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Choice

NothingtoSay
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Posted 10/16/09 - 12:40 PM: Subject: Choice	#1
What are the mechanics of choice? What's required for choice? Apparently, I have a lot of thoughts regarding this, and one of the things I keep thinking about is how choice must include a choosing thing, an aim, and choices. What are your thoughts on 'choice'? Edited by NothingtoSay on 10/16/09 - 01:02 PM

unenlightened
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Posted 10/16/09 - 02:56 PM:	#2
I'm going camping, so I shall be wanting a tent. This is the sort of tent I want: roomy and comfortable, easily errected halfway up a cliff, able to withstand a hurricane, weighing less than 100 grammes, and folding away to th size of a matchbox. Oh, and costing about 50 pence. What I don't want, is a choice; I would much rather just have that tent, and not even know anything about all the other tents on the market. Unfortunately, that tent does not exist, so I am condemned to make a choice between the various incompatible criteria. I can pay a fortune for a minute uncomfortable mountaineers tent, or I can pay another fortune for a more substantial affair that I cannot even carry, even if it would fit in the largest rucksack in the world, or I can by some cheap crap that won't even keep me dry in the desert, or stay up in a flat calm... etc. Choice! You can keep it, it's nothing but conflict; just give me what I want.
...most of our actions are the result of the past, or according to a future ideal. That's not action, that is just conformity. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

Primero
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Posted 10/17/09 - 01:32 AM:	#3
Feeling can be important for choice. Without it, feeling I mean, you need to do the cognitive equivalent of a coin flip. When presented with two options you survey the consequences(for example) of both and select the one which has the most emotionally appealing consequences.

bert1
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Posted 10/18/09 - 11:13 PM:	#4
I agree with your analysis of what is required for choice, and it provides an interesting structure around which to bring out the difference between a free and a determined act. Let's take a couple of examples, one deterministic, and one free: Determined: 1) The choosing thing: me. 2) The aim: equal redistribution of wealth. 3) The alternatives: voting for the Communist Party, or the Conservative Party. I must, in this instance, vote for the Communist Party (assuming I believe their manifesto!). Free: 1) The choosing thing: me. 2) The aim: Writing a poem to my sweetheart. 3) The alternatives: voting for the Communist Party, or the Conservative Party. I can choose either one, as neither is relevant to my aim. Edited by bert1 on 10/19/09 - 12:32 AM
"Like a ungroomed dog in which the desired look is it’s long hair but it has been so unattended to, that combing is impractical, and it might be better if the hair was cut and attended to as it grows back." d_martin

reincarnated
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Posted 10/19/09 - 12:58 AM:	#5
Primero wrote: Feeling can be important for choice. Without it, feeling I mean, you need to do the cognitive equivalent of a coin flip. When presented with two options you survey the consequences(for example) of both and select the one which has the most emotionally appealing consequences. Agree exactly. Either one's choice is (a) random (cognitive equivalent of the flip of a coin) or it is (b) determined by one's feelings/preferences/emotions/wants/desires/needs etc etc. I want my choices to be the latter, this is the only way I can be said to be responsible for my choices. How can I logically claim responsibility for my choices if they are random? bert1 wrote: Free: 1) The choosing thing: me. 2) The aim: Writing a poem to my sweetheart. 3) The alternatives: voting for the Communist Party, or the Conservative Party. I can choose either one, as neither is relevant to my aim. Your choice in this example could also be random (ie decided by the flip of a coin) - this random outcome would also satisfy your criteria. Is this what you mean by "free"? Edited by reincarnated on 10/19/09 - 01:03 AM
crumpled bits of paper, filled with imperfect thoughts... we all talk a different language, talking in defence... and if you don't give up, and don't give in, you may just be ok... (Mike & The Mechanics, "The Living Years")

bert1
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Posted 10/19/09 - 02:25 AM:	#6
reincarnated wrote: Your choice in this example could also be random (ie decided by the flip of a coin) - this random outcome would also satisfy your criteria. Is this what you mean by "free"? That's what I think full metaphyscial free will is, yes. Although I prefer the word 'arbitrary' to 'random'. 'Random' usually means causally determined, but too difficult to predict, whereas 'arbitrary' could better describe an action of the will which is undetermined by preference. (Basing the choice on a coin flip would really render it unfree in a sense, because it would be determined by whatever governs the flip of the coin.)
"Like a ungroomed dog in which the desired look is it’s long hair but it has been so unattended to, that combing is impractical, and it might be better if the hair was cut and attended to as it grows back." d_martin

peter rabbit
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Posted 10/19/09 - 06:48 AM:	#7
Surely this question "what should I choose" is completely meaningless unless I have first successfully answered the question, "who am I?"

treemanshope
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Posted 10/19/09 - 07:04 AM:	#8
Your choices are based on what you determine as adequate conduct (feelings/preferences/emotions/wants/desires/needs etc etc.). Only when the criteria has been satisfied then do you make your choice. Your choices are structure determined. You are constantly changing your structure so your choices are changing. As long as you maintain your organization you are making choices based on your structure. Your structure determines what is adequate.
The words of peace are just words, it is man that gives them flesh. Bring peace into the material world. Or, bring something else. treemanshope.

mway
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Posted 10/19/09 - 04:24 PM:	#9
Human choice is as powerful as a mountain choosing when and where to have an avalanche. It's an illusion. It's the synaptic outcome of a gigantic number of variables accumulated by your brain over your life time.
Lame is to Wav, as the Brain is to Reality.

NothingtoSay
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Posted 10/20/09 - 01:29 PM:	#10
I'd say that choice is definitely dependent on factors and things that affect us (if there is such a thing as choice) or at least it appears to be. Now I thought that if there is choice, there'd have to be something that chooses, right?--then I thought whether or not something that chooses must be unchanging, and I've come to the idea that an unchanging choosing thing would always cause the same change (would always operate the same way, would always do the same thing, would always choose the same thing), and given that we appear to choose different things, I don't think whatever chooses is unchanging. But the idea of this choosing thing's "nature" kind of annoyed me--why can't it be in an unchanging thing's nature to choose different things? And I thought about how something can achieve one aim differently, and compared this to how the choosing thing would choose. Maybe the choosing thing aims for one thing, and, given different factors that affect the things it uses to achieve its aim (the body and the mind, for example), it appears to be choosing different things because, even though it aims at one thing, it takes "different routes" to reach it. I’d say maybe it’s unchanging in so far as its aim (end) is unchanging. But then again, I’m wondering right now what choosing things need to change, for apparently a choosing thing can change if its aim changes. So how would its aim change? Also, I’ve been thinking about whether or not it’s relevant for us to talk about choosing things changing from being choosing things to things that cannot choose. Now for a choosing thing to actually choose, does it have to be completely unaffected by things? And if it is unaffected, how would it choose, why would it choose? How would this work, that an unaffected thing would choose?--the idea of its not being affected or lead on by anything (except maybe itself) to choose and that there’d be no choices available to it in the first place keep hitting me when I think of this. I think maybe it’s within a choosing thing’s nature to be able to identify choices. What’s required for choice to be possible? Wouldn’t we say that choice would be impossible without multiple choices? For if there is only one choice, would we say that a choosing thing chooses it? If there are no choices, then how can anything choose? And wouldn't we say that there must be some aim for choice to be possible? If there is no aim, then why would something intentionally choose? So a choosing thing, an aim, and choices seem like they must exist for choice to be possible. But I think I'm lost when it comes to the nature of a choosing thing. What do you think would be the nature of a choosing thing? How would it be affected by other things around it? Today I had a conversation about ends. I again discussed whether a choosing thing needs to be the author of its own end, some way or the other. I thought a good way of starting this is to actually build our own (perfect?) scenario of choice. How choice would be possible if specific things applied, just as we’d say that running is possible if we have legs, for example. For those of you who don’t believe in choice, what would you say is required for choice to be possible? And for those of you who believe in choice, what would you say are the reasons why you believe in choice?

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