I think Spaniards think Spinoza was a Spanish Jew (Espinoza). I realize this could probably be resolved to my satisfaction by Wikipedia.
--- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 6:50 AM Jochen Fromm <j...@cas-group.net> wrote: > Spinoza, a Dutch contemporary of Leibniz, argued as well in his book > "Ethics" that it is the lack of knowledge & awareness that helps to create > the illusion of freedom: > > "Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men believe > themselves free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and > unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined". > > What I like about these 400 year old philosophers is that they have > tackled the really big questions. And they worked interdisciplinary, > because fields like psychology or physics have not been invented yet. > > -J. > > > > -------- Original message -------- > From: Eric Charles <eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com> > Date: 2/28/21 06:05 (GMT+01:00) > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjective experience & free will > > Skinner had the book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" (1971) that made a > similar argument. Basically, he argued that while we didn't have full > explanations of behavior yet, we had made enough progress to be confident > that behavior could be explained in various ways - development, immediate > causation, etc. - in all situations. If we can agree on that, or even > mostly-agree on that, what happens to concepts like "freedom", which seem > to be applied primarily in situations where we can't obviously explain > someone's behavior? > > When I train a rat to press a lever when the light in the cage > illuminates, is the rat free? If your life has trained you to put on your > right sock first, then the left, are you free? Etc., etc. And certainly > sometimes people feel as if their choices are more "free" or less "free", > but what do we do with that? Presumably we can also train people to > generally feel free or not, under ostensibly identical current > circumstances? (Note how many conversations about White Privilege, or > Wealth Inequality, focus on how people who were given great benefits early > in life often feel as if they were independently successful based on > initiative and merit.) > > The issue of variation in feeling "free" under ostensibly similar > circumstances, is a huge dilemma for me, as I don't feel social pressures > in many situations where others do. "I wasn't free to talk in the meeting", > someone says. And I look confused, because so far as I could tell they were > clearly *free *to talk in the meeting, but *chose *not to for > various reasons. > > "You don't understand how hard it is to X, under circumstances Y!" Well... > I *do *understand why it might *feel *hard... but that sounds like an > explanation for why you *chose *not to. We aren't talking about how hard > it is to run a sub-6-minute mile, or sing an Opera, we are talking about > how it can feel hard to call someone out for a racist comment in the middle > of a meeting (or something like that). In fact, I often have people come to > me before key meetings and ask me to bring up points they don't feel free > to bring up. Am I "free" because I find that relatively easy? Are they "not > free" because they find it hard? Does it matter that, as Jochen points out, > one could certainly look into my and the other person's past, or into my > and the other person's physiology, and construct an explanation for why > each of us behave-in-meetings the way we do now? Or is it, as Skinner > suggested, time to just move "beyond" such questions? > > > > <echar...@american.edu> > > > On Sat, Feb 27, 2021 at 4:29 PM Jochen Fromm <j...@cas-group.net> wrote: > >> I am reading a book about Leibniz and started to wonder if the hard >> problem of consciousness could be the reason why we have the illusion of >> free will and can not predict how others will act. >> >> From the outside a person seems to have free will in principle. From the >> inside everybody feels something different and is controlled by emotions >> based on subjective experience, which is unknown to others, because the >> individual is not transparent and the history is not known. >> >> Once we investigate the life of a person, for example by a detective as >> part of a criminal investigation, or as movie viewers in a cinema, we start >> to understand why a person acts they way it does. The more we step into the >> footsteps of a person, the better we understand the feelings, goals and >> motives. >> >> Could it be that the same thing which prevents us from understanding the >> subjective experiences of others also creates the illusion of free will? >> >> -J. >> >> >> >> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam >> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >> > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >
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