Me-chan falls into the Mid-Teen Bracket and is due to turn seventeen in February. We shine in the Class of '09!
But the Class of '07 mirrors heaven in our escalades and accolades . . . but I also have to go to college soon, eh.
You know what my school has? Roarin' and Revvin' Class of '07 and Behold the Legend of '07 And you know what they had last year? Best of the Mix Class of '06 I feel sorry for the Class of 2010
Well - a big hi to the old and crumbly faction. And a big "Isn't it past your bedtimes..?" to the chronically challenged out there. Amuse an oldish man my young and creative colleagues: Do you believe you have free-will..? Creationist or evolutionist..? Does life have meaning..?
Being only 16, I'm not sure of most things. I have ideals, yes, and I can say that I'm a pessimest and quite cynical. But I'm still finding the line between what I wish and what is. As to your questions... Yes, yes I do. I believe that God works with me, not against me. I believe that I build my strengths and weaknesses through experience and relationships and that they make me who I am. I believe in miracles and in divine intervention. A happy coincidence isn't always just a coincidence. In fact, it rarely ever is. As a logical thinker, I don't think the world was created in 7 days. But honestly, the complexity of every being and living process on this earth is much too perfect to be created from chance. If it doesn't...then what do I have to write about? Of course. Hope you're amused. --Inq
Oh, absolutely. I'll take creationism/evolution as a starter for ten. So - perfection hmm..? Then why would a divinity create such a seemingly 'evil' lifeorm as a Digger Wasp..? Or allow it to exist..?
Yes we have free will. If we don't I definitely want to speak with the creator and demand a refund. Evolutionist. I find it easier to believe an imperfect system developed by chance, then a perfect being appeared from nothing and decided to create an imperfect system. Yes. Spread your genes around as much as possible, and keep the species alive. Any other meaning comes from yourself.
Damn. Devil's advocate is not a fun person to argue with. I've read the article you included and have decided that these wasps serve the same purpose as other wasps: "Adult digger wasps are robust, active insects that take nectar at many different varieties of flowers." They spread pollen and make flowers grow. I was always scared of bees when I was little, but my mommy happily assured me that without them, there wouldn't be anything pretty growing in our yard. I made my peace with them. I suppose one could say that human beings can be pretty evil too. A lot of us, actually. But that doesn't mean we started out that way. I doubt these Digger Wasps did either. The things created during the beginings of this planet are most defenitely not the same as the creatures we have now. Darwin is a testament to that. Adaptations and gene mutations may have made these little buggers what they are. Phew. Did I pass?
What!!! An evil empiricist!!! So - Free-will. A paradox for you: If physical laws dictate enviroment and enviroment dictates form, and form in turn dicates the needs required to maintain that form. And that these needs, and the resources available to fulfil them, will dicate the nature of sensory apparatus and behaviour within a given lifeform... ...And if you accept that their can be no will without a physical vantage point from which to launch that will - a platform for awareness carrying with it its baggage of need and instinct - then how can the Will be free..? Can I choose not to drink water for a couple of days..? Can I choose not to wear clothes to work..? Assuming I'm not a pornstar..?
Hmm - So Inquire - everything started off nice - but then fell into temptation..? Got nasty over time..? What - did someone not build them right..?
I'm not saying that everything got nasty. Things just changed. Either for the better or the worse. Mind you, that's the human, moral take on "better" or "worse." I'm sure those wasps are quite happy. They could care less that a human somewhere is calling them evil. I actually didn't see how temptation came into that at all.... I was talking about change in a purely scientific, evolutional sense. As in natural selection, survival of the fittest, adaptations, etc. Because who says I can't understand or believe in evolution just because I also believe in God?
Instinct and environment will influence free will. In the nature vs. nurture debate I lean more towards nature. But humans have the ability well beyond anything seen in other animals to think, plan, and react. Thus we don't have to follow our instincts. Instincts tell us that having lots of babies is good, it also tells us to gorge and build up fat because winter is coming. But a lot of people ignore those instincts. They decide to remain childless, or only have one or two children, even though from a purely instinctive point of view, having 10 children greatly increases the chance of spreading around our genes. People especially today, literally starve themselves to fit the supermodel image. Instinctively this is insanity. But because we can override our instincts, people do this. As for the going to work naked, I could decide to do that. Then its up to my employer to decide how to react to that. My choice is based completely around free will. I just have to be willing to accept consequences for that choice, which would most likely be unemployment. Laws are a limitation on free will. But for the most part people agree to the submit to them. Either from fear, morality, believing its the best option, peer pressure, etc. But even submission in most cases involves free will. We agree to submit because its better then rebelling. It's a conscious choice. If I decided not to submit to laws, that is again my choice. But as with wearing clothes to work, I have to be willing to face the consequences. So I choose, for the most part, to submit. But I keep the option of breaking laws available depending on the situation. So my free will is limited, but only by choice. There are disorders and situations that undermine and destroy free will, schizophrenia, Stockholm Syndrome and the like. But for the average person does have free will. Sorry that rambled a bit more then I would like. Edit: I liked your answer Inquire. Don't agree with it, but it's logically thought out.
I dunno Inquire, I was just trying to imply in a round about way, that if you say that lifeforms were created in some previous 'perfect' state by some equally perfect supernatural force, and later evolved away from that state under the influence of a given enviromental force, then that initial state cannot have been perfect, because perfection is essentially static, it cannot be improved upon. You could say that life was created to be 'perfectly adaptable' instead I suppose, but then why would a creator not simply jump straight to the end-points of any particular branch of the tree of life, and create that instead - circumventing the pain and anguish of a multitiude of lifeforms as nature's 'red in tooth and claw' meatgrinder sorts out the fittest from the not so..?
Funny how we never test that choice though, isn't it..? Funny how our choice of clothes is always a uniform of some sort, even when we would dub ourselves eclectic. Funny how the instinct to be attractive can overcome the instinct to eat. Reproduction over survival. Yes we have free will. Just as the prisoner in his cell may choose which wall to face.
People test it regularly. People have been known to ignore hygiene, food, and bathrooms because they're doing other things (like playing World of Warcraft). People have been known to turn down feasts and eat only a bit of bread and water, while keeping up a poor or wild appearance, many religious hermits, ideologues and the like. Fasting has no instinctive benefits. And if attractiveness was purely instinct based, the twiggy models of today would be seen as sickly rather than beautiful by the majority. The consequences of the extreme denial of instinct is usually unhealthiness and death, but it is still ignoring instinct in return for free will. These are just choices I'm not quite willing to put myself through as of yet.
Yes, but what gets the last word..? Warcraft or bladder..? Society sets ideals of beauty, and the instinct to be both social, and to aquire social status by possessing a mate conforming toward social ideals - overrides the instinctive fertility-based ideas of 'beauty'. Again, however, they feed the reproductive urge - high status mom and dad have the wherewithal to look after junior better. What about women undergoing elective and life-threatening surgery to better conform to societical ideals of beauty..? Surely this is a concrete example of a drive toward reproduction over the more rational state of 'do not harm yourself'..? Remember, life cares more about reproduction than the longevity of an individual. Ah - but this willful state of denial is still a state that it is dictated by instinct. Like the son wearing black to rebel against his white-collar dad - If dad wore black and had his nose pierced then the kid would have to think of something else - but still his behaviour is dictated by his fathers. He remains a puppet. Just as atheism is a belief system chiefly sponsored by theism - God features in both. Agnostism - in the form of just not bothering with the whole business of god/nogod is the only rational POV. But we cannot achieve this state vs. instinct, because instinct and its big-brother, the body, always hold the veto.
Your correct, I can't argue most of what you said. We can't truly ignore instinct, because it is tied so closely to biology. But the ultimate choice is still up to us. If I put a gun to my head and pull the trigger, I just told instinct to go to Hell. Now aside from that very final act of free will, we do have to follow instincts to some extent. As you said, the body holds the veto. But we differ in to what we consider free will. You're arguing that unless we control every aspect of our lives down to the minutest detail we can't truly have free will. Technically thats true. I don't look at it quite that strictly. We have to follow instinct, to a degree, to live a healthy life. But this is voluntary submission. Sometimes independence and free will, means saying "Me to". This may seem a contradiction, but there are somethings that 'should' be followed. These include eating, sleeping going to the bathroom as needed. We can fight it, but it doesn't make much sense overall. And everyone can still choose to ignore them. This will lead to serious consequences, but that is another aspect of freedom, consequences, and having to deal with them. So as long as my life isn't being planned for me, besides the pressure of the most basic details of survival, I consider that free will. And thats all that instincts are, pressures, not plans.
Yes - you've outlined the compromize. The will is not free, except in the details: Not 'to wear' but 'what to wear'. Not 'to eat' but 'what to eat'. Saying 'no'. I suppose you know about 'readiness potentials..?' in neurology..? Basically - if you hook people up to encephalographs and tell them to tell you when they are about to wiggle their fingers... That the machine measures the build up of a potential around 3/4 of a second before the consciousness announces what it is about to do. ie: the self is only the body's spokesman. Anyway - deep enough for a writing forum.
