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Read me! + Show Spoiler +EDIT: Since I can't change the title, please don't take it as an invitation. It was meant to be provocative, but if your first reaction is 'a dick', I think you might be more comfortable watching Big Brother or the U.S. presidential elections.
Have you ever had the feeling that there are two people making decisions inside you? The you that had not just had a glass of wine, or smoked a joint; that had gone running this morning; that had loved more; that had been more aware? It’s as though no matter how you try, you aren’t making some decisions – they are like premeditated, fateful.
What is control over oneself, one’s body, one’s mind? What is self? When are you ‘you’? Can you choose to do anything to the extent of your physical and mental capacities? Genius may be out of your reach, but if you are you then you control you and not vice-versa. Controlling oneself requires amazing self-awareness and self-knowledge. It requires you to feel your feelings, think your thoughts.
Imagine you are an aspiring runner. You’ve been running since childhood, as an adolescent and then as an adult, always enjoying the scorching-hot gasp of blue air when you reached the mountaintop. It is a gratifying sense of self-punishment and reward; the ability to coerce yourself into doing something good by doing something bad. It might work indefinitely, but it is a burdensome mechanism.
Now imagine another runner. He too has been running since childhood. But he sees the ocean floor and the endless sky, and the world in your eye. When he practices running, there is no anger in his action: he is not obligated to run. He chooses to run, and when he runs, he knows he is running. There is no frustration for his falls, no irritation for his slowness. Whether he wins or not does not matter – he is one: he is running.
When there is no conflict in the self, you delve into the focus. When there is complete peace of mind, you become one with the act; there is nothing your mind can stand in opposition to, nothing else you need to think about. This is exactly where you want to be. When this is always true, you are you.
I ‘m being overtly poetic just to say something simple: are you who you are being? Do you know anyone who is? Have you heard of someone like this, or, rather – can you imagine this being?
Play with the body and mind.
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I read in a popular science paper that our own will may be an illusion. They had found something like that the part that makes the decision has already done that before we come up with the actual decision. We're puppets of.. ourselve?
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what you wanna hear? i'm an egomanic asshole, i'm drunk, i'm pissed off (because of several things) and i didn't read your fucking topic, though i respond to it and no, it's not funny
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On July 19 2009 08:55 Zoler wrote:
I read in a popular science paper that our own will may be an illusion. They had found something like that the part that makes the decision has already done that before we come up with the actual decision. We're puppets of.. ourselve?
I believe I heard a similar thing in a RadioLab broadcast. It said something along the lines of your brain preparing the body for an action before the person is consciously thinking of doing that action.
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On July 19 2009 08:46 Oxygen wrote:
Have you ever had the feeling that there are two people making decisions inside you?
Have you ever had the feeling that you might be schizophreniac?
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i found that after i started smoking weed, i started to noticed 2 different way of thinking for me.
There is the logical and unemotional one. and then there is the emotional and just go with it one.
Sometime one is stronger than the other. I guess its the left and right side of the brain
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Wow, this is way too much thought before going out to drink. Oxygen, you're an asshole for this, I just know I'll be perplexed at one point of the night, not able to think about anything else. I have a feeling tonight might turn into one of those, "I'm a prophet! :D" nights hahaha.
By the way, it is a great little write up, it sure makes the old brain get into action. To be honest, I don't know if I am one of the people that does things for the sake of doing them.
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I always wanted to read other peoples mind's so I can compare them to myself and see if I'm normal.
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On July 19 2009 10:41 n.DieJokes wrote:
I always wanted to read other peoples mind's so I can compare them to myself and see if I'm normal.
Dude, I thought of that too! But then I realized that there is no possible way to fully see from another person's perspective. And that makes me sad... and depressed.
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On July 19 2009 09:19 Leunal wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2009 08:55 Zoler wrote:
I read in a popular science paper that our own will may be an illusion. They had found something like that the part that makes the decision has already done that before we come up with the actual decision. We're puppets of.. ourselve? I believe I heard a similar thing in a RadioLab broadcast. It said something along the lines of your brain preparing the body for an action before the person is consciously thinking of doing that action.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121450609076407973.html?mod=hps_us_inside_today
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On July 19 2009 09:27 illu wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2009 08:46 Oxygen wrote:
Have you ever had the feeling that there are two people making decisions inside you?
Have you ever had the feeling that you might be schizophreniac?
Did you know you're probably referring to DID (dissociative identity disorder) as opposed to schizophrenia?
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On July 19 2009 08:55 Zoler wrote:
I read in a popular science paper that our own will may be an illusion. They had found something like that the part that makes the decision has already done that before we come up with the actual decision. We're puppets of.. ourselve?
That whole discussion is pretty silly in my opinion, although I'm sure a lot of very smart people - be it physiologist or philosophers - have discussed this - basically this is what happened:
Tests were done, somebody sat on a chair and at random times he was supposed to press a button - he was also supposed to memorise at which exact time he decided to do so.
While doing this he was connected to an Electroencephalogram (EEG) and it turns out that his brain is active, makes the decision to press the button something like 300 ms ( really not sure at all if this is the correct time) before he is even aware of it.
So you the things you do are decided before you are aware that you have decided, so then this whole discussion about free will was started.
But in my opinion thats just obvious that there's a lot of things going on in my brain subconsciously that eventually lead me to think the things I think, and to do the things I do, so I think the whole discussion just because of that is kind of silly.
Of course there's a lot of things going on in your subconsciousness, but that doesn't mean that it's not still who we are and it doesn't mean that there is no free will.
But anyways @OP you should seriously read the novel Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, one of my most favourite books ever, it deals with the topic of how there's two different personalities inside you - the wolf and the man - but this then again is described as a strong simplification because in reality there's not simpy two sides, but thousands to every individual and this is also how I feel.
For example I find it fascinating how when I'm with some people I behave completely differently to the way I behave around other people.
Like with strangers but also some of my friends I'm usually pretty introverted and nice and with other friends from a different city I'm often pretty arrogant and extroverted, around my parents I'm again somebody totally different and I'm pretty sure this holds true for the majority of people.
And thinking about it it really just seems like at some times I'm a completely different person compared to how I am or who I am at others.
So to answer your very first question: No, I don't feel like there's two people making decisions inside me, it's more than just two.
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Wow reading all this made me seem like I'm at a AA/NA meeting.
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I am wholly disappointed at the responses.
Ichigo, yes, something like that. The difference is not emotional, but rather learned satisfaction through creative cognition vs. impulse and instant gratification. Emotions exist in 'both'.
Interesting post about the brain, but probably faulty because of the implied redundancy.
EDIT: In retrospect, I should not be surprised. The title is provocative since no one can resist talking about themselves.
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ah fuck I hadnt even seen Idra's post, that obviouslyexplains it much better than I did, even though it's a different experiment
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EPT
