From: xgl (xli03@emory.edu)
Date: Wed Sep 06 2000 - 14:27:36 MDT
On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Brent Allsop wrote:
>
>
> xgl <xli03@emory.edu> replied:
>
> > but then aren't we enslaved by "the best"? enslaved by the
> > very condition of our being?
>
> How can one consider knowing, absolutely, what is best, and
> absolutely and deterministically always being able to chose and get it
> as "enslaved"? One cannot chose, that which he does not want, it
> makes no logical sense.
>
the word i focus on is "deterministiclly." what you describe is by
no means an unattractive way to be, but it didn't remind me of what "free
will" is traditionally taken to mean. on the other hand, you did provide
your own definition of the term ... my fault, i guess.
> > most human beings want sex, yet many feel enslaved by this desire. >
> Of course, now we're branching out to something a bit
> different. Our creator (evolution I believe) has hard wired powerful
> sexual joys to the stimulus of sexual behavior. In other words, if we
> do certain sexual acts, we receive the reward of phenomenal sexual
> pleasure. Of course, having some puppet master besides ourselves hard
> wire such strings isn't free agency at all. Only when we can cut and
> rewire such strings, such that we can want what we want to want, or
> rewire ourselves to receive phenomenal joys for the stimulus which we
> choose, can one truly be free.
>
the phrase that captures me here is "want what we want to want."
perhaps we can choose that which we do not (that is, not at the present)
want, after all. of course, this is only a word game ... which was part of
my initial point.
> Won't it be great when we can make undesirable things like
> paper work (or anything else we'd like to do but now hate doing) be
> orgasmick or better? ;) Now that'll be true freedom! Imagine how
> much we'll all get done with such abilities to want what we want to
> want, and not what our creator hard wired us to want!
>
> Still, anything that makes us deviate from that which we
> really want, even if it is hard wired pleasures, it destroys ones
> freedom and makes them a slave to whatever is causing them to deviate
> from choosing and getting what they really want right!?
>
i'm with you here ... from an emotional pov anyway.
-x
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