[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Nobody is telling you to blindly accept Lessans' claims. But the only way this knowledge is going to be understood (which would allow a person to be in the position to agree or disagree), is to put aside any prepackaged definitions because they will cause confusion. This knowledge is well supported and undeniable, but as Lessans said in the foreword,

"Please
remember that any truth revealed in a mathematical manner does not
require your approval for its validity, although it does necessitate your
understanding for recognition and development. And now my friends,
if you care to come along, let us embark; the hour is getting late."

Originally Posted by Sidhe

You can't put aside the definitions that the philosophical consensus has forged though. That's the problem.

It's really not a problem unless you make it one.

Originally Posted by Sidhe

Let's say I want to convince you the sky is green right, now you will say that is absurd its clearly not except in very polar occurrences. What if I changed the definition mid argument of blue to green. Just how far do you think the argument would get before you realised it was pointless?

That's not what he is doing. He is just clarifying certain words, but you are so stuck on the prepackaged definition that you will not even entertain the possibility that he could be right. Please read this more carefully. Maybe it will sink in, but I won't hold my breath. You might just have too big of a block to overcome.

Determinism was faced with an almost
impossible task because it assumed that heredity and environment
caused man to choose evil, and the proponents of free will believed the
opposite, that man was not caused or compelled, ‘he did it of his own
accord; he wanted to do it, he didn’t have to.’ The term ‘free will’
contains an assumption or fallacy for it implies that if man is not
caused or compelled to do anything against his will, it must be
preferred of his own free will. This is one of those logical, not
mathematical conclusions.

The expression, ‘I did it of my own free
will’ is perfectly correct when it is understood to mean ‘I did it because
I wanted to; nothing compelled or caused me to do it since I could
have acted otherwise had I desired.’ This expression was necessarily
misinterpreted because of the general ignorance that prevailed for
although it is correct in the sense that a person did something because
he wanted to, this in no way indicates that his will is free. In fact I
shall use the expression ‘of my own free will’ frequently myself which
only means ‘of my own desire.’ Are you beginning to see how words
have deceived everyone?

Because of this misinterpretation of the expression ‘man’s will is
free,’ great confusion continues to exist in any discussion surrounding
this issue for although it is true man has to make choices, he must
always prefer that which he considers good not evil for himself when
the former is offered as an alternative.

The words cause and compel are the perception of an
improper or fallacious relation because in order to be developed and
have meaning it was absolutely necessary that the expression
‘free will’ be born as their opposite, as tall gives
meaning to short. Nothing causes man to build cities, develop
scientific achievements, write books, compose music, go to war, argue
and fight, commit terrible crimes, pray to God, for these things are
mankind already at a particular stage of his development, just as
children were sacrificed at an earlier stage. These activities or motions
are the natural entelechy of man who is always developing, correcting
his mistakes, and moving in the direction of greater satisfaction by
better removing the dissatisfaction of the moment, which is a normal
compulsion of his nature over which he has absolutely no control.
Looking back in hindsight allows man to evaluate his progress and
make corrections when necessary since he is always learning from
previous experience.

The fact that will is not free demonstrates that
man has been unconsciously developing at a mathematical rate and
during every moment of his progress was doing what he had to do
because he had no free choice. But this does not mean that he was
caused to do anything against his will, for the word ‘cause’, like choice
and past, is very misleading as it implies that something other than
man himself is responsible for his actions. Four is not caused by two
plus two, it is that already.

As long as history has been recorded,
these two opposing principles were never reconciled until now. The
amazing thing is that this ignorance, this conflict of ideas, ideologies,
and desires, theology’s promulgation of free will, the millions that
criticized determinism as fallacious, was exactly as it was supposed to
be.