Love is just a spark of fire where two rocks hit together.
Silver stated:
I mostly agree with this. Assuming that the above is 100% true, it still doesn’t bring us any closer to understanding what type of a person our genes will pick. Furthermore, if my genes are designed to hold as the perfect match for myself a person, let’s call her ‘A’. Well if there are no A’s in my area, but only B-F’s, I-L’s, R-V’s, then what if my genes are designed to pick what is the next best fit. So I may end up dating B’s and C’s and never realize that there are A’s out there in the world, I just haven’t met them. Moreover, environment does affect who we are and how we act, despite that genes are determining us. If I go on a vacation to Greece and Egypt 
my genes may change, either they change, or new ones become active - either way there is a change in the being that I am. Otherwise human beings would always stay the same. So anyway, before I went on this vacation I might have liked blonde haired, blue eyed, tall, and skinny girls. But when I came back from my vacation I may now, due to my genes, like fit, brown haired, short, brown eyed girls. Although this is a huge change which is highly unlikely from one vacation, my point is only to illustrate that change occurs, and I do believe we make a choice in being with the significant other we are with, but I believe that environment and many other variables play a role in determining us to have those we are with.
We have choice in the context of the possibilities expressed to us. We also don’t always get the people we want, so settling for what we can get isn’t exactly a choice. Although, I am a true believer that if one person wants another bad enough, they will get them no matter what. It’s just a matter of trying, devoting time, honesty, and being sincere. For me the biggest problem isn’t how to get the person I want, but the biggest problem is figuring out what kind of person I am most compatible with and then finding her. Once I’ve figured out exactly what kind of a person I am most compatible with and I find her, I don’t think it will be very hard to get her. This is only my opinion, I honestly haven’t figured out exactly whom I am most compatible with, although I have a good idea, and worst of all - of all the girls I have met in my life only one of them did I think was compatible with me - and I was completely wrong (well, when I thought she was compatible with me, she might have been, but from that time to the time I actually got her was long and she changed drastically, so she was no longer whom I fell in love with).
What’s your take?
love is nothing more then the fullfillment of our basic needs.
love for me anyhow.
if im fed, comforted, and my ego is rubed…whats not to love?
~JL
Johnny Legion,
hmmm…alright, so if a woman cooks for you, takes care of you so you are comfortable at home, and tells you that you are the smartest and strongest man alive…you will love her. Do you read fantasy novels Johnny?
On a serious note, if that is love. Then no woman can ever love you, or does that not matter? If a woman is cooking for you, who is cooking for her? If she is making sure you are comfortable, who is making sure she is comfortable, or does that not matter? If she is rubbing your ego, then you must not be what she needs to be telling you, otherwise she wouldn’t need to rub your ego. So you expect her to lie to you about you, so what if she expects someone to tell her about how great she is honestly, who will tell her how great she is?
I honestly want to thank you Johnny, cause I know a few in their early stages of marriage and each of the wives tell me the same thing you are saying. They say “you know it’s weird, but as long as he gets his (sex) and food is on the table and the house is clean - my husband is completely happy and doesn’t expect anything else. Actually he doesn’t want anything else.” Maybe this is exactly what you mean Johnny. But believe me that your woman will never be happy. You are not in love, and you are not evening looking for love, you are looking for a slave.
There is a saying that “when woman marry a guy they hope he will change but never does, men marry a women and hope that she will never change and they do” This is just one way I think women are so much smarter than most men and why there is a thing called sexism, cause men need to defend what they know is weak and will get torn down so easily…their egos.
I can’t help but see you as a simpleton, meaning that you are obsessed with cavemen like amenities. You probably also believe that the male role in the family is to go to work and make money - period. While the woman stays home to take care of the kids, the house, shop, cook, and take care of your damn ego, you probably also tell her about how HARD you work and never even compliment her on how great of a job she does cleaning the house, and how good the food tastes that she eats, etc. You’ll probably come home, eat and watch TV until you fall asleep on the couch. Your perfect life, what a dream, barf.
Maybe if you use the Veil of Ignorance, since I see it mentioned in your signature and I assume you know of it, you will realize that using it you would have to agree as John Rawls would, that you would not choose a society in which males just worked and women took care of everything because you yourself don’t know if you will be a woman. But then again, maybe you imagine women actually enjoying slaving over their man for decades only to do it even more thoroughly when she bares you children…
What’s your take?
I do hope your being sarcastic…I practicly fell off my chair laughing on this one…but seriously…easy there tiger…you presume far too much.
I do my share…and fight to do more.
Im possibly the complete opposite of what you see me as…
am I coming off as some brute?
Sure I love my beer, my home cooked meal
and I do enjoy being pampered here and there yes…
but no this isnt an every moment occurance
and since this is a philosophy forum…I was sort of joking about the whole rubbing the ego thing…I ment it in a way of when we are close my lady and I and she does thank me, think me wonderfull, those kind words make me happy…nothing more nothing less…
This is why I laugh at such presumtions and in no way could even be remotly offended…because it is so far from the truth.
Ill try to share that better side of me with you more…no promises I have to much fun roleplaying this illusion you seem fond of.
~JL
whoa, some people have really good things to say, and I did slightly modify the theory to compensate.
Johnblock wrote:
Exactly my dear John, if of course you are talking about conscious free will of the human mind. (Unconscious freedom of the human mind included because we are conscious of the unconscious freedom our minds posses but are not conscious of our ability to exercise it, yet. heh heh) Although I don’t know much about the science of genetics, I would theorize that your genes do have freedom to make decisions. Let me clear this up with an example, say for instance you deicide to go see The Lord of The Rings. While it is true that you did choose to go see it, it was not your conscious or unconscious mind which held the freedom to make that choice, but rather it was your genes who decided that under the circumstances of your life, if ever such an opportunity does arise, you would go see Lord of the Rings.
In other words, freedom of the genes lies in the probabilities of your circumstantial whereabouts ( which would be affected by the outside environment) and where your genes have lead you hitherto.
Really, how so? I think I does account for the physical world, our genes are product of 15 billion years of the physical universe. Our experience of the universe is as real as it would be if our true template was something other than our genes.
in response to my previous post Magius wrote:
I think we have to look at something much more profound (even more so than Darwinian evolution) in order to understand the decision making processes of our genes. Perhaps it is a very logical process (by our terms anyways), perhaps not. Perhaps it is a very complex process taking account for innumerable variables, perhaps not. But by knowing that ‘its all in the genes’ we can try to understand.
Good one Magius. umm lets see… if this where true then I suppose you wouldn’t realize that there are any A’s out there and B would be perfect to you.
But I don’t think this would ever happen because your genes couldn’t have a perfect match in mind for you. Earlier when I said that everything is predetermined, I meant it in the sense that you will have made decisions before your consious is aware of making them. Not predetermined in the sense that you can’t change your mind.
So your genes cannot know the perfect person for you. You (your genes) are essentially free to make decisions and indoing so, you (your genes) change. They are not ‘all knowing’ nor are they infallible. They are simply entirely who you are, including your preferences, but that can all change.
… what I’ve been trying to say in a nutshell… except the ‘we’ that makes the choices on who we are with, is our genes. And if our preferences change (say because of a trip to Greece and Egypt) our genes must also somehow have changed.
yes… I have been told that I speak (write) too abstractly for my own good before… 
ahaha… My previous post made no sense. By all means please pay no attention to it…seriously.
Silver stated:
Realization…just to elaborate on that point, in your opinion how would you describe someone, whether yourself or someone else, feeling when they realize they have met their perfect match?
I know this is a very pin pointed question on something that is very abstract and general, and I apologize for that (I asked cause I keep hoping someone in life will actually tell me) but maybe if you just explained a couple of key points you had in mind for knowing when you are with someone, let’s say…compatible, how can we be certain, or even sure to a high degree?
Furthermore, you stated:
…which followed by an interesting example. The idea that it is our genes that are making the choices is not an idea I have heard before, but admit that I have thought something similar. I once contemplated Thales’ ancient idea about everything being made of water, yes ofcourse this isn’t true, but he also stated that water had soul which meant that all things had soul. This brought me to implement the idea into contemporary times and merge it with atoms. I thought that maybe something inside the atom (what we call empty space) isn’t really empty space (as we are slowely confirming, ie. quarks) but has parts that solve the problem of soul or explain it. But I think silver has gone a step ahead and provided a more viable solution, genes being responsible not just for our material make-up but our personality and mind as well. Although, I myself found my view a little preposterous, for the little knowledge I have in quarks doesn’t advocate my theory whatsoever, and the same goes for genes. I just don’t have enough knowledge in the field to make a coherent argument.
One thing I can argue on, quite well I think, is the topic of freedom and determinism. So my question to Silver is, if genes have the freedom to make choices what does this mean for the rest of life? Are we are free? What exactly do you mean by ‘freedom’ in the context of genes?
Stay tuned, same philosophy site, same philosophy thread, you don’t wanna miss it! (danna! danana!) Okay, my symphony is done. bows
What’s your take?
Actually if you are right about genes determining our choices there would be no freedom at all, as genes cannot chose how they are reproduced, they follow a set pattern. You could effectivly trace you writing the above post right back to the moment when self replicating proteins first emerged, and back further still to the big bang. Oh if only a solar flare had happened two billion years ago, I would be an astronaut Effectivly things stopped being determined by genes when they “invented” our brains (I would argue that without basic reason all our choices would still be ruled by our genes as they they do not control an animals brain completely they do establish the instincts which drive the animals). Now we are able to choose between diifferent possibilities, I can go out tonight, get wasted and have unprotected sex with someone and produce another gene machine, or i could stay in tonight and do my revision like a good boy and so nihilate the “possibility” of the aforementioned sprog. Then again, it depends if you actually believe in free will or not, determinists don’t and would say that the above decision has already been made for me (hopefully to do the latter of the two possibilities). It’s actually impossible to prove who is right.
A brief aside into what I mentioned earlier about animals brains, I suppose there is reason to suppose that some animals may have the ability to reason, it’s a grey area I think, and rather than there being a critical point where we can say “this thing can reason” it’s a slide rule with us at one end and amoeba at the other. Or even viruses for that matter.
Matt,
I will deviate from gene talk for I understand little about it, then again, maybe all this talk of genes will incite me to do some research into the field, actually who am I kidding, I am so busy lately I barely have time for myself. But anyway,
In the context of free will vs determinism, Matt stated:
Your right in the context of “prove without a reasonable doubt”, or “prove to a certainty”. But if we were to use what philosophers and professional debaters call ‘Inference to the best conclusion’, I would have to say that determinists are way in the lead on the issue. I have read much on the subject and must profess that any situation that you give me, I can explain to you in deterministic, cause and effect relationships. What may come surprising is that I hate this. I hate that I can’t find a way out of determinism. I want to find a way, I have spent a considerable amount of time (in comparison to other ideas) trying to find a hole to punch through in determinism, I have a few meager ideas, but nothing substantial. I think I have mentioned this before, but I will say it again since I think it worth noting, that the best argument made so far is Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle, which led me to research Heisenberg and find many things within his theory that I disagree with. Einstein too disagreed with Heisenberg, but he conceided that all of Heisenbergs calculations were right. Which means that the problem must lie in the construct of the formulation, which is where I found disagreement with Heisenberg. But what perplexed me the most, was that Heisenberg never said that his theory meant free will. It’s something people thought the theory was proving, I’ll try to explain…even if Heisenberg is 100% correct in all his analysis and calculations, all that would be proved is that at a sub-atomic level, particles behave randomly. This randomness is important, cause randomness is not purposeful reasoning (free will). Furthermore, just because sub-atomic particles behave randomly, doesn’t mean the world does, especially since atoms don’t behave randomly. It’s quite possible for everything to be determined, while having electrons move randomly.
What’s your take?
Hmmm, I have a feeling that this post isn’t gonna solve anything, been mulling over it now for too long not to post though, so here goes my first foray into an attack on determinism. Deep breath
The trouble with determinism, and here I take it to be that you have a mapped future in front of you, is that it’s confused the past with the future. Man can take any decision he wants, at any point in time, to do anything that he is, at the time, physically able to do. So I could right now stop writing this, but I’ve decided not to. We are ultimatly so free that any one of us could do whatever we want whenever we want to (this is very Sartrean btw, but there are quite a few objections to this extreme freedom, but I think they miss the point of it). I’m not saying we will, but we do have the choice. Right now I could walk out on my degree, move country and get a job as a bartender, should I desire to do so. Or I could go downstairs and murder my housemates (hope they don’t read this! ) Determinism states that whatever I do, I could not have done otherwise, I was always going to do what I have done, I will always do what I will do. Now see, they’re on what seems to be very strong ground here. Take the example that I’m going to go downstairs, get my cigarettes and have a fag in a minute. Now a determinist would argue that all the events in my life have determined that i will do this, from the fact that I’m addicted to nicotene, to the fact that I have cigarettes downstairs, to the fact that I was born in a certain place and time so that it is time of day to have a cigarette, to the mental process that are driving me right now which say I want a cigarette. Now on the other hand, if I stubbornly refused to have one in order to prove the determinist wrong, he would say that that was predetermined too, it was always going to happen because I was going to try and prove the determinist wrong, but all I’m doing is proving him right! But you see therein lies the paradox of determinism, it is infallable. Whatever I do it will be as they predict, precisly because built in to the definition of determinism is it’s own facticity. It’s no better than extreme skeptisim, you can’t disprove it.
I think the ultimate mistake of the determinist is looking at the past, which cannot be changed and then looking to the future and saying it is similar to the past. It is not, precisily because there are all the possibilities stretching in the future before us, but there is only one behind us. There are plenty of unrealised possibilities behind us. That is why I say it is impossible to prove which is wrong or right. A determinist can (quite rightly) say that there is only one future possibility that we can take. They are right because there is only one possible future we are gonna live, the one we end up living, but who are they to say it is “determined”, there is no evidence either way, precisily because we can only ever choose one path. Whether we actually had a choice of another path is impossible to show, but is also impossible to show that we didn’t.
What I will concede is that we have certain predispositions, if offered a choice of identical goods people tend to go for the one on the right (This is from a paper by Stich and Nichols on the simulation theory of mind, not sure of it’s title). I will tend to choose Tea as a drink when offered one, or lager in a bar (student 
). But as to whether this was predetermined, or whether the times I choose differently were also, a determinist cannot prove because his argument is circular.
That about wraps it up, what I hope I’ve proved is that while I can’t disprove determinism, I can’t prove it either. Much like, while I can’t prove this is “reality”, I can’t prove that it’s not.
ok by ‘freedom’ I mean ability. so when i said that genes have the freedon to make choises, i meant ability. However, whatever choices are made by genes, they are still subject to predetermination. So our genes do not have true ‘freedom’ because they can (possibly) be predetermined. But what I was saying is that we, our conscious mind, our ‘macro’ selves cannot make decisions because we don’t have the ability to do so. Only our genes do, only our micro selves. The reason for all behavior could be found at the molecular level (perhaps we need to go even further to the atomic, subatomic levels of our genes and maybe beyond. Which I think one day we will. Ok ok I’m getting a little ahead of myself here)
Are we free? Who knows?!
Does it matter? Myself, I think it does (I mean, how can you not feel something personal about a topic like that), but essentially no cause you can’t prove or disprove determinism.
I donno, I’ve never met my significant other
Seriously though, I think you would know because you would feel happy/good when you are together. And even though you argue, and disagree you still want to be with her (him, …whoever)
And not just for a week, or month or year… but always. Other people come and go, and you both change, but you still want to be together. But you can you tell (be certain that that’s the case) from the first time you meet a person? Or hell, at any point in your relationship? Like I said, I really wouldn’t know…
On one of the other posts I think you put it nicely when you said: “[you] want to make that person feel goodâ€â€¦ because that makes you happy.
Magius, you also wrote this on another thread: “In the midst of confusion there will be one person who you need to find and they alone can make everything clear…â€
Maybe the person wouldn’t necessary make things clear for you, but instead you would find a person you want to face the confusion with… together you create your own bubble of understanding from which you can confront life.
Blah… I really don’t know what I’m talking about… 
…
In response to the topic question:
Love is an emotional response to positive values. That is, if you value something, and an event or action occurs that supports or promotes that value, you feel love to some extent.
For example, I value $50. If I were to suddenly obtain $50 through work or some other means of earning money, I would feel a sense of love. There are obviously different degrees of love (such as like, affection, romance, and love).
Hatred is the opposite - that is, a negative response to values. Again, there are varying degrees of this emotion, just like all emotions.
So far I haven’t really answered your question, but I’m setting up this next part.
Indirectly we choose who we love, because we choose our values. The ultimate positive response towards the values, characteristics and consciousness of another person is what most would call romantic affection. We choose what we admire in life and what we dislike. Our emotions respond accordingly. I enjoy sports and strategy games because I value the intellectual and physical components that are required to be successful at both. Other pleasures, such as taste, smell and similar senses are usually not determined by anyone. These aren’t exactly values either. They’re simply a sensational response to something pleasing your nerve stimulus. Save sex and other physical contact, people cannot stimulate your nerves. So it should be clear that love of another is something that our minds respond to, not our bodies. In this sense, if you believe that we choose our values (i.e. free will) it’s clearly a decision when we love.
Mack,
in the abstraction and generality with which you made the former part of your post (the part I didn’t paste here) I must concede my compliance and agreement. But I think you haven’t delved deep enough into life examples to really aspire readers to come to a new understanding of love. You say there are different degrees of love, ie. like, but it appears slightly that you don’t seem to believe in an all powerful demarcated love that is different from all other lower forms of it. That is what this thread is about. So tell us more about the highest level of love that you believe, or don’t believe in. Please and thank you with a cherry on top. 
Mark stated:
Do we? All of them? Are the good values you see in women one’s you have rationally decided to adopt, or did you like certain women and only after much time and thought did you realize what it is that you liked about them and rationalized for yourself why it is good for you to like those values?
Mark stated:
Can you tell me more about what you mean by ‘ultimate positive response’?
Mark stated:
Same as with the other example, did you choose to like the things you like and the people you like, or did you first like them and only later, did you actually rationalize your feelings for yourself?
Mark stated:
Do they? Or do we respond to our emotions?
So would you agree with another concept recently debated about, that you can make yourself love someone? I’m not sure what makes you jealous, but imagine a situation in which you become jealous and go back to the first time it happened to you. The first time you got jealous, did you get jealous because you previously decided for yourself about a situation you had not yet experience, and that you would become jealous if it should ever happen?
Mark stated:
Alright, but can they stimulate your curiousity, your imagination, your interest, your anger, your hate, your love, etc?
Mark stated:
Well said but I am not convinced. I agree with you, just not your explanation for it. Why is it so clear? Ever tried to play devils advocate with the idea and try to explain love using evolution?
Mark stated:
Hmm…I’m glad you stated it, for your whole conception right from the start is based on free will. Which is where the topic goes off on a tangent and holes begin to appear in the concept of love. I now need to ask you for you view on free will and why you think it exists as opposed to determinism…
What’s your take?
First, my name’s Mack, not Mark. But that’s okay.
Secondly, you’re asking me to lay out practically my entire philosophical base. That’s not something I can do on a message board. I will do my best to answer your questions and touch briefly on the subjects you mentioned.
I’ll go question by question.
In regards to choosing values: Sexual attraction is not something we choose (or at least I don’t think we do). Anything that gives us sensual pleasure, such as touch, sight, taste, we do not choose. It’s part of our nature. Just as we can’t control our natural hair color, we cannot control what sensations give us pleasure.
Other qualities about sexual attraction, such as personality, are decisions we all make. The traits of another’s consciousness that you admire are values you choose. You are not born with the liking of funny people. You have experienced laughter in your laugh and enjoy it. Now you value another that can make you laugh and feel enjoyment. You’re not born with a trait to value another person that can make you laugh.
Romantic affection is the highest form of positive response towards the values and sensations you find in another person. It’s that single entity that you find so many things that you value that you feel the highest form of love. I’ll use the generic example: smart, sense of humor, kind, giving, forgiving, etc… You feel love for someone who has these traits because you value these traits. It’s not the other way around. Love is an emotion - an effect, not a cause. Romantic love combines the attraction of physical sensations and values of another person. In order for me to love someone, I must be attracted to (value) them phsycially, intellectually and spiritually (by spirit I mean all the little things that make an entity unique). Basically, you just find so many things in another person that value and enjoy that your emotions respond with a very high level of love.
It’s important to remember that because a number of people may all have these qualities, that it is perfectly reasonable to assume an individual can feel romantic love towards all of them. However, there exists a hierachy of values. That is, no two values hold the same weight in your mind. When comparing two values, you will always value one over the other. So it’s possible that you will feel this very high form of love towards several people, but one will always be higher than the rest.
People can stimulate emotions, yes. Emotions are the response to values and it’s certainly possible to value the traits or actions of other people.
And for this reason (values are independent of physical sensations, and dependent on your mind), it is very clear that love is something your mind responds to (such as your thinking self and your emotions). Your hand cannot suddenly give you a sensation of love for another’s sense of humor. That’s only something your mind can do.
In regards to determinism vs. free will, what form/theory of determinism are you arguing? Everyone I run into has a different theory or belief of determinism and how it works etc… It becomes a real pain in the arse to argue it too.
My apologese for mispelling your name, it’s just that I know so many Mark’s, and so few Mack’s that after the first time I spelled your name right - my instinct just took over from habit and I began to spell it Mark.
Mack stated:
Why not? I mean is it a matter of length? There is always the essay section. There is no limit to how long your post can be. You must understand that in order for me to understand a view different from my own, I must be admitted to review your very foundations (philosophical base) first and foremost, if I am ever to understand at all.
You make, what appears to be an important distinction for you view. The being that there is a crucial difference between sexual attraction for matter and sexual attraction for personality traits. But I am not convinced by your distinction. Follow me here…
Mack stated:
Why is it that we do not choose our sensual pleasure? Answering that it’s part of our nature could be used just as easily to argue that it is part of our nature to like people with this or that personality trait. Obviously we don’t all have the same likes in personality, so what is it that creates diversity? Pick something you don’t like about people and tell me whether the first time you encountered such a trait in people, you rationally thought “okay, wait, now should I choose to like this trait or not, and why not” or did you automatically just like or dislike the trait and make your rational conclusions later? If you did, then it would appear that we don’t have a choice in what aspects of anothers personality we like, we just instinctively do.
Mack stated:
Mack, as a baby you didn’t laugh for no reason and begin to rationalize your laugh. You weren’t sitting around doing nothing going through your inventory of things to do in you mind, and say, ‘hey, LAUGHING, I haven’t tried that program out yet, lets see what it does’. You laughed because someone did something that was funny to you. Only after you instinctively laughed did you catch yourself doing something you realized you like and then go to associate it with a pleasant thing and begin to pick out people that cause this pleasant emotion. One cannot experiencing laughing in their laugh - it’s circular argument - something funny caused your laugh first. You said so yourself later on…
Laughter is the same thing. Just as…
in order for you to laugh you must first find something funny. But you do not choose what will be funny to you.
Mack stated:
I’m not convinced by your argument. If there were no two values that hold the same weight in our mind, I think we would all be great prioritizers, but we’re not. Live illustrates just how often we can’t decide which thing is better. And usually, our decision scheme comes down to external facts, not personal ones. For instance, one doesn’t decide on whether they should go to John’s party or go play tennis with Cindy based on values that they have set in the past or that they will set in the present or future. They base their decision on what is important in relation to everything else that is going on around them. Whether it be the time of day, ie. if it’s dark you may decide to go to the party because you hate to play tennis in artificial light because it gives you a headache. If you were correct, than Maslow’s hierarchy of needs would have solved all economic, psychological, and philosophical debates between how to run society, how to treat people, and how to prioritize all aspects of life. But Maslow’s theory remains exactly that…a theory. For the simple reason that people don’t work by his model, and some people are actually happier by what Maslow describes as lower needs than higher needs, which goes against his theory. Maybe humans are just too dynamic and unpredictable.
I have spoken to numerous people, read numerous books, and watch enough movies, talk shows, and other shows to know that the theme of indecision and professed love for more than one person are too prevalent in our society for it to be true what you propose. But my rationale still awaits you to change my mind.
About the determinism, it is difficult to say. For I am not certain what to call it myself, but it looks closest to compatabilism or what is sometimes called soft determinism. In my heart I am a soft determinist, but my logic and rationale, which haven’t changed my hearts decision yet, are convinced by far that hard determinism is true. I am still trying to find a way out of hard determinism till this day.
What’s your take?
I don’t like people who lie.
However, I do not get some instictively bad feeling when someone lies to me. As I have developed intellectually I have decided (yes, decided) that lying is wrong. Human beings need reason to survive. You can’t reason realistically with lies and falsehoods. A life proper to man is that of objective facts. Lying hinders my ability to reason and think freely, hence my dislike of lying.
I can learn about a particular trait of people without experiencing it. From there, I can decide whether I find that trait appealing, disgusting, attractive etc… without ever actually seeing or experiencing others with such a trait.
I’m not sure what you’re saying entirely in the laughing bit. I think I agree with you but at the same time I think you’re rebutting what I’m saying, haha. I’ll have to think about it for awhile.
The example you gave with tennis and partying boils down to context. No action can be judged rationally out of context. It’s perfectly fine to value tennis over parties. However, you must consider the context, or as you called it, “external facts”. Do you value tennis so much more than parties that you’d be willing to suffer the headache? The headache has a place in your values as well. I understand what you’re saying but I don’t think it negates the hierarchy of values.
Anyway, I need to eat some food. You’ve succeeded in draining my mental energy for now. :]
Oh, and I forgot.
If you’re interested in my philosophical fundamentals, they fall in line a great deal with those of Objectivism. I would suggest looking up Objectivism or Ayn Rand (its founder) in an encylopedia or something. Most of the fundamentals can probably be found there.
It focuses on rational self-interest, rights, and an objective reality (that which we percieve with our senses). Objectivists reject all forms of determinism, including genetics, as well as anything supernatural, such as God or spirits.
Ugh, I’m not a big fan of Rand. She deserves not a single mention in any of my general philosophy books, including the Oxford companion to philsophy. I’ve never really thought of her as a philospher, none of her ideas are amazing or new, it’s just the set of philosophies she’s put together pretty much defines how most people live anyway. I always feel a little sad when I see someone advocating selfishness as a moral philosophy, they seemed to have missed the point entirely. And there’s plenty of problems with laissez-faire capitalism too.
I mean it’s fine to say there’s an objective reality, but simply stating it isn’t philosophizing, it’s adopting a position. What I read from aynrand.org certainly didn’t sound like anything more than a “it’s true cause it’s gotta be true” type of argument, which isn’t philosophy at all. If she’d added anything new or interesting to the debate she’d be on every philosophy course about reality, which certainly isn’t true at my uni, one of the best in the UK. Hmm, the more I read the more I am not impressed.
Anyway, sorry, all I wanted to say that to deny genetics is a bit odd cause you see it’s effects every day of your life. I have blonde hair cause of the genes passed on by my parents, there was absolutely no chance of me having blue hair. This in turn makes me more attractive to certain people, and less to others. So there is a form of determinism in the world, it’s just not concrete determinism, which I argued against philosophically above, rather than just stating that it’s not true.
I’m also fairly convinced that there is a modicum of truth behind innate ideas. I’m not saying we’re born with certain concepts in our head, like murder is wrong, I completely agree with Locke that that kind of innate idea is nonsense. I’m saying that we are born with certain predispositions, like pain is bad, warmth is good,sex is good (upon maturity), etc.We can reason ourselves away from these, but we tend to swing towards them at first and it requitres effort on our part to break with them.
Objectivists reject genetics as a form of determinism in regards to thoughts, and your conscious being. Objectivists don’t deny genetics as a whole. Obviously your skin color and hair color are determined by genetics, but none of your mental capacity is.
Why do you get sad when you see someone advocating selfishness?
And please point out the things “wrong” with laissez-faire capitalism.
You’re born with sensory perception; it is necessary for your survival. Your senses register pain when your life is being opposed, and pleasure when it’s being supported. This has nothing to do with your mental capacity, per se (except that you can’t think if you’re dead).
Oh and one more thing to help unconfuse you.
Rand didn’t discover anything new about reality. She only applied objective reality to philosophy, which no other had done before her.
Everything we know about reality can be traced back to Aristotle.