B4 Question #5
Well kids :) I haven't put up a question for a while so I need to repent. So, let me say...on the topic of consciousness... I think the most fascinating thing about this unit is the idea that we have a two-track mind. Our realization of an action seems to lag behind the actual action itself. In other words, by the time you realize you have told your body to do something, a message had already been sent to do what you want your body to do. Sounds crazy I know. But it seems that things happen without us even being aware of it. As I ponder this concept, I can't help but think of the concept of free-will. As humans, we pride ourselves in our ability to make conscious decisions but now it appears that an action can take place without us even being aware of it. So, what implications does this have on the concept of free-will and personal responsibility? How can we be responsible for an action when that action occured without us even realizing it? Anyway, think about this and help me resolve this conundrum.
posted by Mr. Fong | 4:50 PM
18 Comments:
Well... For you to make that action you have to be thinking about it and have the intention of doing it in the first place?
i dont think you should worry about it too much. every day there are some lazy scientists who try to find reasons to not be responsible for their actions.
Well, we DO have free will. I think it's just matter of instinct. We're creatures of ritual and routine, and in the end, that only affects small and mundane things, which I figure I was planning to do it anyway, so props to my brain for being on top of things. I mean, it's not like I'm going to kill someone before I realized it or if I didn't want to.
I think that our "two track mind" is a result of our habits and personality based on past decisions. Although, I'll admit, that where many of our original impulses come from alludes any clear explanation that I can think of. However, I believe that as humans we have the ability to change our habits and "natural impulses" and thus create new natural reactions more to our liking.
Yes you have free will but in a way you are doomed to certain things. Like how a god must see the universe. He knows everything but you still have choices.
if you do something without realizing it then what you did probably isn't that big of a deal. its not like your going to go kill someone then say oh i didn't realize that i did that.
It is hard to comprehend that our bodies act before we finish commanding them to act. It sounds like your body "jumps the gun," like getting ahead of you. I believe that we are in control of our choices and our bodies are very proactive. I believe that we are responsible for our own actions because you should be pretty familiar with yourself and how you react to certain things.
i think to an extent the stuff we do, we realize that we are doing it. but with small factors like pulling our hand away from something hot than we don't it comes naturally. but our actions do come from our personality.
I think it just depends on the situation. Most of the time we DO have free will, but there are just circumstances under which we are not fully responsible for our actions. Sometimes our reflexes just take over. For example: If someone scares us in the dark we might hit him or her in the face, even though it is our friend, our brother, our MOM or whoever else, and we didn't actually want to hit them. Most of the time that is pretty useful, because we just react way faster than we would if analyzed the whole situation beforehand. It can even, under extreme circumstances, save our lives. Anyways, the border between free will or not is very unclear and it is hard to tell when we are responsible and when not. I personally think we have free will most of the time.
I think this 'responsibility' towards your actions being acted without you realizing it, isn't putting us humans in a bad light (if one were ever to say such a thing) since some, many, take pride in having free will. Why? Because reactions are impulsive and we are born with them. Human nature. Like we talked about in class. If we weren't to blink when someone throws water at us, we would get water in our eyes and that could hurt -especially if this water came from the Lake or something. If we were to have completely free will, or I can't really put it that way, but in lack of other ways of saying it at the moment I'll just leave it, we would have been too dang slow to react and we wouldn't be on top of the food chain. :) Because we are. Ish. Holy cow, I just confuse myself more than the questions I tried to answer did. Go Othilie..
I think that we all have free-will but our actions have roots behind them. Like if you have grow up in an environment of high standards and you have tried your whole life to be good and kind, your not all of a sudden going to do something bad or unkind because you don't have the free-will to contrl those actions. So I think it goes back to how you were nurtured. How you were raised is is going to effect your actions and behaviors. So who you want to become, is going to reflect your actions. If that made any sense :)
I think the whole idea of having a two track mind is pretty dumb and super cOnfusing. To say that our body already knows what to do befor you even think it is way to deep for my brain. And yes it pretty much defeats the purpose of free will because our body and brain have basically decided what to do for us without us even knowing it.
I don't really know how I feel about that. I understand that we are prideful thinking we are in control of our actions, but when you said that there was a signal already sent to our brain telling us what was gonna happen, that ind of changed my mind. I do like to think that we are in control of our actions. It may not be 100% true, but what else is there?
well i do believe we have free will for the most part, but if things happen too quickly, say we get attacked by someone a lot of what we will do would be reflexes. like if you trained in martial arts and you got attacked, muscle memory might take over to help you survive, but i think for the most part we do have a say in what we do or dont do.
Well didnt we have to think of the action first? Our body dose what our mind tells it to do. So we should be responsible. -mckayla johnson
I think our two-track mind is based on habbits. We have the part where we consciously decide to do something and then where we don't decide to do something but do it anyways. The thought had to start somewhere and then it had to become a habit. Habits just don't form over night they are produced through repeated actions, so yes we are responible for all of our actions.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I don't think that we are entirely in control of our actions. If you push someone of a cliff, their arms will wave around like their trying to fly. If you actually scare someone instantly, they will jump. If something is enough to put you over the line, you will react.
Post a Comment
<< Home