quote: I think that it is not possible for people to know why they behave as they do, why they are thinking what they are thinking at any given moment.
Really? I disagree completely; I've always thought that more people should put effort into knowing why they behave as they do.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
pooka has some god points but TomD is right about that people should find out why they behave as they do. If you understand your own demons or at least attempt to you can have a better attempt at controling and manipulating them to your advantage. Even the bad in each person can be put to good if you are made self aware.
Posts: 129 | Registered: Feb 2004
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If I'm the sniper, then whether or not I consider the target varelse doesn't enter into consideration at all.
And that makes it possible for me to understand why I would or would not pull the trigger.
Or more to the point, if take a look at these two statements.
quote:I think that it is not possible for people to know why they behave as they do, why they are thinking what they are thinking at any given moment. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I've always thought that more people should put effort into knowing why they behave as they do.
Is there any contradiction between these two statements? No, not as they stand. You have to add at least one other statement into that mix before a contradiction occurs.
This is a good example of why humans can be considered varelse, both to one another and to any true sentience. And you know what? It doesn't matter.Posts: 763 | Registered: Aug 1999
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quote:Really? I disagree completely; I've always thought that more people should put effort into knowing why they behave as they do.
What makes you think it's possible to know why you really do what you do? Haven't you met people who think they know why they act as they do, but seemingly act as they do for some entirely different reason? How can you know you are not one of those people?
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote: How can you know you are not one of those people?
Broadly, of course, it's impossible. By the same logic, it's impossible to prove that you aren't actually a very complicated computer program running in a near-perfect simulation of reality -- or, for that matter, a very simple computer program programmed to think that you're more complex.
But I think we take some things on faith, and are willing to dig for others. Believing that we understand our own motivations is usually a given -- but I think we're more likely to be right if we take the time to actually examine those motivations. IMO, not nearly enough people do the latter.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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reminds me of a quote, I think by JFK: "Too many people enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
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How do you determine what your motivations are? Isn't it based primarily on your previous experiences and how they relate to your knowledge of human behavior? If so, then the problem with fully understanding one's motivations is that there really isn't much sample data to look at. When you're young, you don't have many experiences to look at, so you could incorrectly assume a pattern of behavior that doesn't really exist. As you get older and have more experiences to look at, you learn more about yourself and why you may have done certain things in the past. That's not to say you didn't think enough about your motives in the past, it just means that you did all that you could with the information available to you.
That doesn't mean thinking about your motives is a futile endeavor, it just means that learning about ourselves is a continual process that never really ends.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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If the question is about motivations...but it isn't.
Motives are one possible part of the reason we do things, but often we have no motive for doing something. When a doctor hits my knee with a mallet, I have no motive for jerking my leg, do I? You could argue that since my brain was not involved in that reflex, it wasn't me that did it, but there is a problem with that idea.
Saying that my brain is what makes my real decisions rather than the nerves and muscles in my leg, isn't that rather arbitrary? My brain is a part of my body just like my leg. The nerves in my leg can decide some things on their own, and my leg acts on those decisions. My brain makes more decisions, but the underlying process, nervous tissues firing off signals to each other, is basically the same thing.
And what would I use to try and figure out what is making decisions and how thoes decisions get made? Well, then, we've arrived in a rather self-referential area, haven't we?
But does that mean that there is no value in asking the question? Doesn't the very fact that we probably don't really know why we do the things we do give us an incentive to try and find a better model?
In other words, at this point in the discussion, what is the disagreement?Posts: 763 | Registered: Aug 1999
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Honestly, I'm not entirely sure. You keep posting to say I'm wrong, and then post to agree with me. So I've been trying to figure that out.
If there's a difference, it's that you appear a bit more cavalier about deciding that someone is in fact inhuman.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Survivor, I'm assuming your post was in response to mine?
I wasn't really trying to disagree with anyone, just adding my thoughts about motivations and trying to understand them.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:You keep posting to say I'm wrong, and then post to agree with me. So I've been trying to figure that out.
I think that says something important about the way that some people look at conflict. They see everything as personal. Ideas aren't, by themselves, true or false. You don't agree with ideas, you only agree with persons. I can agree or disagree with an idea independently of who else might agree with it. And that totally confuses some people.
Most humans regard ideas as true or false based on who else has agreed with that idea. It is a handy shortcut for actually examining the idea, you say "I trust/distrust so and so, therefore I agree/disagree with that persons's ideas."
But somebody has to actually be putting in the time to examine the ideas themselves, because when you get to the stage of trying to implement an idea, it doesn't matter who thought it up, only that idea's predictive correspondence to reality matters.
I think that the concept of varelse and all that is interesting, but I don't see much useful application for it in real life. I certainly don't see how it applies to considerations of the morality of resolving conflict by resort to force. When you try to apply it to that problem, you end up distorting the original concept all out of recognition.
As we've seen here.
Card, through Ender, clearly says that it doesn't matter whether an entity is varelse, both because that border is so mutable and because it is largely a matter of perception. But he has everyone else accepting the concept as an absolute and trying to frame all their moral decisions through that lens.
If we want to bring the discussion back to motives, then we have an interesting circle here indeed. Most humans do almost everything they do because "everyone" else does those things. The definition of "everyone" varies from case to case, humans don't do many things just because, say...cows do them. The group which we label "everyone" could be "everyone in my family" or "everyone who really cares about dogs/cats/whatever", or "everyone on Earth".
In other words, one of the primary motives of most humans is to be in agreement with a set of humans. This applies not just to actions but to ideas. And now I've come full circle. Most humans hold the opinions they hold because some "everyone" holds those opinions. They decide whether opinions are contradictory by whether "everyone" that agrees with one opinion agrees with another. But like I said, it only works if someone is actually doing some thinking about the logical implications of those opinions in the first place.
Posts: 763 | Registered: Aug 1999
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quote: "Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth." - Ender's Game.
This is the one that got me hooked on Card at the tender age of 12. I never read a book with that clearly explained yet deep idea on the first page.
quote: "The wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them." - Xenocide
Who can argue with this one?
quote: "The opposite. I love only life. But life can only continue in the face of death." - The Worthing Saga
This sums up what I got out of the book. It is impossible to enjoy the good moments in our mortal lives without experiencing the bad. And the depth of our painful experiences serves to increase the potential height of our happiness. At least until Heaven, I see no way for good to be meaningful without something to compare it to.
Lastly, I have to take the idea from the Speaker trilogy, that we should understand the motivations behind one's actions and judge those, rather than judging the person or even their actions. This will make us more compassionate, slower to anger, and quicker to love. But I cannot agree with Ender's statement that it impossible to hate someone when you fully understand their motives. I find it difficult, for instance, believing that I would feel more compassion for a certain leader of the country of Germany in the mid-20th century, even IF I understood what compelled him to instigate the murder of millions.
Posts: 1099 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:At least until Heaven, I see no way for good to be meaningful without something to compare it to.
Interesting. I personally believe we will always have free will. Though when we are healed of all effects of the Fall some bad ideas will seem a lot less attractive. Like playing catch with lit rolls of toilet paper. I've never done this, but I can understand the appeal.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:You could argue that since my brain was not involved in that reflex, it wasn't me that did it, but there is a problem with that idea.
Saying that my brain is what makes my real decisions rather than the nerves and muscles in my leg, isn't that rather arbitrary?
Yes, it is arbitrary, but I don't think EITHER of these makes my decisions. If my brain decides to make my leg move, it is no more myself choosing to do it than if my reflexes cause it. I make my decisions - the conscious soul/mind that is me. I am not my brain. I am not my leg.
Of course, my brain clearly influences what I choose to do. My leg might too, for that matter. They might even determine completely what I choose to do. But nevertheless, unless it is really I that am choosing it, rather than my body, then it is not really my choice.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
So is your soul/mind a sort of metaphysical brain, or is it an essence of volition? If it's a brain of some kind, it makes no difference, the physical brain is mysterious as well, after all. If it is a distilled principle of choice, then that could reasonably be called your will.
But once you reduce it down to something like that, there aren't any reasons for your true decisions. Sure, it might be difficult to understand the workings of your brain et al well enough to see what underlying choice a given action represents. The reason for all your real choices still can be summed up as "because it's what I wanted."
In that model, a desire to master the brain and body so that they respond to your true desires rather than out of old neurological conditioning is still a possible desire, and a defensible one as well. This despite the fact that we have to view our motives as incomprehensible at multiple levels, being both immutable and unquestionable in first source as well as translated into action through processes too complex for us to ever fully understand.
I believe in free will, my puppet-masters won't let me do otherwise;)
Or rather, it is possible to think about having free will, it isn't possible to realistically think about not having it. The act of self-awareness (sentience, as it is sometimes termed) cannot take place if we try to use a deterministic model in thinking about our own mind. In order to think about whether free will exists, you need to be under the illusion that your mind exists and you control it. You can consciously think that you don't have free will, but it is exactly as sensible as thinking that you are a turnip.
For all I know, we all might be turnips. But it isn't useful to think as though you were.
quote:If love can kill, what need is there for hate?
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