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From: rap@oliven.UUCP (Robert A. Pease)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion
Subject: Re: More levels of explanation and definitions of free
Message-ID: <377@oliven.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Jul-85 20:31:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: oliven.377
Posted: Mon Jul 29 20:31:09 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Jul-85 04:14:54 EDT
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Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
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Xref: watmath net.philosophy:2136 net.religion:7290

The topic has been free will.  Specificly wether or  not  someone  can
change  their  reaction  to  events  happening  to  them.  (A  similar
discussion is going on in net.singles about "choosing" to feel pain at
being  turned  down  for  a  date,  but  I don't recall if the two are
related or not.) The situation brought up is that Rich has an aversion
to eating apricots and wonders if he can "choose" to change that.

> > And as I said above (in my previous posting), you cannot make a change
> > in your response to something when you have an internal conflict about
> > making that change. [PEASE]
>
> But what does "liking" or "not liking" something mean?  Is it necessarily,
> as Jeff Sargent put it, a biochemical direct thing (something about my
> taste buds and nervous system that automatically sends the sensation of
> apricot chemicals to the "UGGGGHH!" center of my brain), or could it be
> that I associate, cognitively but subconsciously, the sensation of tasting
> apricots with "UGGGGHH!"?  Is that what "internal conflict" means? [RICH]

It doesn't matter what "liking" or "not liking"  means.  What  matters
is that this is a goal that you are concidering and for that goal only
you can define the above terms.  What I mean by "internal conflict" is
that  one  part of you is in conflict with another part.  Please don't
ask me to define conflict.  I think we all know what a conflict is.

Now, again, I don't know what your reasons are for not liking apricots
are (ignoring for the moment that they made you gag in the past).  All
I can do is tell you that I had the same problem with  cheese  for  at
least  15  years.  I find that now I can eat most cheese's and have no
problem.  Just 2 days ago I had my first bleu  cheese  dressing  on  a
salad.  My first taste left a little to be desired, but the more I ate
the easier it got.  So what I am saying is that it can (and has)  been
overcome.

> Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen.
> 					Rich Rosen    pyuxd!rlr

There is a story that a man told that if you believed  with  all  your
heart  and  all  your  mind  and all your soul that you could say to a
mountain, "be thou uprooted and cast into the sea," and  it  would  be
done.  How  much  easier, then, would it be to enjoy the flavor of one
of God's fruits?  But it is still your choice.
-- 

					Robert A. Pease
    {hplabs|zehntel|fortune|ios|tolerant|allegra|tymix}!oliveb!oliven!rap