Good. Bring in God or religion, and I will agree that man is made in the likeness of the Divine, wholly separate from all other beasts. Leaving it to science or reason, I can only see man existing on a continuum with all other life.
where do you think that science says this in any way more than taxonomy?
What is wrong with that? When you infer that all other people have the same traits that you have, why isn’t that a mistake?
I think it does. In an earlier post, you posited that free will gives us “infinite choice” or something like that. Obviously, that is not the case. Environment and genetics/nature greatly restricts that choice, making the possible options in any given situation so finite that whatever choice exists is quite minimal, if even existent.
I think the reaction is always predictable, the more you know the individual involved. Psychology can predict how people in general will act in different situations, but there will be outliers who behave differently than the norm. If those outliers with mental illness or atypical motivations are studied and understood, then their behavior will be more predictable, too.
I am skeptical.
Occasionally. But even then, the child of poor, uneducated, drug-addicted parents who goes on to have a successful life of some sort no doubt will have had some environmental influence that allowed him or her to succeed - an influential teacher or grandparent, etc.
I agree.There are robust criteria for diagnosing PVS. That is what I meant by “diagnosing properly” which is a reference to the process, not the outcome (obviously). When diagnosed by an neurologist experienced in PVS, there is considerable prognostic value in the diagnosis.
I beg to differ. I have a dog, too, and I know when she feels fear. It’s not anthropomorphism to attribute emotions and behaviors to animals that actually have those emotions and behave in those ways. Descartes didn’t understand this either and laughed while watching his dog “subjects” jump and yip and howl when he studie—I mean “tortured” them.
because its an error. would you anthropomorphize a mannequin? a roomba? a computer programmed to simulate a human personality? of course not. so why would you do it to an animal?
do you have any reason to suppose that other humans arent human? i dont.
ok then, what mechanism restrains the number of choices from which one can choose? i dont know of one.
it is utterly unpredictable except insofar as they are behaving rationally. because nothing restricts a person from making any free will decision. “rationally” may mean different things to different people in different situations, but if they choose to, they can always choose to act irrationally, regarless of what we might consider rational behavior. even crazy people
ok.
i dont believe that iws necessary in the least. but im not sure it has anything to do with the topic here.
absolutely untrue. but these conversations drag on for hundreds of posts until people realize that their emotions for their pets arent a basis for rational examination of the issue.
).
Faith and right reason cannot come to different conclusions because they have the same Source. Since you abandoned reason in your previous “regardless” post I must leave you in your cognitive dissonant state.
As I said more than once, a combination of genetics/nature and environment/cumulative experience seems to determine our behavior in any specific situation and more broadly across our lifetimes. The problem I think is that the notion that there exists a “number of choices from which one can choose” is actually false, an illusion. We, humans, know that a future exists and what will transpire in that future is uncertain. We know that our behavior in part will modify the course of those events, and we feel that we could behave in differing ways to modify those events differently. We thus feel we have a choice, and we live our lives that way. I do. But I really think that what actually transpires in any specific situation or across a lifetime is so much influenced by nature and nurture that the idea that an individual can act wholly independently of those factors is probably wrong. I can’t think of any examples. Can you? Help me out. I have thought a lot about this issue, free will, because I am pretty skeptical that it exists, and of course if it does not exist then any rational basis for Catholic belief is kaput (though I can cling to my non-rational faith experience, which is what I do pretty much).
Your link doesn’t work. What is “absolutely untrue?”
Well I’m awfully obliged to you for your saying something with substance instead of relying on your I’m-an-all-knowing-medical-lawyer card as in your first totally lame non-response. Now what do you mean by “considerable prognostic value” and how exactly is this considerable value found “in the diagnosis” of PVS?
then please. identify a mechanism that forces us to choose from a limited set of options, i say no such mechanism exists.
if free will is an illusion, in a deterministic universe, that means it must be accounted for in every previous state of the universe. given the trillions of free will events that humans make per hour, it would seem to indicate design. if the universe is indeterminant, than the coherency of free will decisions is even more ludicrous in that it is the product of trillions of happy accidents per hour, completley violating the PSR.
im not interested in yet another lengthy discussion on the matter. here are some threads where they were thouroughly discussed.
sorry the thread didnt work
You’re the one who brought up anthropomorphism. I responded because I believed (and still do) that you were using the word incorrectly. I’m not interested in a lengthy debate, either. I responded to what I saw as an error. I don’t need your list of threads, thank you. But if you are referring to the current Pet Peeves thread, I am the OP and it is *not * about pets, although peeves about pets have been brought up. Sheesh.
No problem at all.
LOL, now I never said that at all did I?
Thought that was fairly self-explanatory. As I said before, what do I know, I’m only a medical lawyer. What could I possibly know about the issues? I know nothing.
Shame might be a another example of an emotion shared by animals and man. Shame is horizontal, that is, it is the emotion I feel when someone else sees me with my pants down or fido feels whens he’s caught peeing on the rug. If no one sees either of us, neither of us feel shame.
I think that what people see as “guilt” in animals (dogs, especially) is really fear.
im refering to the "Pet peeve, literally a peeve about pets!You’re the one who brought up anthropomorphism. I responded because I believed (and still do) that you were using the word incorrectly. I’m not interested in a lengthy debate, either. I responded to what I saw as an error. I don’t need your list of threads, thank you. But if you are referring to the current Pet Peeves thread, I am the OP and it is *not * about pets, although peeves about pets have been brought up. Sheesh.
No problem at all.
Sancta Maria! Mater dei, ora pro nobis.