I think it’s an excellent distinction to make, between spontaneous and habitual. In case it’s not clear though, I’ve been using the word “spontaneous” to refer to actions that arise without the interference of conscious attention and correction. In other words, the attention and correction occurs throughout one’s life, but it doesn’t have to occur in each moment, prior to each action (as if we can even divide up action into actions). So the spontaneity I’m talking about is just the natural outflow of beliefs, dispositions, attitudes… in summary, habits. I’m saying we can change our habits, which involves changing beliefs. It is our responsibility, to some fuzzy degree, to do so. The spontaneity you bring up would involve giving up that entire project, which is of course the kind of thing that sounds easy, but once you try it you quickly find out how wrapped up you really are in your own self-constructed world. I think that kind of spontaneity can happen, but for most of us it happens sporadically and seemingly randomly.
I confess, I’m not quite sure what you mean here, in those last two sentences.
It’s a very tricky area. My memory is so poor, but I think you are a Buddhist and this tradition gives excellent tools to notice that what is spontaneous can simply be habit. On the other hand it is through allowing deeper habits out, one can get to something more genuinely spontaneous. First thought best thought. Though not because first thought is right. Our conscious attention has habits. Our judgments of what is OK to express and not express. So if we do not move towards spontenaeity, which entails being habitual, we simply have the habits of mind inhibiting habits of the ID, so to speak. When actors are taught, especially for improve, to get to real creativity, one has to work through all the habitual short cuts and personality ticks that under stress we grab at. Once these are pointed out - by the other actors or by a leader - you can learn to not grab at habitual ticks and let something new and creative - I would say a reaction from a more open and unified organism - come through. The Zen tradition, ironically, has this mix of utterly rigid, neo-military meditation training AND improve training through koans and other ritualized opportunities for spontenaeity.
When asked what a pair of shoes is, the one who puts them on his head and leaves the room won master’s approval.
In a dream violence can be a symbolic processing that is necessary intra-psychically. I scream and hit my father. In real life hitting my father is simply violent. In a dream it could be many different potentially valuable and self-loving processes - and no one gets hurt. It could be me finally setting aside some of his values I no longer need or the fear of his judgment. It could be a stimulation of the father portions of my own psyche. Perhaps I need to be more like him in some way now and the hitting him in the dream is one part of me demanding this other part express more in my life. And so on.
Yes, I’m a Buddhist. And I think your take on the relationship between spontaneity and habit is fairly traditional. I’d only add emphasis to the fact that spontaneity can also refer to action arising directly from good habits, and that training in the production of good habits is in league with the possibility of abandoning recourse to habit altogether. Also, the word “natural” is often used in a similarly ambiguous or dual way. To be “natural” is what we intuitively take that to mean, but it also, or even at the same time, refers to “the natural state”; that is, the state “prior” to embroilment in habit.
Regarding violence in dreams, that’s a tricky thing. I think it can help to see things in the way you’ve presented here, as seeing it that way likely reduces the tendency to fixate on the violence. But in a lucid dream, for instance, intentional violence is violence, plain and simple. In real life we can say that a violent action means something interesting – and maybe it does – but it’s still violence. Same in a dream, I think. We don’t excise demons through violence, we create them.
I wasn’t really thinking of lucid dreams, though perhaps they were mentioned above and missed it. Sure, I can see that as more likely to be negative. I mean, in lucid dreams I have gone after pleasure and fantastic experience - which from a Buddhist perspective might be seen as nearly as problematic as being violent - but I never felt drawn to be violent.
All I can say is that does not fit my experience in dreams. I have had dreams where I was violent and I woke up feeling more integrated. If we are walking around with denied tension between parts in our selves, the expression of violence in the dream can be a step in the direction of reconciliation. The parallel in waking life would be expression of anger when having been mistreated, something held back for a while in relationship, that is in fact a first real contact that leads to either a better, more real closeness or a needed separation. (The latter generally not being somethign we can do with parts of ourselves) In dreams the violence is metaphorical - unless you actually thrash around in the bed and hit yourself. I think I understand your position. I can only say it does not fit my experience. And this includes those instances where I was violent against or in defense against a person I know in waking life. The violence was not the start of increased tension and conflict with them. If anything the opposite, though generally it had little to do with them and more with my various parts working through stuff. (violent dreams are rare for me, but they tend to stand out)
In psychology there’s things like birth depressions where mothers will kill their children or just have no feelings for it to nurse and feed it, thus the baby dies. Many other people will have OCD a subconcious motivated behaviour that many has found so annoying/offensive that they have committed suicide, because they can’t control it.
So what OP says doesn’t really account for anything.
Okay, gib, so I’ve gone through the wormhole of the Spirituality thread.
I may be wrong here gib but i think that you might be mixing fruit with vegetables in a sense.
Choices CAN be made unconsciously, gib. People are not always aware of what drives them, the daemons (not devils), early personal history, the things, like particular behavior patterns which have not been broken,
Choices may not necessarily be the kind of things that can be made unconscious. - but they can be made “unconsciously” as a result of not knowing what lurks beneath or within.
I kind of think that a better word to use in place of “unconscious” here gib would be “unfree”. There’s no question that the person believes he is acting consciously or freely - but the question is IS HE ACTING FREELY? Is his action based on seeing everything or most everything? Is it devoid of "baggage or impurities (not meant sexuallylol) from the past?
Well, what you’re describing above is “automatic” gib. But this is different than the choices which we make unconsciously which are also based in emotions albeit some of our driving choices/behavior are also emotional in nature.
But perhaps in a sense not too different. In part, driving a car IS based on learned behavior - certain things are done automatically but the brain still knows what it’s doing - just as making some choices are unconciously based on “learned” behavior but not necessarily on conscious cognitive behavior.
I believe that even within a court of law, at trial, questions will arise regarding degree of responsibility and intent within an action.
Well, I wasn’t necessarily speaking about immoral or irresponsible choices - anything as grave as that - but of course there are consequences to our actions and i don’t feel that we ought to get away with anything. But I do think that intent and the degree of let’s say ignorance which went into making a choice has to stand for something. But I may be wrong here. But I guess it would depend on what it was.
Let’s say for instance, that someone is driving and texting - which makes me absolutely crazy. If that person becomes responsible for a death, I believe that that person ought to go to prison - involuntary manslaughter or not, The intent might not have been to kill but that behavior isn’t based on total ignorance - just stupidity. But that’s probably not a good example because clearly the person knows he/she must not be texting while driving - knows how dangerous it is but acts otherwise.
\This is an interesting thread, gib, but I don’t think there are any easy answers here since things are never quite so black or white or grey - well some things are.
Hmmm…perhaps they are deliberate in nature but the question might be - to what degree of psychological freedom are they to be held?
Maybe only a psychiatrist or psychologist could judge that and only after getting to know the person.
I think that we’re all capable of those things but some of us might be more responsible for them since we might be more self-aware of what we’re doing.
I don’t know if I expressed that so well?
2op
If you made a conscious choice which the subconscious reuses, such to affect your behaviour at a later point, then you are responsible. There is however a question of interpretation; the subconscious assumes a given behaviour or words/notions, for a given situation, then you act accordingly when the ‘same’ situation reoccurs. However, no two situations are identical except in their opacity or appearance. Though 9/10 repetition of words and behaviours for given situations are reasonably accurate, and because this mostly works, we consciously find comfort in such repetition enhancing the subconscious pathways.
Even if the world was purely physical and we were ‘organic robots’, i think it would be advantageous for humans to have the ability to adapt to the subtle situational differences presented by the world. Humans have enough brain power to afford such functionality, and hence nature does produce individual wills in us ~ though I think the mind is cyclical where conscious thoughts become subconscious and vice-versa.
I’m wondering if you read my response in the Spirituality thread–it pretty much addresses this. But I’ll go through this anyway.
I guess it depends on what you mean by “choice”. If you mean coming to a resolve that you are going to do this or that, then I suppose that can be done unconsciously, but I was think more about the feeling of choosing-in-the-moment. I mean, think of what I said in the OP–about what would not constitute a choice in my view: being forced to do something, being possessed, etc.–all things that lack the feeling of choosing what you’re doing in the moment. I don’t think this is ever unconscious–we may not know why we’re doing it, but that we are doing it, and choosing to do it, we do know. This is different from deliberating over whether or not we should do something, how we should do it, why we should do it, and then finally making a decision to do it–but these are mental exercises that come before the act of doing, and this is what I’m calling “coming to a resolve” (which is what I think you’re talking about)–this can be unconscious, but when it comes to finally doing it “in the moment”, you either knowingly choose to act or you feel as if you were possessed and some alien force made you do it. ← I think the latter is very rare.
Well, my point is, he doesn’t have to know any of this. He doesn’t have to know what from his past lead him to act this way, or what the desires of his heart truly are, just that he’s doing it (whatever it is), he knows he’s doing it, and he knows he’s doing it freely.
Yes, but isn’t “automatic” behavior a kind of “unconscious” behavior?
Yes, the question of guilt or innocent is one removed from the question of responsibility. I’m trying to argue in this thread that a choice being made for unconscious reasons does not absolve one of responsibility, but it may absolve one of guilt. If he doesn’t know his true motives–if he in fact thinks he’s a saint doing things for all kinds of saintly reasons–but in reality not only is he hurting others but unconsciously takes pleasure in it–then his guilt comes into question. Being responsible only means that you take account of your own actions–you own up to the fact that you did it willingly and that you could have done otherwise and may still undo what you did, or even do it again–but what you did, and for what reasons, and whether that was good or bad–is not decided just by taking responsibility. So not understanding your true motives may preserve your innocence, but it doesn’t absolve you of responsibility.
I think one’s guilt or innocence hinges on this: would they have stopped themselves from engaging in the act if they knew what their true motives were (assuming those motives were morally wrong)?
It depends on what you mean by “refuse” (or “reuse” ). It happens all the time with human being where they decide to do something, but when the moment comes, they can’t bring themselves to do it for reasons they can’t explain. ← This I would call a choice. But if you decide to do something, and when it comes time to do it, you have no qualms, no reluctance, no second guesses, but some alien force takes over your body and prevents you from doing it (as if you became a marionette doll and someone pulled your strings), I wouldn’t call that a choice.
Are you talking about how repetition results in habbit, in automaticity (as Arc called it)? This would be just like the examples I gave in the OP about turning at an intersection. We do it quite automatically without having to think about it. It is therefore carried out on an unconscious level. But I hardly think anyone would say they were forced to do it. The feeling of willing it remains even if you’re not focusing your conscious attention to it.
Hmm, that’s interesting–making certain thoughts unconscious when they need to be, and then relinquishing them to consciousness at other times when it seems more adaptive. I’ve actually gone through this on a few occasions myself–I’ve had thoughts that I didn’t want to admit to myself so I’d sugar coat them or find clever ways to think my way around them, and then suddenly something in my life changes, and I end up in a completely different situation, and all of a sudden I have no problem admitting the thought straight up.
But yes, adapting to the subtle differences can be advantageous and I think we do adapt in this way, though we don’t always have to be conscious of the subtle nuances or to how we’re adapting to them.
When this occurs i assume there is conflicting information which the subconscious knows but the consciousness doesn’t. It may be that consciously you have made an alternative decision in the past [hence an unknown conflict], or that ones instincts are conflicting with the consciousness where it [to the subconscious] is making an assumption that there is nothing wrong, but the subconscious thinks otherwise.
Yes, but not that specifically [such things are one of many functions of conscious-subconscious cyclicity. For driving it is more expedient to repeat actions, so that option is generally taken. Instincts are much the same. I think that rather than a will/lack of, it is more the case that best option is taken irrespective of it’s derivation ~ weather it’s formed in the conscious or subconscious. Perhaps we could say there is an overall drive to our being, with conscious or subconscious informations occurring in it’s sphere?
Lol indeed. At a more extreme level i think this is also a result of ‘drive’, and is why people manage to excuse themselves of virtually anything [e.g. heinous crimes].
So, Kermit, what will you say to the judge when he sentences you to maybe life in prison after you shoot someone to death with that fancy gun of yours - “hey your honor i can’t be held responsible for my actions. I’v already been determined”. God made me this way. Blame it on God. I’m simply a puppet in a world of puppets.
“Well, Kermit”, the judge will say to you - “In this court of law, it is I who determine the universe. I am the God in here. For the rest of your life, because you saw strings dangling down from your self, you will be MY puppet - and the puppet of many others.”
“Now go do the dance of the many strings.”
But no your honor, please, just one more chance. Just give me a pair of scissors and I’ll cut the strings so fast it will make your head spin.
First off, if I ever was to go around killing people I would know to put a silencer on my assault rifle and have some discretion not to get caught hence never seeing a judge or courtroom to begin with.
Then there are cellular activated explosives also with disposable cellphones. I don’t even have to be in a ten mile radius of the people I am taking out.
Without getting all into the debate here, I’d like to suggest a guy named Daniel Robinson, and his book, “wild beasts and idle humors”. It’s all about this kind of stuff. He’s basically giving an account of the development of the insanity defense over the course of history. Very interesting stuff.
). It happens all the time with human being where they decide to do something, but when the moment comes, they can’t bring themselves to do it for reasons they can’t explain. ← This I would call a choice. But if you decide to do something, and when it comes time to do it, you have no qualms, no reluctance, no second guesses, but some alien force takes over your body and prevents you from doing it (as if you became a marionette doll and someone pulled your strings), I wouldn’t call that a choice.