Truth, Part of the strategy

[AnyOldIron]

We can consciously choose to recondition ourselves. One of the largest examples of considerable change is choosing to convert. One takes their environment and makes themselves from it, the environment doesn't make them.

If the environment made the person, each child in a torn and abusive home would have the same reaction to it. This doesn't happen. Some choose to be fighters for the right, some choose to simply live well, some choose to perpetuate the abuse. All of these were choices that they made.

That is ignoring the many different conditionings that affect the individual. A child from a broken home wouldn't have the same experience as another from a broken home. The contributory factors are innumerable.

An example of how the environment conditions responses would be feral children. If a human has the ability to recondition themselves, why are humans found in the feral state resemblent of the dogs/wolves/animals that have taken care of them? Why have the humans not risen above their feral state?

 

[AnyOldIron]

"See! It isn't my fault at all! It's the world and how I was raised!"

Again, because something is unattractive doesn't make it any less true.

Our perception of the world is dictated by our interactions in the world. That doesn't mean that we have no will, just that the freedom often attributed to that will doesn't exist, because we cannot condition ourselves anymore than we can control the actions of others and the world around us..

 

[Damocles]

We can consciously choose to recondition ourselves. One of the largest examples of considerable change is choosing to convert. One takes their environment and makes themselves from it, the environment doesn't make them.

If the environment made the person, each child in a torn and abusive home would have the same reaction to it. This doesn't happen. Some choose to be fighters for the right, some choose to simply live well, some choose to perpetuate the abuse. All of these were choices that they made.

That is ignoring the many different conditionings that affect the individual. A child from a broken home wouldn't have the same experience as another from a broken home. The contributory factors are innumerable.

An example of how the environment conditions responses would be feral children. If a human has the ability to recondition themselves, why are humans found in the feral state resemblent of the dogs/wolves/animals that have taken care of them? Why have the humans not risen above their feral state?

You once again, instead of relating these circumstances to choices, wish to say that all this is "beyond our control". The only thing you have control over is how you react to or interact with that environment. Each tiny choice leads to a greater choice down the road, each of those tiny choices take more variables away from that large choice. What you have done, what you have thought, how you reacted, that is what makes you, not some inescapable destiny based on your environment. That's revisionist, it is extreme and reflects a hope that somehow you could not shape your future, that you didn't come to this end because of how you acted/reacted. It is not however reflective of actual life.

Two different people with exactly the same circumstances would come out with different lives because they would choose to react to and interact with their environment differently.

As to the feral children, if a child doesn't learn a language that portion of their brain shuts down and cannot be brought back, however what led them there? The Russian child that had gone feral actually chose the circumstances. While there was humankind around and he could have approached them he chose to leave that and lived outside of that. His choice led him there. A child left in the woods makes choices that can return them to their home, or can lead them astray. That choice may lead to them becoming feral, but it was choices nevertheless that led them on that path.

 

[uscitizen]

Our society greatly slows down the progress of our society, I guess that is true social conservatism.

 

[AnyOldIron]

The only thing you have control over is how you react to or interact with that environment.

And in that you have little control. Your reactions are dictated by the accumulation of experiences that you have.

For example, an individual walking down the street who comes across a stray dog will have a reaction that is conditioned by the individual's experience with dogs in the past. An individual who's experience of dogs has on the whole been positive, will react in a much less anxious manner than an individual who's experience of dogs has been largely negative.

They both have a choice, but how they percieve the choices available to them is conditioned.

That's revisionist, it is extreme and reflects a hope that somehow you could not shape your future, that you didn't come to this end because of how you acted/reacted.

It's actually called determinism, and as I said, because we find something ugly doesn't make it any less true.

It is not however reflective of actual life.

So you state that an individual's perception of the choices available to him isn't a result of experience? That an individual choses how they percieve things?

 

[AnyOldIron]

Two different people with exactly the same circumstances would come out with different lives because they would choose to react to and interact with their environment differently.

Two different people would never have had the same circumstances??? If they were, they'd be the same people.

 

[uscitizen]

Two different people with exactly the same circumstances would come out with different lives because they would choose to react to and interact with their environment differently.

Two different people would never have had the same circumstances??? If they were, they'd be the same people.

Umm I don't fully agree with that. Identical twins for example are not always the same. People are just born with different agression levels and such.

 

[Damocles]

The only thing you have control over is how you react to or interact with that environment.

And in that you have little control. Your reactions are dictated by the accumulation of experiences that you have.

That accumulation are each the small choices of which I speak. Experience comes from the choices you make. What you have thought, how you reacted create who you are.

For example, an individual walking down the street who comes across a stray dog will have a reaction that is conditioned by the individual's experience with dogs in the past. An individual who's experience of dogs has on the whole been positive, will react in a much less anxious manner than an individual who's experience of dogs has been largely negative.

An individual who realizes this can change that "reality" by conscious action. They can choose to "retrain" that "visceral" reaction that was built upon the choices of the past. The reaction was not based in a vacuum of inescapable environment, but on past choices that led to the experience that they had. It may have been as simple as taking a turn down a street where there was a dog...

They both have a choice, but how they percieve the choices available to them is conditioned.

Habitual, but not conditioned. There is a difference. Condidtion leads one to believe that there is nothing to be done to change the reaction, but much can be done to change the reaction that they have.

That's revisionist, it is extreme and reflects a hope that somehow you could not shape your future, that you didn't come to this end because of how you acted/reacted.

It's actually called determinism, and as I said, because we find something ugly doesn't make it any less true.

Except it isn't "true" it is just another way to look at the world. Another choice one makes. In this one would choose to negate the importance of even the small choices of the past and call them "conditioning" rather than to peer into themselves to find the reason for the reaction and change/accept it as needed.

It is not however reflective of actual life.

So you state that an individual's perception of the choices available to him isn't a result of experience? That an individual choses how they percieve things?

Yes, as described above. One chooses to either accept those choices of the past which lead them to their current state or one chooses to say that they are "conditioned" and therefore unchangeable reality. The actual reality is with a bit of introspection they can understand the choices of the past, and change the way that they relate to their environment. It may take work, but it certainly isn't some inescapable destiny that cannot be changed.

 

[AnyOldIron]

Umm I don't fully agree with that. Identical twins for example are not always the same. People are just born with different agression levels and such.

Identical twins don't have the same experiences. No two individuals have had the same experiences, the same conditioning.

 

[Damocles]

Two different people with exactly the same circumstances would come out with different lives because they would choose to react to and interact with their environment differently.

Two different people would never have had the same circumstances??? If they were, they'd be the same people.

They would not. It is an exercise in thought though as there would be no way to test such a theory. Two different people would be different because they would choose to react differently to circumstances. One child, for instance, would choose to turn right rather than left thus leading him back to his parents... Those little choices lead us to the greater choice later, that of whether to accept what we have become and understand what brought us there, or to just live with what we have become and believe that it was inevitable based on circumstances beyond our control.

 

[uscitizen]

Umm I don't fully agree with that. Identical twins for example are not always the same. People are just born with different agression levels and such.

Identical twins don't have the same experiences. No two individuals have had the same experiences, the same conditioning.

Up thru the infant stage they pretty much do, and often turn out very different.
I have a brother that is pretty much an exact opposite from me, and this started as infants per our parents.

I believe we are born with certain charistics. The old nature vs nurture thing.

 

[AnyOldIron]

Well, I've got three battles on the go, but here in Blighty it's nearly 5pm and I'm going home to get nicely toasted and to molest the missus...

Will continue these discussions on Monday...

Have yourselves a good weekend chaps, and drink a beer for me!

Tally Ho!

 

[uscitizen]

yeah I am cutting out early today too, in 5 minutes actually. Have to work on DST stuff this weekend.

 

[Litmus]

If an organisation such as the Illuminati (if they exist) is producing the conditioning effect then it isn't the individual that is controlling the conditioning process.

For example, an individual's perception of dogs. The perception is built up by contact with dogs. If the first contact with a dog is negative to the individual, then that person's perception of dogs will be negative. With each contact with dogs, the individual's perception will change.

But the individual has no real control over the actions of the dogs that alter that perception. Ergo, the individual cannot control the manner in which they are conditioned. There are too many variables, as I said, an individual has no control over the actions of others or general circumstances.

Humans possess will, but to describe that will as free is a total misnomer.

It's free will all right, you just have your head up your rear.

Individuals can program themselves. they can reduce the effects the programming society lays on us. they can realize their fear of dogs is irrational and change their conditioning. We are free. It's just not always easy to exercise free will, and sometimes great powers don't want us to, like the illuminati, for instance.

You can't control a dog or your surroundings? You're just lame.

 

[OrnotBitwise]

They would not. It is an exercise in thought though as there would be no way to test such a theory. Two different people would be different because they would choose to react differently to circumstances. One child, for instance, would choose to turn right rather than left thus leading him back to his parents... Those little choices lead us to the greater choice later, that of whether to accept what we have become and understand what brought us there, or to just live with what we have become and believe that it was inevitable based on circumstances beyond our control.

You are defining "circumstances" as something -- or a collection of somethings -- entirely external to the individual. This is an unrealistic scenario. Each thought and impulse of an individual results from external stimuli: the duality between internal and external worlds is intrinsically false.

No two different individuals can ever experience exactly the same set of circumstances. It's physically impossible.

 

[Damocles]

You are defining "circumstances" as something -- or a collection of somethings -- entirely external to the individual. This is an unrealistic scenario. Each thought and impulse of an individual results from external stimuli: the duality between internal and external worlds is intrinsically false.

No two different individuals can ever experience exactly the same set of circumstances. It's physically impossible.

Hence my assertion that it could never be tested. But you ignore that and trudge on... oblivious to the fact that you simply repeated the first part of my statement in your eloquent, yet disjointed, reposte.

It doesn't change my argument at all. Each decision you make lead up to those larger decisions later. They take away some options, add others. Each thing we do, what we think, how we react makes our environment it isn't a random group of circumstances made from nothing, it is made from the very choices that each of us make.

The attempt to take responsibility for your actions away is a fault of humans that has been around probably since the first person. "It's not my fault!" has been heard throughout the ages, but there is never a less true statement uttered.

What you do changes and limits future choices, each decision leading further onto a path where you reach one of those life-changing choices finding yourself limited in outcomes. We can most definitely change our habitual responses with solid introspection and a solid sense of responsibility.

We can ask ourselves:

What did I do to get myself here?

Or we can ask:

What happened that got me here?

I prefer to ask what I did myself that ended in such a situation, to look back, to seek out those small choices. Not only for the bad, but also for the good. Sometimes you may want to return to such a path rather than avoid them.