Jay520 said:
Jay520 said:
I guess I'll give my opinion on the matter.
I've always believed that the biological state of a person's brain along with environmental factors are the only factors that shape a person's behavior. Neither of these are controlled by the brain itself. When, a person is first born, their brain is obviously in a state that the person has no control over. And as time progresses, the brain grows and learns based on what it experiences in the environment. Many people learn better than others and everyone learns differently than others. The reason for this is because of everyone's different brain state at birth imo. If that's true, then the brain never controlled the way it was formed. It was created, it grew, and it learned.
I think the factors that determine a person's brain are 1.) Innate factors, 2.) Environmental factors, and 3.) The way it learns from those environmental factors. Obviously the first two favors are out of the subject's control but some may argue that they control the 3rd factor. I don't believe people control the way they learn. Because the way a person learns is dependent upon its mental state at the time of learning. And a person's mental state at the time is dependent upon what its already learned. The things its already learned is based on its past mental state. - And the cycle goes all the way back to when a person was initially born with a preset mental state.
For example, from the moment I was born to today, I don't believe I controlled anything. I was given a particular mental state - which I didn't control.. And using that mental state, I learned from my environment -I didn't control the way I learned since the way I learn is based on my mental state - which I don't control. This process continued and I gained knowledge - which I didn't control. And ultimately, I used that knowledge to make decisions. And all those decisions are based upon factors all out of my control. The moment I was born to today, my personality was formed by layers and layers of things which I had no control over.
When I think back to some of the major decisions that shaped my personality many years ago, I can't see myself making different decisions even when the decisions that I made were bad. The only way I could have made a different decisions is if something from my environment changed the way I felt about the decision or if I was just born a little differently.
People believe what makes the most sense and cannot change their beliefs unless they are proven wrong by what they learn. Beliefs are what a person sincerely thinks is true and a person cannot deliberately alter his beliefs. They're just ideas that the brain genuinely holds to be true. And beliefs are a very significant factor in a person's behavior. All this further strengthens my point about uncontrollable decisions. For example, I sincerely believe everything I wrote above. The same goes for everyone's belief. I think the points I've made are all reasonable and if you disagree, let me know.
Edited to remove run-on sentences, excessive words, etc. |
I expected more replies...does anyone disagree with this? |
Well I'll give you mine I guess. Lack fo control to me means freedom (My other post). I agree with everything you said, but would ascribe it to being free rather than a lac of free will. People who are free are people who are able to be influenced by outside factors. To be free is to have the ability to have one's direction changed in an instant by an outside force (It's not really a "decision making power").
Will, is the power to have that effect on other people - to influence the direction of others. You say you have no control because your fate is determined by external forces all the time, but you have that exact effect on OTHER people all the time - you change the fate of others. For example, giving a gift to someone, giving money, beating someone up, convincing someone in argument, etc...
In other words, we are exercising our will all the times when we affect the fate of something, and we exert our freedom all the times when we allow ourselves to swayed in some manner. If you care to understand this in depth more you would have to at least see my earlier post as well which is fairly short I think. Essentially, freedom is what makes life undetermined, and will is what makes it determined. Also, some people like to be free, and others not so much. Same goes for having will.
