Okay, I'm new to this, so forgive me if I'm unclear or rehash something that
has been said before. My name is Chris Connelly. The discussion at hand
leads me to question the issue of whether or not enviornment dictates the
actions which we take. I tend to disagree with the principle that David
Prince has raised.
David Prince wrote:
You say that you can't fly(flap your arms and fly, of course), but you can go
running tomorrow. But could you go running if at running time a loved one
was rushed to the hospital, and you were called to be there? It would
physically possible for you to run, but it would be actually impossible for
you
to do so. You may say that *you* could go running if you wanted to, but I
will say that I could not. If my mom were in the hospital, and I received a
call just as I was about to go jogging, I could not make any other choice
than
be by her side.
Chris Responds:
Okay David, I see where you are coming from. You are saying that enviornment
dictates a particular response. But I don't think that you are taking into
account variences in human response. For example, why is it not possible
that somebody could make another choice. I bring another example to the
table. Take murder. A person is presented with a situation in which a crime
has been committed against them, say a relative has been murdered. Though
the environment (society's rules about vigilante justice and modern judicial
law) dictates that we let the legal system work things out, some people will
still take justice into their own hands. I think that what you are trying to
say is a blanket generalization; though people are often presented with
environments that they respond similarily to, I could find hundreds of
situations in which people react differently to their environments. Free
will dictates this. The fact that we have the choice allows for it. Just
because there is one choice that is more common than another doesn't mean
that the choice doesn't exist; look at all the people who made choices other
than those made before them time and time again.
David Prince states:
When I roll a 6-sided die, it certainly will not come up 7. However, if a 6
is rolled, was that 6 pre-determined? Science would say that if we had known
all the forces acting on the die, we could predict the outcome.
Chris Responds:
Yes, when you roll a 6 sided die, it will not come up 7. However, I take
issue with the fact that you say that science predicting it means that
environment dictates the result, and use this as an attempt to prove that
choice does not exist. The die does not have a choice as to how it responds
to its environment. The person who rolled the die, however, does. Say the
person who rolled the die throws a little harder, or softer. Then maybe a
three comes up, or a one. The choice still exists. What about the
environment would dictate how hard I throw the dice in the first place?
David Prince writes:
Your environment selects your decisions for you...But lets jump off topic to
Quality for just a second. Isn't it Quality that selects all of our choices
for us?
Chris Responds:
Correct me if I am wrong, but are you trying to connect Quality and
environment? I think that there is a definitive difference, in that Quality
is determined by interpretation; like Phaedrus says in ZMM, there is no
concrete definition of Quality. But there is a concrete definition of
environment. Like you said, you can examine environment scientifically and
make predictions. But I don't think that there is any way that you can
connect science to the study of Quality. This connection between environment
and Quality seems flawed by definition to me.
Thats all I have for now, I'm anxious to see what y'all think. By the way,
since I'm new to this, I'm glad to be hearing everybody's opinions. You have
some fascinating ones.
Chris Connelly
Student
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