Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site spar.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!prls!amdimage!amdcad!decwrl!spar!ellis From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion Subject: Re: Pfui Message-ID: <454@spar.UUCP> Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 05:03:20 EDT Article-I.D.: spar.454 Posted: Wed Aug 7 05:03:20 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 11-Aug-85 03:51:22 EDT References: <1276@pyuxd.UUCP> <2145@pucc-h> <1313@pyuxd.UUCP> <434@spar.UUCP> <1388@pyuxd.UUCP> Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Not Rich Rosen) Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA Lines: 44 Keywords: water, frog, splash Xref: linus net.philosophy:1952 net.religion:6930 >>>I cannot decide to want to want to eat apricots, no more than you can >>>decide to want to like people if you don't. New experiences might change >>>that, but it is not a matter of "will". [Rich] > >> Speak for yourself, Rich. >> >> It is becoming clear to me that difference of opinion on this issue >> ultimately derives from personal experience. [Not Rich] > >Can you give an example from your personal experience of something you >didn't like that you chose to like. Try it. Take something you absolutely >despise, and decide to like it. Remember, no conditioning to change your >behavior toward that thing will be allowed. After all, you can do it >without "new experiences"... [Rich] OK. I do not like Scientific Materialism at all, so I decided to like it. And I spoke to Nihil, the God of Scientific Materialism: "Our Father, who art not I ignore Thee!" And lo, I did not behold the Materialist God Nihil, Clothed in Ether and Phlogiston. And Nihil did not reveal unto me: "Like what thou dost not like" This may seem unnecessarily contrary, but is not logically inconsistent: It is tautologically easy to have/not have something which does not exist, like Free Will, when I do not exist either. Which is yet another example, Rich: I apparently used to wish for the existence of Something Supernatural, (as yet have pointed out so very many times) yet here I am blissfully nonexistent. "The real world truly exists But nothing actually happens there.." -not Rich Rosen