Lets have a look: there are thoughts that point to something which can be got by senses.
There is a colour form whatever and thoughts add "Car".
So bits and pieces of the story point to reality and yet Car is no reality.
Does this make sense.
Yes.
There is always more to find out, isn't it? LOL
But all further steps are not for LU.
Ok, great.
Here are some more questions.
Ok, I’m using “I” and “me” a lot in these next few answers just because otherwise the language is too obscure, but I don’t think that there’s an actual “I” there. I hope this will be clear enough. :-)
So here goes:
Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How does it work?
I don’t actually know what makes things happen or how it works.
Intention is a thought that in some way expresses a plan to do something later. This kind of thought comes up on its own like other thoughts do, either as a verbal thought or as a mental image of something related to the idea of the later thing. When I look at my experience, I don’t know where the thought comes from. I might end up doing the later thing or not, and in my experience, I can’t point to what caused me to eventually do it or not. There might be thoughts about it, but these just come up, and there could have been other thoughts coming up that would have justified the other decision. I can’t tell what causes one or the other to win out.
Decisions and choices can go one of two ways that I can see. First, there’s the kind of choice where there’s a range of two or more options, but I don’t have to really weigh or assess anything because the choice is clear, and then there’s the kind of choice where I have to go back and forth and think about it to decide between two or more of the options. Either way, the thoughts that represent making the choice or that go back and forth between options just arise on their own. Calling it a decision or a choice makes it sound like there’s someone in there deciding, but I can’t find any entity or process doing that, so the terms choice and decision are really a way of describing a situation where there was more than one option available, even if there was no real choice in what was selected.
I can’t find anything in my experience that would have free will or control. There are thoughts about different courses of action, but I can’t point to a thing that selects one or the other. With respect to free will or control in regards to thoughts, thoughts just come up on their own. I can’t decide what to think ahead of time. With respect to actions, it seems like there are different ways that actions happen. Some happen without any kind of forethought at all—like just now when there was a pause in typing, I made a little frown without any thought that I would. Then some actions are simultaneous with thinking—like when I’m typing a response to you, I’m generally thinking the words as they happen, rather than thinking them first and then moving my fingers. The typing just seems to happen on its own. Then some actions are taken after thinking—like just now I thought “I’m thirsty” and then I poured some water from my thermos into a cup and drank it. But as I mentioned earlier, I didn’t have free will or control when thinking “I’m thirsty,” and then the actions of picking up the thermos, unscrewing the top, pouring the water, and drinking it, all seemed to happen on their own.
Give examples from your own recent experiences to how things happen and how things work.
An example of a small series of events involving intention and decisions/choices happened this afternoon, when my cousin and I had plans to go for a walk outside. I had been coughing a little bit in the morning, which isn’t normal for me, but I didn’t really feel sick. Even so, I thought that I should cancel out of caution due to Covid, because I didn’t want to make my cousin sick. I called him and told him that and he said, “Don’t worry about it; I generally think I’m invincible.” I said “Ok, great, I’m glad you’re invincible because I’ve been looking forward to seeing you, so let’s both wear masks and be careful to stay pretty far apart and have our walk.” He agreed, he texted me when he got here, and we went for a walk.
This morning, before the coughing, when there was a thought about the plan to go for a walk, that was an intention. Then when I was coughing, but didn’t feel sick, I had to make a decision/choice about whether or not to carry out the intention. I don’t know where the thought to call my cousin to cancel came from, but the thought happened and the calling happened. When I was speaking to him, in theory I was deciding what to say because there are innumerable ways our conversation could have gone, but the speaking was just happening. Then when he told me not to worry about it because he thinks he’s invincible, there was also a decision to be made, because obviously, the idea that he’s invincible is ridiculous, but on the other hand, we both wanted to have a walk, and I didn’t really think I was sick. So there was more than option what to do, and I can’t point to anything that made me say that I was glad that he was invincible and that we should have our walk. Again, the speaking just happened. Then when he got here and texted me, there was a ping on my phone, and I read it without deciding ahead of time to do so—the ping happened, and I picked up the phone and looked at it. Then I had the intention to go outside to meet him (and really this was also a kind of decision/choice because there was the option not to), but this just happened automatically.
What are you responsible for? Give examples from your own recent experiences to how this works.
This is so interesting because I was just thinking about the idea of personal responsibility today. I feel like this question is really a reframing of the question about control, but focused on the action, rather on the supposed actor. But if I’ve misunderstood, you can let me know.
If I’m understanding the question correctly, I’m not responsible for anything, because there’s no me to be responsible. There’s no one to claim my thoughts, words, or actions, as these just happen. The me who would claim them exists only in the content of thoughts. But interpersonally, socially, and legally, my words and actions have consequences, and so in the content of my thoughts I feel a sense of responsibility for them, and in the content of my thoughts I actually have the desire to feel that responsibility. So the way I was thinking about it today was that privately, I can look inside and see that there’s no one here who’s responsible, and therefore nothing to be responsible for, but publicly, or in relationship to other people, I’m responsible, both in the sense that I’m the agent or cause of my actions, and in the sense that I can be held accountable for them.
An example from today would be that I’m the one who called my cousin—he didn’t call me. So interpersonally, I’m responsible for that action. But really, there’s no one to claim responsibility. It’s just something that happened.
I was trying to look at things that have bigger consequences, either positive or negative, such that I might feel either pride or shame about them, and I only came up with things further in the past. We could say that I’m the one who was first in my class in law school, and I’m at least partially responsible for that because I spent a lot of time studying and worked hard to do it. Looking at me publicly, it makes sense to say that I was the one who was responsible for my hard work, and that hard work was at least to some degree a cause for my graduating first in my class (although I recognize that there were also tons of factors beyond my control in any sense, including the fact that I have the ability to work hard at the kinds of tasks that law school asks of you, whereas I would have no such ability if you wanted me to do math). But there’s no real “I” who worked hard, and so no one who can claim either the actions or the results. Then on the other side of things, many years ago I was at a party with my then-boyfriend, and I kissed someone else while we were there. Interpersonally, I’m responsible for that, and it was an awful thing to do. But really there’s no one who did it—it just happened, and so there’s no one to be responsible for it.
I don’t think that this is really any different from asking who’s eating or anything else, right? There’s no real Honeybear who’s eating, and there’s actually no eating either, but in concepts, yes, that’s the one we know as Honeybear and she’s in fact eating, and not playing the violin or something. Somehow, though, with the question of personal responsibility, I needed to think it through separately earlier today—I think because when I contemplate that there’s no me to be responsible, it leads to vague concerns about total lawlessness, immorality, and chaos. ;-)
Anything to add?
I don’t think so. Except that I love doing this, and it’s so helpful for me, and I’m so grateful for your time and your care.
Thanks, Jadzia.
Love,
Honeybear
