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The Forum > Article Comments > Its coming: The most ground-breaking revolution in social history > Comments

Its coming: The most ground-breaking revolution in social history : Comments

By Brian Holden, published 4/11/2011

The myth of free-will.

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Yes, the theological notion of free-will is a myth. But, we mostly do have choices, including learning that we can chose how to respond to a situation. And, we can chose a lifestyle that keeps us in a "least moody" state.

Advances in neuroScience, particluarly in neuroChemistry (as a super-specialised branch of organic chemistry), will increase. The roles of genes in determining neuroChemistry will become better known.

We will learn the way parental genes interact to program the new beingsneurochemistry - it is not 50/50 due to meisosis allowing chromosome crossover and genetic recombination.

http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/meiosis-genetic-recombination-and-sexual-reproduction-210
Posted by McReal, Friday, 4 November 2011 7:33:13 AM
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This is an old argument.

We may not have complete free will as you say, but nothing about human action is deterministic. I don't even have to invoke quantum physics to say so either.

But where it really goes awry is this:
"When, we may ask, will the average person come to realise that punishment is undeserved? While we must remove career criminals from the mainstream, there is no justification for making their lives miserable while incarcerated".

So, the next time your dog takes a dump on your carpet, just ignore him.
After all, he's only doing what he's programmed to do, right?
Posted by Bugsy, Friday, 4 November 2011 8:04:45 AM
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What an interesting jumble of thoughts, Mr Holden.

The premise seems to be that free will is something that you should be able to exercise, freely, otherwise...

Otherwise, what?

As Bugsy points out, the limits on free will automatically come into play when there are more than one entity involved. Without the ability to choose to compromise, society as we understand it - people living together under the influence of vaguely-articulated and variously-enforced behavioural norms - would not exist. And dogs everywhere would crap on the carpet whenever they felt like it.

Which leads to the first dichotomy: is the exercise of that compromise itself a negation of free will, or a prime example of it?

"For rational people, that printout will make it still harder to resist the conclusion that we are no more than mechanisms and that a human brain works as a mechanism"

In 1969 Edward de Bono wrote a book on just this topic.

http://www.edwdebono.com/debono/mech.htm

The conclusion that Mr Holden would like us to draw would appear to be that free will is some kind of absolute: you either have it, or you don't have it. What he seems to miss are the enormous number of shades of grey that inhabit the space in between his black and white proposition. De Bono simply points out that the impressions that are made can be seen to be somewhat mechanical in nature, an observation that explains most of Mr Holden's examples - influence of parents, etc. etc.

We all have a degree of free will, Mr Holden. It's scope is however tempered by our social conditioning, all for the sake of our living in harmony without dog crap all over our carpets.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 4 November 2011 8:55:07 AM
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Speak for yourself Brian- I'm a self-employed, non-gambling, non-smoking, low-drinking individual with no crutches, addictions, and only buys what I explicitly want to have.

The only people that insist 'free will' is an illusion are simply people who are weak-willed.
Posted by King Hazza, Friday, 4 November 2011 9:43:56 AM
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Mr Holden wrote: "Its application has been based on the assumption that bad people freely choose to be bad and good people freely choose to be good. Without this belief, there would be no religion."

Calvinism seems to survive without such a belief. I'm not a Calvinist, but Mr Holden has the makings of one.
Posted by grputland, Friday, 4 November 2011 9:58:26 AM
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What a load of garbage. Back to the retirement vegie patch for you, Mr Holden.
Posted by DavidL, Friday, 4 November 2011 10:17:58 AM
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Sadly, I think we should take this article seriously. Not because I agree with Mr Holden's position but because what is now called neurosecience poses some real threats to individual freedom. There is a very strong deterministic streak in most reporting of neuroscience research and this streak is starting to become evident in some government departments in Australia. I have listened recently to bureaucrats from departments concerned with children, their safety and development, with increasing alarm. They all seem to want to use neuroscience research to intervene in the lives of families, not to overcome instances of abuse but to modify the effects of family circumstances, both genetic and environmental on children. I regard this as a gross breach of human rights and a distinct threat to our freedom, driven by the best of intentions but based on half-understood science.
Posted by Senior Victorian, Friday, 4 November 2011 10:34:13 AM
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I agree with the basic premise of this essay. It's a topic that should receive a lot more public discussion. Free will is the ultimate compassion killer.

The 'free will' or self-determinism premise fits neatly into the western economic and political arenas - in which those at the top of the pole must be there because of their own 'choices'. On this basis, global free trade is the ultimate expression of universal free will, and protectionism merely the manifestation of the weak. Ditto libertarian self-reliance versus the welfare state; small government versus big government; the deserving rich versus the undeserving poor.

Also, the rise and rise of the 20th century counselling industry drew much of its methodology from the free-will premise - in the form of 'taking responsibility for' and 'owning' one's feelings or actions; there are no 'victims', only 'survivors' etc etc. Not always the best therapy for people genuinely damaged by childhood abuse.
Posted by Killarney, Friday, 4 November 2011 10:43:04 AM
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You might at least have defined free will, Brian, so that we would have some idea of what you are talking about.

Jung made a remark which is no doubt pertinent to your train of thought: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
Posted by Leo Lane, Friday, 4 November 2011 12:09:48 PM
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I agree with the author to a point. Our will is far less free then
we think. Hormones, ligands, neurotransmitters all have an input
at the subconcious level. We can easily rationalise away what
we feel and claim it as "free". But how free was it really?

Take a woman yearning to have a child. All her genetic input is
affecting the final outcome. Those deep instincts are not just wished
away.

Take the sex drive of a young man, compared to an old fart.
Testosterone clearly has an input in the decision making process.

The point is, we might have a will, but its not as free as we
imagine it to be. We are simply unaware of the effect of the many
chemical inputs, at the level of the subconcious.
Posted by Yabby, Friday, 4 November 2011 1:02:45 PM
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Brian, your article is an accurate discussion of the way our genetic inheritance and environment combine to create an unconscious self; the unconscious self that as Jung noted, we need to understand before we can be free.

And the way that we can develop free will is by understanding our motivations, attitudes and behaviour. We can change these things by encouraging our brains to develop new neurons and new connections. We can seek out new information and challenge ourselves by reading things that we don't agree with. We can argue with our unconscious and try and be rational and that is the way to develop free will.

An interesting book with examples of how our unconscious determines our behaviour is "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell.

Another good read on brain and mind is "The Brain That Changes Itself" by Norman Doidge.

Bugsy, dogs are not programmed to crap on the carpet. It's quite easy to train a dog, even a dog damaged by cruel owners, to do the right thing.

It may an old argument, and that is because it is so true that many pilosophers have made that realisation without the new scientific evidence that now proves the argument is true. And the fact is that because of the combination of their particular brain chemistry, and their particular environment, some people don't even understand that they are able to make choices.

And King Hazza why are some people just weak-willed? Genes is it? God made them that way? And if we slap them down, call them stupid and lazy, they will pull their socks up and be a great bloke like you who knows it all and clearly should have been the model for the human race.
Posted by Mollydukes, Friday, 4 November 2011 4:12:38 PM
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Mollydukes, I hardly care if people are weak-willed or not;
All I'm doing is debunking a mindset of self-pitying and outward-blaming thought that some people frequently use to justify their own misbehavior.

Especially when people insist that poor self-regulation is a rock-solid fact of humanity- rather than the result of an under-achieving individual who is simply failing to hold themselves to standards plenty of other people do, without even trying.
Posted by King Hazza, Friday, 4 November 2011 4:51:38 PM
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King Hazza,

Perhaps some people don't experience the world and its phenomena in the "standard" way. Sometimes its those very people who make a difference because they are capable of taking a novel approach to and grasping things that the ordinary standardised individual is incapable of.
Posted by Poirot, Friday, 4 November 2011 5:04:43 PM
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Hazza, Nothing is rock solid in human behaviour and there is so much more to learn about it. But we do know that people are different and it seems clear to me that weak willed have always been around. If there is no place for the weak then perhaps our society is wrong, not the people who were born with that tendency.

I don't know how that you can fairly judge how hard someone is trying. People don't like to admit to being weak so many, especially men, will claim to be deliberately bludging when the truth is that they are unable to cope with normal life.

Also we don't know how clever or not some people are, whether they have some sort of chemical imbalance that affects their thinking or any number of the other reasons that make it seem that lots of people are not trying.

It does nobody any good, especially the weak-willed, to denigrate them and criticise them. Weak people need support and acceptance to gain in confidence and ability. People need opportunities and encouragement and to learn to be able to choose the right things.
Posted by Mollydukes, Friday, 4 November 2011 6:09:40 PM
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*rather than the result of an under-achieving individual who is simply failing to hold themselves to standards plenty of other people do, without even trying.*

Ah Hazza, but people don't get to choose the genes which they were
born with. They have to live with the cards that they are dealt and
they are quite different. A mate of mine did a study on people in
jails who top themselves. What it came down to was serotonin levels.
Those with low levels invariably tried, those with higher levels did
not. It started to make sense to me why another really good friend of
mine, one of the smartest people I've ever known, did in fact kill
himself and felt compelled to. Suicide was all through his family
history.

Just feel fortunate that you wern't born with the gambling gene.
But that is not your choosing, just your good fortune.
Posted by Yabby, Friday, 4 November 2011 6:36:41 PM
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Ultimately people get to choose their eternal destiny. They even humble themselves and receive the mercy of Christ or they inherit a tormented Christless eternity. That is by far the most important aspect of free will.
Posted by runner, Friday, 4 November 2011 6:40:16 PM
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Poirot, Mollydukes, Yabby; what exactly is your point?

Would it be better to play along with Brian Holden's blatantly false theory, and the justifications that would be built on them, so I don't hurt the feelings of the people that his theories would apply to?

Not happening I'm afraid- if telling people hard truths they don't like to hear is 'denigration' then I'm afraid intolerance isn't the only problem our society faces. Especially when it involves justifying behavioral issues or externalizing the blame.
Whether or not they can control it is one issue- but pretending its not their fault is a bad approach.
Posted by King Hazza, Friday, 4 November 2011 10:22:33 PM
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Mollydukes:"dogs are not programmed to crap on the carpet. It's quite easy to train a dog, even a dog damaged by cruel owners, to do the right thing."

Well der. So, it's free will if the dog takes the dump, but 'training' if it doesn't. Hmm, interesting.

Brian is right about one thing, but for completely the wrong reasons.
There is a revolution on social history coming from personalised genomics, but not for any of the silly reasons he thinks.
Posted by Bugsy, Saturday, 5 November 2011 12:25:40 AM
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Brian when you gaze at your navel for long periods, does it appear to become a spinning spiral?

That really is a bit of tripe mate, too much gazing I think.

A great deal of our lives & futures are controlled by forces that we have absolutely no control over.

If the owner of a NSW country town radio station had thought that I would make a good announcer come DJ, & given me the job, I may have become the next John Laws, but I would not have gone off to uni, to study engineering. He didn't, but I doubt that was programed when I was conceived in Brisbane.

I would have been unlikely to have even thought of joining the navy to become a fighter pilot if I had not met some navy types studding at the same uni.

As a country town radio station DJ, I would never have thought of sailing around the pacific islands in a yacht, or one day have sailed into Mooloolaba, then just a fly spec on the Qld map, to find the future mother of my kids.

Sorry mate, but I doubt that single cell held quite that much information.
Posted by Hasbeen, Saturday, 5 November 2011 1:01:56 AM
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I just love pop-philosophy!

Free will lives in the chaotic zone where thousands of little "butterfly wings" impact every thought. We are a series of cascading "programs" implemented in wetware using neural networks. Surprisingly, these networks are pretty well understood...until you put all the "simple" ones together, then you get "chaos"...which makes non-trivial fully deterministic systems behave "randomly". Mathematically these types of systems cannot be "solved" or predicted...they just need to run. Fully deterministic does *not* mean predictable!

All this doesn't change the golden rule of spirit: Get Good Habits, or Practice Good.
Posted by Ozandy, Saturday, 5 November 2011 8:59:49 AM
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*what exactly is your point?*

My point is Hazza, that I don't have to agree with Holden's
speculations about social outcomes, but can agree that the concept
of "free will" is not as free as many people claim that it is.

Neuroscience has always been a bit of a hobby of mine and all the
findings that I have read, tend to go along with that.

Its also made me a more tolerant person, trying to see things from
others perspectives and not just my own.

But let me give you a hypothetical that you might able to relate to.
Lets say the phone rings, its the police, your son is dead. Carcrash.
It could happen.

Genetically you are likely to be programmed to love your son and
grieve if he dies. It might take you a while to get over it.
I should feel some empathy for your plight and try to undertstand
your perspective for being upset.

Rationally I could also argue that as he is now dead, there is not
much point in you wasting time and energy grieving, and its not
going to change things, so best you pull yourself together and move
on. Deal with it, the kid is dead. You have free will not to grieve.

Personally, I prefer a world where people show some tolerance.
Posted by Yabby, Saturday, 5 November 2011 9:42:48 AM
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I regard the presence or absence of free-will as a question that cannot be answered. Whether an action is predetermined or not doesn't seem to be amenable to experimental investigation. The foregoing is equivalent to the statement by DavidL.
Posted by david f, Saturday, 5 November 2011 9:51:47 AM
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Yabby are you comparing an emotional (or pain) response, to repetitive compulsive cognitive sets of actions to pursue something on a base-level of satisfaction to gamble, or thoughtlessly shop based on advertising or peer pressure?

Not related as far as human capabilities go, I'm afraid.

And it is still because the individual lacks self discipline. Again, unless they are mentally disabled and sincerely cannot manage these levels (or are autistic and have a higher degree of emotional and mental dependence on certain behaviours and activities), it is still the case with everyone else- that they are allowing their minds to pursue things based on impulsive motivation, and refusing to stop it.

All I want to clarify is that again it comes down to nothing else but themselves.
Posted by King Hazza, Saturday, 5 November 2011 10:02:53 AM
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http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/addiction-a-brain-disorder-new-definition/story-e6frfku0-1226115781157

Hazza, I think you will find that recent neuroscience is showing
that its far more then just willpower.

The brain is quite complex. Otherwise my hypothetical would stand.
You could simply get over your grief and move on, You have so called
free will, after all. Yet you feel compelled to grieve.
Posted by Yabby, Saturday, 5 November 2011 10:23:13 AM
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Hmmm lots of people think Brian is wrong but nobody provides any alternative theory about how our brains do work or why some of us are stupid and useless.

Hasbeen, you write "A great deal of our lives & futures are controlled by forces that we have absolutely no control over." I think you mean 'luck', and that certainly is a critical part of the equation that Brian didn't talk about. But Brian was not saying that everything you did in your life was coded into that first cell. He was saying that the single cell that grew into you, contained all the information required to grow your brain and your body a certain way.

We all know that some kids are shy (weak-willed?) and others outgoing (strong-willed). This difference is explained by the fact that they started with different genes. Each child will make different choices and these choices they make are based on the way their brain is configured.

Neither the shy child nor the outgoing child is 'free' to make choices about what they will do because both children are being influenced by their brain but neither child is aware of what their brain is telling them to do.

Both children can be changed to some extent to be more like the other by providing them with an understanding of themselves and by teaching them to behave differently. That is what a good parent does and that is the way to develop a degree of free will.

But why do we insist that all of us should be outgoing, strong and competitive? Shouldn't we value the shy and gentle? Jesus did. And in our original state, when we first became human, we lived in small family groups, and a variety of people, both weak and strong, would have been needed for the group to be successful and survive.

LOL Hasbeen, you "met some navy types studding at the same uni." Those navy types do fancy themselves eh? My typos are always boring and stupid, not as funny as this one.
Posted by Mollydukes, Saturday, 5 November 2011 10:40:10 AM
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Molly, they were probably just getting ready for the modern practice of mixed crews on our navy ships.

Of course we would never have been so stupid as to put girls & boys on a ship together for long periods at sea, back in those more enlightened days.
Posted by Hasbeen, Saturday, 5 November 2011 12:21:52 PM
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Mollydukes:"He was saying that the single cell that grew into you, contained all the information required to grow your brain and your body a certain way."

If he was, then this was where he really goes wrong. There are strong interactions with the environment, even before you born, starting with what your mother ate and how much exercise she may have had or what sort of stress she was under. Genetic predispositions do not dictate behaviour. They influence some choices certainly, but they do not dictate them.

"Each child will make different choices and these choices they make are based on the way their brain is configured." Yes, but only to a point, in fact the choices that a child makes can also reconfigure how their brain is wired. The interaction with environment is a strong one. But it doesn't even stop there.

Geneticists have found that even with highly inbred laboratory animals, that there is a degree of variability within a strain in response to a number of treatments or stimuli, however only a very small percentage of this variability can be attributed to genetics, but rather it may be due to epigenetics.

Look at twins, some identical twins are so different from each other and yet they came from that same 'single cell'. Twin studies show the weakness in the idea of 'genetic determinism'.
Posted by Bugsy, Saturday, 5 November 2011 12:49:45 PM
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The myth of free-will is of course not a myth.
I have had a drug addiction for over 30 years I have been clean for over 2 years and now attend university, this has all been through my own choice and free-will. None of my choices have been hard wired, nor come from my biology.
Mr Holden please use your free will to think again!
Posted by maturestudent, Saturday, 5 November 2011 3:08:22 PM
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Brian Holden,

Where does ‘free will’ go when your place is invaded by an hostile army?
Posted by skeptic, Saturday, 5 November 2011 6:07:25 PM
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*Look at twins, some identical twins are so different from each other and yet they came from that same 'single cell'. Twin studies show the weakness in the idea of 'genetic determinism'*

Ah Bugsy, there are of course two sides to that coin. Twin studies
also showed the importance of genetics and blew the old tabula
razza theory, clean out of the water.

Fact is, both genetics and environment matter. How much each matters
is still hotly contested, but around 50/50 is often quoted.

What does not change is that genes influence our every decision,
so the will is not so free at all, but is highly influenced, even
if we are not aware of it.
Posted by Yabby, Saturday, 5 November 2011 8:42:53 PM
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Er Yabby, yes? I don't know why you have to repeat what I say in a way that makes it appear you disagree. "Tabula rasa" does not exist, but you can certainly train children to believe things and act in certain ways independently of genetics.

"What does not change is that genes influence our every decision,
so the will is not so free at all, but is highly influenced, even
if we are not aware of it."

Not every decision Yabby. But being influenced by factors does not mean that it isn't 'free'. If decisions were uninfluenced or independent of external factors, they would be totally deterministic, if they were totally uninfluenced by internal factors, then they would be completely unconscious and mechanistic. There is a requirement for both to have an element of choice involved.

50/50 is often quoted because some decisions are heavily influenced by genetics and some not at all. 50/50 is the easy way of saying "actually they are both important for many things, but we cannot actually quantify the factors for each, so we'll make it up."
Posted by Bugsy, Sunday, 6 November 2011 7:49:03 AM
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Bugsy of course you are right but the fact is that the first cell is the fundamental blueprint on which all the other things depend. If the first cell determines that my brain will have a tendency to produce a certain level of neurochemicals that make me more likely to submit to the difficulties of life, ie to be a weak and anxious person, then it simply is more difficult and in some cases impossible, for me to behave in the way that you value.

Of course I can change and that is what I should be doing, if I want a better world, but strong willed people need to understand that weak willed people are not made stronger by being denigrated as dole bludgers, lazy and useless. That is actually counter-productive for producing people with freewill.

Check out the 'sterotype effect' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype

The more efficient way of changing behaviour is to enourage we weak willed lazy people to be stronger, provide us with support and a clear way that we can change ourselves - our patterns of thinking - to be more like you. If I grew up in a family that didn't have any skills in changing their behaviour, didn't understand that we do have free will, how will I learn those skills? How would I even know that change was possible?

There seems to be a strong belief by conservatives that people are inherently bad and cannot change and this belief is the basis of the welfare problem. The left knows that people can be better and tries to find ways to improve their lives, the right believes that it has always been thus and always will be.

But we could build a society in which we value everyone's strenghts and recognise the fact that weak-willed people do have other valuable qualities that can compliment the strong and ambitious.
Posted by Mollydukes, Sunday, 6 November 2011 8:11:09 AM
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Bugsy the 50/50 idea is fine but the new thinking says that it is 100% genetics and 100% environment.

I'd think that the influence luck has on what we become goes in the environmental category, because it is the luck of the draw when a child in a bad environment does have the opportunity to see what a good environment is like but it is also the luck of the draw if they have a brain type that is able to use this information to change themselves.

And some brain types can change more easily than others. There are limits to how much the 'default' brain chemistry can be changed and probably costs - eg depression, increased levels of anxiety - to the individual person, if the change required is too far from the default brain type.
Posted by Mollydukes, Sunday, 6 November 2011 8:35:17 AM
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Hasbeen "Of course we would never have been so stupid as to put girls & boys on a ship together for long periods at sea, back in those more enlightened days."

Stupid in your asssessment but I'm not willing to deny women - they are not girls! - the opportunities to do what they want, because men believe they cannot change their brain chemistry and behaviour.

Men can change their attitude and accept that they do not have a right to be agressive sexual beings. They can develop free will and control their thoughts and behaviours. The world will be a better place when men accept that women have a right to choose without having to take into account the male belief in their inherent right to dominate women sexually.

Men need to realise that they can choose to control their stone age impulses.
Posted by Mollydukes, Sunday, 6 November 2011 8:44:50 AM
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Mollydukes,

"Bugsy the 50/50 idea is fine but the new thinking says that it is 100% genetics and 100% environment."

Amongst the innumerate, perhaps.
Posted by The Acolyte Rizla, Sunday, 6 November 2011 9:45:46 AM
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Molly, We have watched the left at work for many years now, with all the encouragement.

Well it sure has worked, you have encouraged many more to become bludgers, & those who were just a little lazy to become complete parasites.

Every night we hear from another lefty who wants "more" for whoever their favoured cause is made up of. I have never yet heard a lefty, or academic, [same thing I suppose] say that we should take back some, that we have given too much.

You have missed the best encouragement of all. No work, no food. Always worked in a more natural situation than our modern cities. Never saw a single bludger in the pacific islands. Perhaps they had all starved to death.

Same problem with your thoughts on sex.

The most recent noise was about a girl, [& they are girls] who was quite happy to sleep around, just got upset at being a video star. So it was not male sexual behaviour that was the problem, just fame.

Anyone who thinks the problem is a male one is very naive. The problem is what the feminists do with any resulting unhappiness that inevitably arises in love sex & war, to further their cause. Do you really think their squealing over the last episode was done with any benefit of the girl in mind? If so, you do have to walk up a hill some time, & take a look down on the real world.

Every boy who ever went to Duntroon, & most school boy cadets who went to a cadet camp got their balls polished with boot polish. It may not be fun for some, but it was part of becoming a man. I wonder what they do with the boot polish to the girls, & what the feminists think of it.

Every private knew that every general had had his balls boot polished, & it was kind of unifying. If you can't handle it, go else where.
Posted by Hasbeen, Sunday, 6 November 2011 10:20:09 AM
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*Men need to realise that they can choose to control their stone age impulses.*

OTOH Mollydukes, women could choose to control their stone age
impulses and have sex far more often :)
Posted by Yabby, Sunday, 6 November 2011 12:04:42 PM
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Just looking through Clive Hamilton's "The Freedom Paradox". In it he talks of first and second preferences, stating that the marketplace tends to lure us in to satisfy us on a first preference basis and that second preference is usually a more considered option.

He writes:
"....For a Kantian, for whom rationality distinguishes humans from other creatures, the essence of a second order preference makes us human because it is those preferences, not our immediate urges, that prove we have free will. Thus the promotion of choice in itself--the prime aspiration of mainstream economics and neoliberal policy--tells us nothing about freedom....I am free only if I have the self-control, the will and the intellectual capacity to choose my preferences."
Posted by Poirot, Sunday, 6 November 2011 3:10:07 PM
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*but you can certainly train children to believe things and act in certain ways independently of genetics.*

That is debatable, Bugsy. Perhaps some children. In my own case,
for most of my childhood, either the Catholics or the Baptists
tried to indoctrinate me with their training, but my natural
sense of curiostiy and questioning always stayed one step ahead of
them. I did not choose it that way.

The thing is, at all times our brains are affected by our emotional
circuits. We are always feeling something. happy, sad, motherly,
horny, anxious, fearful, etc. The feedback loops are constantly
functioning to achieve homesostasis.

We might not be conciously aware of those feelings at all times,
that does not mean that they do not cloud or influence our
judgements, when it comes to so called free will.

Which was my point really. The will is not as free as people claim
or imagine, for at the subconsious these other inputs affect our
will, aware of it or not
Posted by Yabby, Sunday, 6 November 2011 10:43:52 PM
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Free-will is not a myth. People are not permanently "bad" or "good". Free-will is a choice everyone has to make throughout their lives whether to be creative, positive and constructive or to be purely self-indulgent. The choices may not easy. They are not dictated by anybody. Free-will may be referred to as the "original sin". This particular definition has to be carefully analysed.

Basing averything on common (or tabliod influenced) perceptions can lead one to an incorrect conclusion.
Posted by Istvan, Monday, 7 November 2011 7:35:53 PM
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The issue of free will vs determinism is a vexed one. I strongly doubt that we have as much free will as some right wing pundits would have us think; on the other hand complete determinism is impossible to conclusively prove, scientifically or otherwise (needless to say, I don't believe Bruce Holden has conclusively proven this). By complete determinism, I mean the determinism that says things could not possibly ever be any other way than they are, and no decision could ever be different given the lead up of natural forces to that point in history.

So it all comes down to a matter of degree.

Holden is arguing for a social revolution, and he doesn't go into too many specific details, but I fear that what he has in mind is impractical and unworkable.
Posted by Trav, Thursday, 10 November 2011 7:59:08 AM
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I think Brian Holden's argument deserves serious attention.
When I was younger, if I read of a child or any person torturing and murdering another child, my immediate reaction would have been "take the monster out and shoot it".
Since having children of my own, my instant reaction now is "who created that monster?"
When you look at the early lives of some of these people, it's difficult to see how they could have ended up any other way. It doesn't matter if it was 'nature or nurture', the odds were stacked against them from day one.
And it's no good just saying "well, if I'd been in their position, I wouldn't have gone that way".
That makes exactly as much sense as saying "Well even if I had been born to black parents, I would still be white".
Posted by Grim, Friday, 11 November 2011 1:45:54 PM
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