'What We Owe to Each Other'

[Not2BSubjugated]

Not quite.

Your emotional responses are a physical manifestation of your belief system, which itself is malleable.....Change your beliefs and you change how you feel about things.

No one can consciously change their beliefs. You can be convinced of other things, and thus your beliefs change, but no one can choose what convinces them.

Take the case of a cheating girlfriend. You catch her going behind your back to sleep with someone else, and manage to see it first hand through a bedroom window. When you confront her later, she denies it fiercely. Can you simply choose to believe her, now that you've seen evidence to the contrary, simply so you don't have to feel cheated and betrayed? I dare say you cannot.

That's not changing a belief....In fact, such an action is based upon and enabling some other belief, which is more than likely out of awareness.

The reason I'm familiar with the lack of conscious will in what you believe to be true is because of my struggle with Christianity. I was raised in a baptist Church by a mother who was, during my formative years, fiercely strict in her observance. Anyway, as you can imagine, I was exposed to a lot of fire and brimstone throughout my upbringing, and it instilled a deep fear of eternal damnation (Christian hell is not a pleasant concept). I never, however, felt like I KNEW that God was up there or that one of his identities was Jesus. I never truly believed. What I did believe was that, on the off chance that this religion -was- true, it would behoove me to hedge my bets. After all, if I believe in this religion, but I'm wrong, no harm no foul (I hadn't yet been exposed to other hell concepts at any length or by anyone I trusted). If I don't believe, though, and then I'm wrong, BAM. Burn forever. So believe you me, I tried my ASS off to make myself believe. For 17 years I tried to believe before coming to the realization that, in the grand scheme of things, it's no more likely to be the truth than any of infinite other possible explanations.

My point is this: even in the face of emotional trauma, even in the face of eternal agony, no man can -choose- what truth to believe. He is either convinced of that truth or he is not.

And my experience is from being a quite well trained and highly skilled NLP practitioner and hypnotist....I'm very capable of creating alternate "realities" for people all day every day.

Personally, I cannot imagine what it would be like if I chose to constrain myself with the limiting belief that my beliefs cannot be changed....Actually, I can imagine that, I simply choose not to do so.

Being hypnotized into an alternate reality isn't the same as consciously changing your own beliefs. Hypnotizing someone into thinking something is simply a method of convincing them.

I actually prefaced the response you quoted by saying that you can be convinced of things that contradict your current beliefs, and thus YOUR BELIEFS CHANGE. I'm not saying they're immovable. I'm simply saying that it's more difficult to change your own beliefs than just consciously deciding, "Nah, I'm gonna truly believe something else now," and it magically happening. Everyone's threshold for being convinced is different, granted, but no one can just choose a new belief and truly believe because they want to. A belief is an involuntary response to stimuli.

Also, I'm not sure -exactly- what you meant by the first part of that response, but I'll break it down. When you see the girl cheating through the window, that stimulus, that incoming information, instills in you the belief that she was cheating. You can try to convince yourself that they happened to be naked and he slipped and fell on her, and now he's just having a lot of trouble disembarking from his unintentional mounted position, but you don't get a conscious choice in whether you believe that or not. When she tells you later that she wasn't cheating, you don't get a conscious choice as to whether or not that's going to change your belief. Most likely you'll find the information taken in via your vision a good deal more convincing than her telling you that you didn't see what you saw. The point is, one of those two pieces of conflicting information will be more convincing to you for whatever reason, but it won't be your choice as to which you get to find more believable. In the end, your final belief as to the nature of the situation won't be decided by your will, but simply by what your existing framework of beliefs causes you to find more convincing.

 

[Oddball]

No one can consciously change their beliefs. You can be convinced of other things, and thus your beliefs change, but no one can choose what convinces them.

Take the case of a cheating girlfriend. You catch her going behind your back to sleep with someone else, and manage to see it first hand through a bedroom window. When you confront her later, she denies it fiercely. Can you simply choose to believe her, now that you've seen evidence to the contrary, simply so you don't have to feel cheated and betrayed? I dare say you cannot.

That's not changing a belief....In fact, such an action is based upon and enabling some other belief, which is more than likely out of awareness.

The reason I'm familiar with the lack of conscious will in what you believe to be true is because of my struggle with Christianity. I was raised in a baptist Church by a mother who was, during my formative years, fiercely strict in her observance. Anyway, as you can imagine, I was exposed to a lot of fire and brimstone throughout my upbringing, and it instilled a deep fear of eternal damnation (Christian hell is not a pleasant concept). I never, however, felt like I KNEW that God was up there or that one of his identities was Jesus. I never truly believed. What I did believe was that, on the off chance that this religion -was- true, it would behoove me to hedge my bets. After all, if I believe in this religion, but I'm wrong, no harm no foul (I hadn't yet been exposed to other hell concepts at any length or by anyone I trusted). If I don't believe, though, and then I'm wrong, BAM. Burn forever. So believe you me, I tried my ASS off to make myself believe. For 17 years I tried to believe before coming to the realization that, in the grand scheme of things, it's no more likely to be the truth than any of infinite other possible explanations.

My point is this: even in the face of emotional trauma, even in the face of eternal agony, no man can -choose- what truth to believe. He is either convinced of that truth or he is not.

And my experience is from being a quite well trained and highly skilled NLP practitioner and hypnotist....I'm very capable of creating alternate "realities" for people all day every day.

Personally, I cannot imagine what it would be like if I chose to constrain myself with the limiting belief that my beliefs cannot be changed....Actually, I can imagine that, I simply choose not to do so.

Being hypnotized into an alternate reality isn't the same as consciously changing your own beliefs. Hypnotizing someone into thinking something is simply a method of convincing them.

I actually prefaced the response you quoted by saying that you can be convinced of things that contradict your current beliefs, and thus YOUR BELIEFS CHANGE. I'm not saying they're immovable. I'm simply saying that it's more difficult to change your own beliefs than just consciously deciding, "Nah, I'm gonna truly believe something else now," and it magically happening. Everyone's threshold for being convinced is different, granted, but no one can just choose a new belief and truly believe because they want to. A belief is an involuntary response to stimuli.

It's a lot easier than you have led yourself to believe...All you have to do is believe something different.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

You'd be the first person I've ever spoken to who persistently claims to have the ability to hop from belief to belief at will. I'll take your word for it, but I'll assure you it's not simply something that I've told myself. For me, my beliefs aren't what I want them to be, simply a result of what experience has convinced me of. Unconvincing myself requires information to the contrary. I can't simply jump and truly believe that this time I'm not going to come back down because I've decided no longer to be convinced by my experiences with gravity.

Maybe what you do is self hypnosis? If so, even that can't be explained as a basic act of will shifting your beliefs. Self hypnosis would imply consciously delving into your subconscious and reprogramming, a much more involved prospect than a simple "I've decided that now I believe X"

 

[Oddball]

You'd be the first person I've ever spoken to who persistently claims to have the ability to hop from belief to belief at will. I'll take your word for it, but I'll assure you it's not simply something that I've told myself. For me, my beliefs aren't what I want them to be, simply a result of what experience has convinced me of. Unconvincing myself requires information to the contrary.

What would it be like if you had information to the contrary?...Ruminate on that one for awhile.

I can't simply jump and truly believe that this time I'm not going to come back down because I've decided no longer to be convinced by my experiences with gravity.

Gravity is something outside yourself that you cannot control....Your mind is all yours.

Maybe what you do is self hypnosis? If so, even that can't be explained as a basic act of will shifting your beliefs. Self hypnosis would imply consciously delving into your subconscious and reprogramming, a much more involved prospect than a simple "I've decided that now I believe X"

I do both self and directed hypnosis with others....You've built a lot into your perception of what hypnosis is and isn't that is seriously limiting your beliefs on what is possible...That explains a lot.

 

[Crackerjack]

I see that only the Robinson Crusoes have replied with the usual self interest meme conservatives have hard wired into their minds at birth. Is it at birth? Good question but we'll leave it for later. Any interested person can look back to history and see the success that fairness and equality bring to a society and just as simply look at third world nations were inequality exists. But of course they do not, they assume as my Rand example below tries to show, things are just as they are because they are just as they are, at least for them.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/economy/50564-libertarianism-in-a-nutshell-ii.html

More stuff for those who think a bit and don't simply emote as conservatives / libertarians do.

Edge: THE NEW SCIENCE OF MORALITY

On the Evolutionary Edge of Altruism: A Game-Theoretic Proof of Hamilton's Rule for a Simple Case of Siblings

That's fantastic.

Now go start your own country where everyone owes everyone else a living and kindly stop fucking up this one with your bullshit. Thanks.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

You'd be the first person I've ever spoken to who persistently claims to have the ability to hop from belief to belief at will. I'll take your word for it, but I'll assure you it's not simply something that I've told myself. For me, my beliefs aren't what I want them to be, simply a result of what experience has convinced me of. Unconvincing myself requires information to the contrary.

What would it be like if you had information to the contrary?...Ruminate on that one for awhile.

I can't simply jump and truly believe that this time I'm not going to come back down because I've decided no longer to be convinced by my experiences with gravity.

Gravity is something outside yourself that you cannot control....Your mind is all yours.

Maybe what you do is self hypnosis? If so, even that can't be explained as a basic act of will shifting your beliefs. Self hypnosis would imply consciously delving into your subconscious and reprogramming, a much more involved prospect than a simple "I've decided that now I believe X"

I do both self and directed hypnosis with others....You've built a lot into your perception of what hypnosis is and isn't that is seriously limiting your beliefs on what is possible...That explains a lot.

If I had information to the contrary then I'd have stimulus that would, perhaps, be capable of convincing me otherwise. Currently I do not, and all you're offering is conjecture without any sort of logical buildup.

The crux of our argument, whether the altering of ones own belief is a simple act of will, completely separate from any stimuli, doesn't depend on whether or not those beliefs actually control the nature of reality. Whether gravity is or is not under my power is immaterial. What I'm saying is that if belief were an act of will truly separate from the need for stimuli, then I should be able to make myself believe that gravity will not affect me any time I wanted to, even if I would be wrong in that belief.

Lastly, my misconceptions about the specifics of hypnosis are by no means a basis for my observations on the nature of beliefs. Regardless of exactly what method is used, hypnosis is a transfer of information. Information is a stimulus outside of your will power. Hypnosis altering beliefs is not proof that doing so is an act of will free from any dependence on information received. (When I say received, I don't even mean necessarily from outside of your own conscious. Often times, thinking critically and honestly about your beliefs will lead you down roads of logic that let you know that some of your beliefs contradict other core principles, and adjustments are inevitably made. Even in that, however, it's not a simple act of will. You either find the line of reasoning compelling or you do not, there's not a conscious choice in that.

 

[Oddball]

I'm offering no conjecture at all...It's your imagination...If you cannot imagine what it would be like, that's your self-imposed limitation, not mine.

Also, using something that you cannot control (gravity) as an analogy or metaphor for something you can control (your thoughts and beliefs), is yet another way you've imposed limits upon yourself as to what's possible, via your system of belief.

Better you than me.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

the other guy doesn’t say “What do I get for that?” It’s not an exchange; people act according to their abilities to chip in.

actually my plumber has an assistent he pays, he doesn't ask me to help or flag down a passer by to help.

why not start over with an example of communism that works better than it worked in the USSR, Cuba and Red China????? Now you must see why we are positive that liberalism is merely the inability to think accompanied by a strong desire to think despite the impossibility of it.

 

[sparky]

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

John Kenneth Galbraith

 

[Oddball]

*yawn*

 

[Crackerjack]

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

John Kenneth Galbraith

 

[sparky]

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

John Kenneth Galbraith

genius perspective

no doubt lost among the greedy.....

~S~

 

[Crackerjack]

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

John Kenneth Galbraith

genius perspective

no doubt lost among the greedy.....

~S~

The greedy communists or the greedy capitalists?

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

I'm offering no conjecture at all...It's your imagination...If you cannot imagine what it would be like, that's your self-imposed limitation, not mine.

Also, using something that you cannot control (gravity) as an analogy or metaphor for something you can control (your thoughts and beliefs), is yet another way you've imposed limits upon yourself as to what's possible, via your system of belief.

Better you than me.

No offense,but you're clearly missing how the gravity example logically supports my opinion, because your responses aren't actually addressing it in relation with the crux of the argument. They're just vague assumptions that I've limited my scope by comparing beliefs with things I have no control over. That's not at all what the gravity example illustrates. At any rate, unless there's going to be 2 way debate (i.e. point, backing, et al), I'm gonna go ahead and bow out of this conversation and agree to disagree.

 

[daveman]

Thus I like to say that you could argue that capitalism is just a bad way of organizing communism." David Graeber

I like to say that David Graeber is an idiot.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

John Kenneth Galbraith

genius perspective

no doubt lost among the greedy.....

~S~

The greedy communists or the greedy capitalists?

Do I have to personally be greedy to recognize that most people operate on self interest? Do i have to be a thief to recognize that the honor system is a horribly risky way to sell anything?

I didn't come to my conclusions because I'm against giving charitably and wanted to find philosophical justification, much as you would love to think it. That would be the same as me saying that all of you who support communism just want to be lazy as shit and have people with jobs give you money. That would be an awfully simplistic and most likely untrue assessment, no?

On top of this the philosophy isn't just morally just all self interest, it's morally justifying self interest exercised in an honest manner. The implications are vastly different, if you care to take the time and think about it.

 

[daveman]

I see that only the Robinson Crusoes have replied with the usual self interest meme conservatives have hard wired into their minds at birth. Is it at birth? Good question but we'll leave it for later. Any interested person can look back to history and see the success that fairness and equality bring to a society and just as simply look at third world nations were inequality exists. But of course they do not, they assume as my Rand example below tries to show, things are just as they are because they are just as they are, at least for them.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/economy/50564-libertarianism-in-a-nutshell-ii.html

More stuff for those who think a bit and don't simply emote as conservatives / libertarians do.

Edge: THE NEW SCIENCE OF MORALITY

On the Evolutionary Edge of Altruism: A Game-Theoretic Proof of Hamilton's Rule for a Simple Case of Siblings

Pseudo-science attempting to explain liberal covetousness. Figures you'd be impressed by it.

 

[daveman]

As soon as midcan (or anyone else for that matter) shows me a single example of a successful communist nation where the quality of life is at or better than a free market system - we will listen.
Until then - there is a reason that communism has failed over and over and over.
Milton Friedman - Greed - YouTube

Communism doesn't work because we just haven't found the right communists to run such a state!

"It never worked before because America always interfered! When WE organize it, it'll be perfect!!" /American leftist

 

[Oddball]

I'm offering no conjecture at all...It's your imagination...If you cannot imagine what it would be like, that's your self-imposed limitation, not mine.

Also, using something that you cannot control (gravity) as an analogy or metaphor for something you can control (your thoughts and beliefs), is yet another way you've imposed limits upon yourself as to what's possible, via your system of belief.

Better you than me.

No offense,but you're clearly missing how the gravity example logically supports my opinion, because your responses aren't actually addressing it in relation with the crux of the argument. They're just vague assumptions that I've limited my scope by comparing beliefs with things I have no control over. That's not at all what the gravity example illustrates. At any rate, unless there's going to be 2 way debate (i.e. point, backing, et al), I'm gonna go ahead and bow out of this conversation and agree to disagree.

No, I'm missing how the gravity example supports your opinion, in your opinion.

After that, comparing the vast diversity of human thought, subjective experience and infinite behavioral flexibility, with a narrowly defined law of physics that can be positively identified, quantified and is pretty much immutable (that we know of) is selling yourself way short.

 

[daveman]

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

John Kenneth Galbraith

The modern liberal is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for covetousness.

Me