hinders my freedom to choose in some ways because I can't control the panic and anxiety.

Edit: I didn't write old testament. Autocorrect did. I'm not going to proof read and edit this. Going to go get settled. Night

Personally I don’t think having a choice and having free will are the same thing. The term “free” means to me that your decision to act, or to choose, is not influenced by other influential factors. Choices are always influenced by other factors - nature, nurture, experiential, and environmental.

I don’t believe there exists an example of a decision a person could make that isn’t influenced by one or more of those factors. And so free will doesn’t exist. One doesn’t choose one’s birth biology. One doesn’t choose one’s birth country. So even if on day 1 of your life you have an ability to make a choice free of any existential factors, you still are bound by the inherent drive to survive. Babies don’t choose to feed because they make a free will determination.

I think there is an essence of what you are saying in what I said. I don't think I disagree with you.

I think, it's like nature. Within a system their is an element of free will in that frame of reference if you will. But to an observer outside of that system, the free will isn't there because you can see the outside elements that come into play. A person who speaks English but has no knowledge of other languages does not need to worry about whether or not they were born into a situation speaking a language they may not have wanted. The would have the freedom to create their own language which wouldn't be limited by ability to learn or access to information. They would create that language based on their knowledge and experiences without thinking about other languages because they don't exist in this scenario. So this would remove the ability to learn limitations because coming up with ideas and learning ideas is two different things.

If we break down every single choice a person makes and determine whether that choice was made using free will, we would fine that that would vary. We have a sense of freedom will with things like how we wear our clothes. The limitation is the availability of clothes that we own. So owning the clothes is the limiting choice. What we do with those clothes is down to free will ( free will in my mind being the ability to choose without outside considerations). Look at how Kanye west's wife dresses. It is their free will to dress like that (not sure if it's kanyes choice or her choice, but whoever chose within their system, they step out into public like that) they are pushing against the limitations of society to exert and force the right to use their free will. They are pushing the boundaries of the constraints that would otherwise tell them they can't go out like that. They have more social freedom to do this than most people. If I went out like that I'd be arrested and charged with indecent exposure.

[Morley]

None of it had anything to do with the question I asked.

Morley, as much as I hate to burst your bubble, you’re not the center of my attention in my responses. I often don’t give as much consideration to focusing wholly on your questions as I do in expressing my own opinions and insights in regards to the topic and where that might take me. Yes, I might meander a bit and you might find that troublesome/aggravating to the point that you make me the center of discussion along with my methods and modes of expression.

I don’t find that track…your track…interesting enough to continue with, especially when you start getting nit picky about what you believe to be my failings in staying on task or not fully expressing myself or keeping a strictly coherent line of thought, etc.

You, sir, are not necessarily the one person I’m focused on and trying to please or placate. In fact, it doesn’t matter that much to me what you think (that may sound harsh, sorry). Typically I know you will be more focused on finding a fault of some kind rather than having serious discussion with a sense of grace and forbearance.

Although, now and then I might find something that you say interesting and I may respond in a manner in which I hope to connect with your thoughts and come to mutual understanding . So don’t go away! You add a certain amount of ‘spice’ to any discussion.

With a touch of lemon thrown in.

It would be nice if instead of attacking the messenger you responded to content…at length…rather than skirting it and giving some trite response. It wouldn’t hurt you to also recognize A.I. for what it is. A worthy contributor a to discussion.

Regards,
MG

Ha! That would be fine, except that you indicated that your responses were an answer to my questions and then prodded me to respond to your A.I. copy and pastes.

As to your hopes that I will recognize A.I. for what it is: Indeed, I do.

[Morley]

Do people have free will in how they respond to criticism or a bit of raillery? Or are they programmed into predictable responses?

A fellow I know compulsively sorts everyone online into either believers in a 'creator God,' or hopelessly nihilistic atheists. This same fellow has a seeming inability to read source material--even that he himself quotes or links to. Does even he have the ability to exercise free will?
edit: Because I apparently don't proofread before I post.

I’m baffled as to why you keep wasting your time with such a fellow. The results are always the same.

You're right, of course.

Unfortunately for him, me, and maybe the board, I always have hope. I see my brother in MG. In fact, have to continuously remind myself that MG is not my literal bother. My brother has the same responses, the same tactics, the same style, the same beliefs. And I love him dearly. Sometimes all of that that is engaged when I read MG. I need to give up on them both.

[I Have Questions]

If we break down every single choice a person makes and determine whether that choice was made using free will, we would fine that that would vary. We have a sense of freedom will with things like how we wear our clothes. The limitation is the availability of clothes that we own. So owning the clothes is the limiting choice. What we do with those clothes is down to free will ( free will in my mind being the ability to choose without outside considerations).

There are other subconscious things at play with clothes. Why did you buy those clothes in the first place? Did you make a free style choice or were you influenced in that choice by advertising, social influencers, pricing, sizes available, your thoughts on what you want people to think of you, societal regulations, cultural expectations etc?

[Imwashingmypirate]

If we break down every single choice a person makes and determine whether that choice was made using free will, we would fine that that would vary. We have a sense of freedom will with things like how we wear our clothes. The limitation is the availability of clothes that we own. So owning the clothes is the limiting choice. What we do with those clothes is down to free will ( free will in my mind being the ability to choose without outside considerations).

There are other subconscious things at play with clothes. Why did you buy those clothes in the first place? Did you make a free style choice or were you influenced in that choice by advertising, social influencers, pricing, sizes available, your thoughts on what you want people to think of you, societal regulations, cultural expectations etc?

Very true. I've got clothes I don't wear because I don't like how they feel. I don't like starchy clothes, clingy things, scratchy things. Most of my trousers are too big because I don't like the tight feeling. If I could live in PJs I would. I don't think I've got one full outfit that is comfortable.

[I Have Questions]

You're right, of course.

Unfortunately for him, me, and maybe the board, I always have hope. I see my brother in MG. In fact, have to continuously remind myself that MG is not my literal bother. My brother has the same responses, the same tactics, the same style, the same beliefs. And I love him dearly. Sometimes all of that that is engaged when I read MG. I need to give up on them both.

It’s the hope that kills you
Leopards…spots…etc.

The definition of madness is to keep repeating the same actions and expecting different results.

[MG 2.0]

Do people have free will in how they respond to criticism or a bit of raillery? Or are they programmed into predictable responses?

A fellow I know compulsively sorts everyone online into either believers in a 'creator God,' or hopelessly nihilistic atheists. This same fellow has a seeming inability to read source material--even that he himself quotes or links to. Does even he have the ability to exercise free will?
edit: Because I apparently don't proofread before I post.

I’m baffled as to why you keep wasting your time with such a fellow. The results are always the same.

I share your sense of bafflement, IHQ. I’ve recently expressed my concerns in regards to where things typically end up with a poster or two that I interact with.

As I’ve said a number of times now I think we could all do better and give each other some grace and cut some slack for the fact that we view the world of faith with different eyes. As has also been said, we not only view the world through our eyes, we view the world through our experience. Yours will be different than mine.

It is difficult to accept the ‘other’, isn’t it? We tend to be so tribal in the way we view the world and others. If we ever hope to avoid the slippery slope to polarization we need to consciously fight against this tendency/urge.

And that takes courage which is expressed through free will. We don’t have to be a puppet of our impulses. The natural man, so to speak.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

…you indicated that your responses were an answer to my questions and then prodded me to respond to your A.I. copy and pastes.

Of course I’m going to answer your questions. And I would expect you to do the same.

After all, this is a discussion board.

But we don’t have to lower ourselves in the way we treat each other. We can exercise our free will to do better.

Regards,
MG