Your real motivation: truth, or ending suffering?

David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 6:13 pm

Jason,

J: I think courage and universal determinism are generally opposing concepts.

DQ: For you to say this, your understanding of determinism must be very poor. Disturbingly so. I'm very surprised, Jason.
If you're going to write a critique of determinism, I can tell you now it will be worthless if you don't radically deepen your understanding of it first.

J: A bit of my post that you snipped and seemingly forgot about was "courage, as it is usually understood/defined". Essentially you are disagreeing over the definition of a word, not my understanding.

It doesn't matter how we define courage, it will never conflict with the principle of determinism. Nothing can ever conflict with determinism. If you think something can, you are not correctly conceiving of determinism.

I was critiquing your use of a word that is commonly and stronlgy associated with free-will.

Since I affirm free-will to be a reality - albeit one that is entirely composed of causality - it's not a problem for me to use words like "courage", "choice", "motivation", etc.

In short, you're imagining a problem which doesn't really exist.

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Jason · Post by **Jason** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 6:56 pm

David are you that inflexibile that you are incapable of using different definitions for the purpose of a single coversation? Honestly, you are making an argument out of nothing, and at the same time making it very hard to communicate due to your rigid grasp upon certain definitions. Definitions aren't set in stone. Sometimes it seems like you just argue for arguments sake or for getting in the last word.

David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 7:00 pm

What are you talking about? Where am I being inflexible?

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Jason · Post by **Jason** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 7:05 pm

David I think we should just leave this, it is going nowhere. Like I said before, I am writing a critique of parts of "Wisdom of the Infinite" which should hopefully set a fresh stage upon which we can communicate more effectively about the core issues of both our understandings.

David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 7:14 pm

Fair enough. I look forward to reading your critique.

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Lennyrizzo · Post by **Lennyrizzo** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 7:40 pm

Is that book here in the forum, or the archives?

Dan Rowden · Post by **Dan Rowden** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 5:18 am

It's at David's website: Wisdom of the Infinite

Dan Rowden

sue hindmarsh · Post by **sue hindmarsh** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 9:00 pm

Jason,
Iâ€™m going to break up our discussion into smaller bits â€“ so as to look at some ideas more closely.

Jason wrote:

The benchmark I use is my own mind, my own reasoning, my own understanding of truth. External influences such as other philosophers can act a source of original and stimulating thought, but that thought must pass my own analysis, reasoning and judgement before it is accepted.

Yes, everyone automatically screens information, only accepting what fits in with their value system, and only accepting something new when their minds are ready to do so.

Maybe it's just semantics, but I'm having problems with the way you are framing the questions as if an external influence can be more dominant than my own internal critical abilities.

We canâ€™t help but be influenced by â€œexternal influencesâ€ as we are constantly being bombarded by them. Even if you are lying in the dark in an isolation tank, you are still interacting with â€œexternal forcesâ€. There is the dark, the water, the tank, the sound of your breathing, the gentle movement of your body, etc.

The fact that the mind canâ€™t be separated from its environment means that neither the mind, nor the environment is more dominant than one another.

Sue