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From: woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Emotions and choice
Message-ID: <1675@hao.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Aug-85 19:21:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: hao.1675
Posted: Mon Aug  5 19:21:59 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 7-Aug-85 04:23:04 EDT
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Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO
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Rich Rosen:
> (I do agree completely about the possibilities of other choices, but, contrary
> to the turn this discussion has been taking, one cannot be considered
> responsible for things like emotions until one is aware of the possibilities
> of controlling them.)

  I would argue that not acknowledging your responsibility for something (in
this case, how you react to your life experiences) does not mean you aren't
responsible. It just means that the subconscious mind is making most of
the choices. Increased awareness of your own belief structure allows more
(but not all!) of your choices to become conscious. I think that *complete*
awareness of your beliefs would give you that elusive "total control" of your
emotions, but I also think that's an unrealistic goal. The best you can do
is to continually increase your awareness of what beliefs that you have are 
causing you to react in certain ways.
  I think all we are arguing about, Rich, is what we mean by "choice". To me,
a choice doesn't have to be a conscious decision.

--Greg