“Revolution in Thought: A new look at determinism and free will"

[bilby]

He explained that putting the eyes in the same category as hearing or touch would be analogous to putting a potato in the same category as a fruit.

We do that. The category is "Vegetable".

You're welcome.

 

[bilby]

You are right to a degree because there is a lot hypothesizing in science. Much is thrown out, but much is kept because it works and has practical application.

No, you are confusing science with technology and engineering. Technologists and engineers keep stuff because it works and has practical applications. Scientists only discard that which is observed to be false.

Hypotheses fall into one of only two classes: 'Falsified', and 'Not yet falsified'.

If technologists and engineers want to go with stuff in the second category for practical reasons, they do so at their own risk.

 

[bilby]

It may be true that something appears more plausible by the failure to prove it to be false, but in this case, the claim that the eyes are a sense organ may not to be as plausible as once thought because it IS being proven false.

...just not in any way you are able to articulate.

Claims are not evidence.

 

[bilby]

Anything is possible, when you don't understand how anything works.

I never said anything is possible.

I never said you did.

That's what I thought you implied. I'm not a gullible individual. I'm a skeptic by nature.

Sorry for the confusion. I wasn't implying that you thought anything was possible; I was implying that you don't understand how anything (particularly optics, vision, eyes, photons, relativity, space, time, evolutionary biology, logic, reason, the scientific method, skepticism, reality, etc.) works.

And that you are therefore able to justify to yourself literally any conclusion you like.

Having done so, you present your brilliance to the world, and are surprised and horrified when the world responds not with awe, but with ridicule. Which you mistakenly take as an attack on you personally, and not on your ideas.

As there is no reason for complete strangers to attack you personally unless they are just cruel and mean, you conclude that everyone is needlessly mean and cruel.

But they aren't. They are just unconvinced by your ideas, because unlike you they have the tools to effectively evaluate those ideas, and see their true lack of worth.

 

[pood]

Sorry, I'm curious about the light and eyes claim but don't have time to search.... could that be quoted again?

The author claims that if God turned on the sun at noon, people on earth would see it immediately, but not see their neighbors, or anything else, for eight and a half minutes. All we would see is this big bright ball in the sky until the light arrived and we could see everything else. Then, after the photons arrive, they hang around to “smile on” those who wake uo in the morning. so we can see from that point on without any more light arriving from the sun. Also, light is made of molecules, says the author.

It can't be that.

If you mean that it can’t be that the author claimed these things, he did. If you mean it can’t be that these claims are true, you are correct.

I got the impression that it was more a case of mockery than representation. If that's not the case, the claim doesn't make sense.

It is indeed the claim, and it indeed does not make sense. Also, the author claims that the eye is not a sense organ.

If so, how does it relate to the free will debate in relation to determinism and changing the world for the better?

It’s all part of a gigantic whole that must be accepted in its entirety or rejected entirely. If you do reject it, it’s because the claims make you furious since they challenge your precious world view, or you simply didn’t understand the claims, because if you did understand them, you would automatically agree with them (unless they infuriated you because they challenged your precious world view, of course). As peacegirl has said many times in other venues, if the author was wrong about anything, he would have said so; since he didn’t say so, he must be right. The implications are vast. In “the new world,” as the author styles it, after everyone has accepted the author’s “undeniable” claims (such as that the eye is not a sense organ, for example), it will be “mathematically impossible” for married couples to desire to share the same bed, and all forms of “homo-sexuality,” as the author. styles it, will pass by the wayside in due course. Also, there are three types of “homo-sexuals.” Then, too, it turns out that people will fall in love with each other’s sex organs, not with the person, in the “new world.” There are any other fascinating consequences, too many to list in a short post.

 

[DBT]

In a deterministic world, everyone acts according to their will (being determined, we must), where how we see the world and respond to its conditions is determined by our genetic make-up and life experiences. We don't have a singular will, but a set of competing wills, to do this, no do that, where the dominant drive takes precedence.....just like the world at large, business and profit motives competing against environmental degradation, some wanting war, others peace, etcetera, and the world is reflection of our divisions, our competing wills, where our dominant wants and needs as a society take precedence....

 

[peacegirl]

I don't mean to offend you peacegirl but the bits that I've read from your posts don't make a lot of sense, even if you mean well.. It sort of reminds me of some of the beliefs of the Baha'i Faith. They believed that by the year 2000, we would enter the so called lesser peace. That didn't happen, did it? The next belief is that we would experience years of turmoil and then eventually, the entire world would become Baha'is and we would enter "The Most Great Peace", a time when wars would end, racial and gender equality would exist and life would be happy for all. These are just lovely fairy tales and in my not well educated opinion regarding philosophy, the idea that accepting we have no free will is somehow going to lead the world to some happy peaceful state makes about as much sense as the religion of my ex husband that I just mentioned. Sadly, he was obsessed with his religion. I guess it was determined to be that we divorced and I found a better partner who is an atheist.

I sometimes vacillate between hard and soft determinism personally, but to be brutally honest, It's not important to me, which one is correct. I simply think that our behavior is all the result of our genetic and environmental influences and new influences can sometimes change us.

But, the only good thing about believing that we have little or no free will, imo, is that is makes it easier not to be judgmental. One of the first things I was taught when I started studying to be an RN, was not to judge my patients, but to treat them all with the same compassion and quality of care. I did my best to do that for 42 years. It helped me to be more compassionate by not judging my patients, even though some could be mean and/or difficult to deal with. I'll spare you examples.

I'm sure you did a lot of good. And, yes, believing that we have no (not little) free will does make us more compassionate and nonjudgmental, although if someone hurts you, it is a normal reaction to retaliate in some way. Very few people can turn the other cheek, but that's not what this discovery is telling people to do.

And, here's the thing, we evolved from the great apes, and they are often violent warriors with the exception of the matriarchal bonobos. But, even bonobos will be violent in some circumstances. They just usually use sex as a way to avoid conflict. Considering that we have little or no free will and that we evolved to be violent animals in some given circumstances, how on earth is accepting that we have no free will going to lead us to a better world? I didn't read all of your walls of texts as this is a place to discuss things, not a place to read a book that someone likes.

That is exactly why I'm doomed here. No one has read the book in its entirety which puts the author at an extreme disadvantage.

Perhaps I missed your point, but that is the impression I got from what I have read. We can't change who we are as a species. Each one of us, who has good moral values can perhaps do some volunteer work, try to treat others well, avoid conflict, and sometimes even be a positive influence on others. But there have always been wars, violence, hatred etc. and sadly, as long as our species exists, there will be to some extent. Considering how we have a tendency to destroy our own habitat, now at a very fast rate, I do wonder how long our species might even exist, if we continue doing damage to our habitat at the current rate. ( No, I don't want to discuss that here )

The part about god in a recent post, sounds like gibberish to me. I assume you copied that from the author of your book. No?

You mean about God turning on the sun at noon? There is no way you could understand it unless you followed his observations and how he came to the conclusion that we see in real time. This has gotten a lot of people really mad.

Btw, I do agree that our justice system is a mess. I don't support the death penalty and I think prisons should be humane places that offer the opportunity for rehab, although a psychopath isn't going to be capable of changing, unless we discover some treatment for that brain disorder of the frontal cortex. You will never get enough humans to agree on that. The concept of free will is ingrained in most humans and very few are interested in having a discussion about it.

During the transition to this new world, there may be people who have no conscience and would murder and rape no matter what the environment was like. But this is not the majority. These people would have to be confined just like they are today, but as a new generation is born, these types of individuals would never turn into killers because the environment that created them would no longer exist.

I'm not judging you, but I think you could accomplish more by volunteering in a school, or some other way where you could be a positive influence on a number of people who need help, instead of trying to convince people here that your favorite book will solve the world's problems. Your'e wasting your time. I'm retired and I have lots of time to waste.

Volunteer work is great, but right now I want to promote this book because it is that important. Thank you though for your suggestion.

 

[peacegirl]

Here's your thinking: How dare he say that science wasn't right about something that has been accepted as fact for so long. You need more than that to prove him wrong.

Another ad hom to report when I find the time.

Indeed, they are just daft claims, because he offers no MECHANISM for how the eyes are supposed to work under his nutty scenario. Stuff like “we see, when something is big enough and bright enough to be seen,” is not an explanatory mechanism. You were schooled on this many times at FF and other boards as well.

That's true. This was not an explanatory mechanism, but he did explain what was in part of the chapter I posted: Words, Not Reality. He was just saying that brightness and size are a requirement in real time vision.

That was not his proof. In fact, he didn't even have this in all of his books but he did have his claim that the eyes and brain don't function like the other four senses. I refuse to listen to you Pood. You don't understand his evidence, or you have a block (I'm not sure which) as to why man's will is not free and why the eyes don't function like the other four senses. If you could, you would point out exactly where he was wrong, but all you do is keep saying that he was wrong over and over with no explanation as to why.

All of the above is ad hominem as well. And yes, I and many others have repeatedly pointed out exactly where he was wrong. At FF, The Lone Ranger, an evolutionary biologist, wrote you a detailed, illustrated 33-page essay that discussed the eyes down the molecular level. You admitted that your refused to read it.

The Lone Ranger described the internal structure of the eyes in depth, but there was nothing that proved we see in delayed time. It wasn't even discussed.

 

[peacegirl]

Sorry, I'm curious about the light and eyes claim but don't have time to search.... could that be quoted again?

I posted some of Chapter Four: Words, Not Reality. Just go to post 1086 and read from there.

 

[peacegirl]

He explained that putting the eyes in the same category as hearing or touch would be analogous to putting a potato in the same category as a fruit.

We do that. The category is "Vegetable".

You're welcome.

This is getting dumber by the minute.

Everything you need to know about how potatoes are grown and used

Are potatoes fruits or vegetables? Here's what you need to know about this delicious and hearty harvest.

www.happysprout.com

 

[DBT]

I don't mean to offend you peacegirl but the bits that I've read from your posts don't make a lot of sense, even if you mean well.. It sort of reminds me of some of the beliefs of the Baha'i Faith. They believed that by the year 2000, we would enter the so called lesser peace. That didn't happen, did it? The next belief is that we would experience years of turmoil and then eventually, the entire world would become Baha'is and we would enter "The Most Great Peace", a time when wars would end, racial and gender equality would exist and life would be happy for all. These are just lovely fairy tales and in my not well educated opinion regarding philosophy, the idea that accepting we have no free will is somehow going to lead the world to some happy peaceful state makes about as much sense as the religion of my ex husband that I just mentioned. Sadly, he was obsessed with his religion. I guess it was determined to be that we divorced and I found a better partner who is an atheist.

I sometimes vacillate between hard and soft determinism personally, but to be brutally honest, It's not important to me, which one is correct. I simply think that our behavior is all the result of our genetic and environmental influences and new influences can sometimes change us.

But, the only good thing about believing that we have little or no free will, imo, is that is makes it easier not to be judgmental. One of the first things I was taught when I started studying to be an RN, was not to judge my patients, but to treat them all with the same compassion and quality of care. I did my best to do that for 42 years. It helped me to be more compassionate by not judging my patients, even though some could be mean and/or difficult to deal with. I'll spare you examples.

I'm sure you did a lot of good. And, yes, believing that we have no (not little) free will does make us more compassionate and nonjudgmental, although if someone hurts you, it is a normal reaction to retaliate in some way. Very few people can turn the other cheek, but that's not what this discovery is telling people to do.

And, here's the thing, we evolved from the great apes, and they are often violent warriors with the exception of the matriarchal bonobos. But, even bonobos will be violent in some circumstances. They just usually use sex as a way to avoid conflict. Considering that we have little or no free will and that we evolved to be violent animals in some given circumstances, how on earth is accepting that we have no free will going to lead us to a better world? I didn't read all of your walls of texts as this is a place to discuss things, not a place to read a book that someone likes.

That is exactly why I'm doomed here. No one has read the book in its entirety which puts the author at an extreme disadvantage.

Perhaps I missed your point, but that is the impression I got from what I have read. We can't change who we are as a species. Each one of us, who has good moral values can perhaps do some volunteer work, try to treat others well, avoid conflict, and sometimes even be a positive influence on others. But there have always been wars, violence, hatred etc. and sadly, as long as our species exists, there will be to some extent. Considering how we have a tendency to destroy our own habitat, now at a very fast rate, I do wonder how long our species might even exist, if we continue doing damage to our habitat at the current rate. ( No, I don't want to discuss that here )

The part about god in a recent post, sounds like gibberish to me. I assume you copied that from the author of your book. No?

You mean about God turning on the sun at noon? There is no way you could understand it unless you followed his observations and how he came to the conclusion that we see in real time. This has gotten a lot of people really mad.

Btw, I do agree that our justice system is a mess. I don't support the death penalty and I think prisons should be humane places that offer the opportunity for rehab, although a psychopath isn't going to be capable of changing, unless we discover some treatment for that brain disorder of the frontal cortex. You will never get enough humans to agree on that. The concept of free will is ingrained in most humans and very few are interested in having a discussion about it.

During the transition to this new world, there may be people who have no conscience and would murder and rape no matter what the environment was like. But this is not the majority. These people would have to be confined just like they are today, but as a new generation is born, these types of individuals would never turn into killers because the environment that created them would no longer exist.

I'm not judging you, but I think you could accomplish more by volunteering in a school, or some other way where you could be a positive influence on a number of people who need help, instead of trying to convince people here that your favorite book will solve the world's problems. Your'e wasting your time. I'm retired and I have lots of time to waste.

Volunteer work is great, but right now I want to promote this book because it is that important. Thank you though for your suggestion.

But the physic properties of the world do allow us to see things instantly. As an event happens, light reflects and pressure waves are formed, which is acquired by the senses and processed by the brain, which uses that information to generate the sight and sound, etc, of that event milliseconds later....Libet, Haynes, et al.

 

[peacegirl]

Anything is possible, when you don't understand how anything works.

I never said anything is possible.

I never said you did.

That's what I thought you implied. I'm not a gullible individual. I'm a skeptic by nature.

Sorry for the confusion. I wasn't implying that you thought anything was possible; I was implying that you don't understand how anything (particularly optics, vision, eyes, photons, relativity, space, time, evolutionary biology, logic, reason, the scientific method, skepticism, reality, etc.) works.

And that you are therefore able to justify to yourself literally any conclusion you like.

Not true. That is called the Dunning-Kruger effect.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...fect?msockid=0a6493c9e9d66dc8099f87d2e8466cb5

Having done so, you present your brilliance to the world, and are surprised and horrified when the world responds not with awe, but with ridicule. Which you mistakenly take as an attack on you personally, and not on your ideas.

This is not about my brilliance. It's not about me at all.

As there is no reason for complete strangers to attack you personally unless they are just cruel and mean, you conclude that everyone is needlessly mean and cruel.

But they aren't. They are just unconvinced by your ideas, because unlike you they have the tools to effectively evaluate those ideas, and see their true lack of worth.

Who are these people anyway? Nageli, the leading authority on genetics at the time, rejected Mendel's work, but he ended up being wrong. The same thing is happening here although no one here is a leading authority on anything.

This discovery will be presented in a step-by-step fashion that brooks no opposition and your awareness of this matter will preclude the possibility of someone adducing his rank, title, affiliation, or the long tenure of an accepted belief as a standard from which he thinks he qualifies to disagree with knowledge that contains within itself undeniable proof of its veracity. In other words, your background, the color of your skin, your religion, the number of years you went to school, how many titles you hold, your I.Q., your country, what you do for a living, your being some kind of expert like Nageli (or anything else you care to throw in) has no relation whatsoever to the undeniable knowledge that 3 is to 6 what 4 is to 8. So please don’t be too hasty in using what you have been taught as a standard to judge what has not even been revealed to you yet.

 

[peacegirl]

I don't mean to offend you peacegirl but the bits that I've read from your posts don't make a lot of sense, even if you mean well.. It sort of reminds me of some of the beliefs of the Baha'i Faith. They believed that by the year 2000, we would enter the so called lesser peace. That didn't happen, did it? The next belief is that we would experience years of turmoil and then eventually, the entire world would become Baha'is and we would enter "The Most Great Peace", a time when wars would end, racial and gender equality would exist and life would be happy for all. These are just lovely fairy tales and in my not well educated opinion regarding philosophy, the idea that accepting we have no free will is somehow going to lead the world to some happy peaceful state makes about as much sense as the religion of my ex husband that I just mentioned. Sadly, he was obsessed with his religion. I guess it was determined to be that we divorced and I found a better partner who is an atheist.

I sometimes vacillate between hard and soft determinism personally, but to be brutally honest, It's not important to me, which one is correct. I simply think that our behavior is all the result of our genetic and environmental influences and new influences can sometimes change us.

But, the only good thing about believing that we have little or no free will, imo, is that is makes it easier not to be judgmental. One of the first things I was taught when I started studying to be an RN, was not to judge my patients, but to treat them all with the same compassion and quality of care. I did my best to do that for 42 years. It helped me to be more compassionate by not judging my patients, even though some could be mean and/or difficult to deal with. I'll spare you examples.

I'm sure you did a lot of good. And, yes, believing that we have no (not little) free will does make us more compassionate and nonjudgmental, although if someone hurts you, it is a normal reaction to retaliate in some way. Very few people can turn the other cheek, but that's not what this discovery is telling people to do.

And, here's the thing, we evolved from the great apes, and they are often violent warriors with the exception of the matriarchal bonobos. But, even bonobos will be violent in some circumstances. They just usually use sex as a way to avoid conflict. Considering that we have little or no free will and that we evolved to be violent animals in some given circumstances, how on earth is accepting that we have no free will going to lead us to a better world? I didn't read all of your walls of texts as this is a place to discuss things, not a place to read a book that someone likes.

That is exactly why I'm doomed here. No one has read the book in its entirety which puts the author at an extreme disadvantage.

Perhaps I missed your point, but that is the impression I got from what I have read. We can't change who we are as a species. Each one of us, who has good moral values can perhaps do some volunteer work, try to treat others well, avoid conflict, and sometimes even be a positive influence on others. But there have always been wars, violence, hatred etc. and sadly, as long as our species exists, there will be to some extent. Considering how we have a tendency to destroy our own habitat, now at a very fast rate, I do wonder how long our species might even exist, if we continue doing damage to our habitat at the current rate. ( No, I don't want to discuss that here )

The part about god in a recent post, sounds like gibberish to me. I assume you copied that from the author of your book. No?

You mean about God turning on the sun at noon? There is no way you could understand it unless you followed his observations and how he came to the conclusion that we see in real time. This has gotten a lot of people really mad.
During the transition to this new world, there may be people who have no conscience and would murder and rape no matter what the environment was like. But this is not the majority. These people would have to be confined just like they are today, but as a new generation is born, these types of individuals would never turn into killers because the environment that created them would no longer exist.

I'm not judging you, but I think you could accomplish more by volunteering in a school, or some other way where you could be a positive influence on a number of people who need help, instead of trying to convince people here that your favorite book will solve the world's problems. Your'e wasting your time. I'm retired and I have lots of time to waste.

Volunteer work is great, but right now I want to promote this book because it is that important. Thank you though for your suggestion.

But the physic properties of the world do allow us to see things instantly. As an event happens, light reflects and pressure waves are formed, which is acquired by the senses and processed by the brain, which uses that information to generate the sight and sound, etc, of that event milliseconds later....Libet, Haynes, et al.

DBT, if you want to count that as the time it takes to process the information in the brain, there is really no conflict. He was only making a claim that light is at the eye instantly when our gaze is looking at an object. The few milliseconds it takes for processing is not what the author was trying to point out. It does not take time for light to get to the eye only because of how the eyes function, not light (if he was right, and I believe he was). No amount of anger on Pood's part is going to change the truth.

 

[DBT]

I don't mean to offend you peacegirl but the bits that I've read from your posts don't make a lot of sense, even if you mean well.. It sort of reminds me of some of the beliefs of the Baha'i Faith. They believed that by the year 2000, we would enter the so called lesser peace. That didn't happen, did it? The next belief is that we would experience years of turmoil and then eventually, the entire world would become Baha'is and we would enter "The Most Great Peace", a time when wars would end, racial and gender equality would exist and life would be happy for all. These are just lovely fairy tales and in my not well educated opinion regarding philosophy, the idea that accepting we have no free will is somehow going to lead the world to some happy peaceful state makes about as much sense as the religion of my ex husband that I just mentioned. Sadly, he was obsessed with his religion. I guess it was determined to be that we divorced and I found a better partner who is an atheist.

I sometimes vacillate between hard and soft determinism personally, but to be brutally honest, It's not important to me, which one is correct. I simply think that our behavior is all the result of our genetic and environmental influences and new influences can sometimes change us.

But, the only good thing about believing that we have little or no free will, imo, is that is makes it easier not to be judgmental. One of the first things I was taught when I started studying to be an RN, was not to judge my patients, but to treat them all with the same compassion and quality of care. I did my best to do that for 42 years. It helped me to be more compassionate by not judging my patients, even though some could be mean and/or difficult to deal with. I'll spare you examples.

I'm sure you did a lot of good. And, yes, believing that we have no (not little) free will does make us more compassionate and nonjudgmental, although if someone hurts you, it is a normal reaction to retaliate in some way. Very few people can turn the other cheek, but that's not what this discovery is telling people to do.

And, here's the thing, we evolved from the great apes, and they are often violent warriors with the exception of the matriarchal bonobos. But, even bonobos will be violent in some circumstances. They just usually use sex as a way to avoid conflict. Considering that we have little or no free will and that we evolved to be violent animals in some given circumstances, how on earth is accepting that we have no free will going to lead us to a better world? I didn't read all of your walls of texts as this is a place to discuss things, not a place to read a book that someone likes.

That is exactly why I'm doomed here. No one has read the book in its entirety which puts the author at an extreme disadvantage.

Perhaps I missed your point, but that is the impression I got from what I have read. We can't change who we are as a species. Each one of us, who has good moral values can perhaps do some volunteer work, try to treat others well, avoid conflict, and sometimes even be a positive influence on others. But there have always been wars, violence, hatred etc. and sadly, as long as our species exists, there will be to some extent. Considering how we have a tendency to destroy our own habitat, now at a very fast rate, I do wonder how long our species might even exist, if we continue doing damage to our habitat at the current rate. ( No, I don't want to discuss that here )

The part about god in a recent post, sounds like gibberish to me. I assume you copied that from the author of your book. No?

You mean about God turning on the sun at noon? There is no way you could understand it unless you followed his observations and how he came to the conclusion that we see in real time. This has gotten a lot of people really mad.
During the transition to this new world, there may be people who have no conscience and would murder and rape no matter what the environment was like. But this is not the majority. These people would have to be confined just like they are today, but as a new generation is born, these types of individuals would never turn into killers because the environment that created them would no longer exist.

I'm not judging you, but I think you could accomplish more by volunteering in a school, or some other way where you could be a positive influence on a number of people who need help, instead of trying to convince people here that your favorite book will solve the world's problems. Your'e wasting your time. I'm retired and I have lots of time to waste.

Volunteer work is great, but right now I want to promote this book because it is that important. Thank you though for your suggestion.

But the physic properties of the world do allow us to see things instantly. As an event happens, light reflects and pressure waves are formed, which is acquired by the senses and processed by the brain, which uses that information to generate the sight and sound, etc, of that event milliseconds later....Libet, Haynes, et al.

DBT, if you want to count that as the time it takes to process the information in the brain, there is really no conflict. He was only making a claim that light is at the eye instantly when our gaze is looking at an object. The few milliseconds it takes for processing is not what the author was trying to point out. It does not take time for light to get to the eye only because of how the eyes function, not light (if he was right, and I believe he was). No amount of anger on Pood's part is going to change the truth.

Light has a finite speed. The time it takes for light reflecting from an object from a short distance away is infinitesimal, but not instant. The more distant the object, the longer it takes to arrive, where we are seeing how the object looked when the photons were emitted or reflected and we are seeing its past state.

So I'm not sure how this relates to free will or a way to improve the world. I've got a lot going on, but I'll see if I can make time to read the book.

 

[pood]

The Lone Ranger described the internal structure of the eyes in depth, but there was nothing that proved we see in delayed time. It wasn't even discussed.

False. That was discussed in the article, as well as by me and a shit-ton of others in the thread, including two astrophysicists.

 

[pood]

This is getting dumber by the minute.

Guess who’s to blame for that?

 

[pood]

DBT, if you want to count that as the time it takes to process the information in the brain, there is really no conflict. He was only making a claim that light is at the eye instantly when our gaze is looking at an object. The few milliseconds it takes for processing is not what the author was trying to point out. It does not take time for light to get to the eye only because of how the eyes function, not light (if he was right, and I believe he was). No amount of anger on Pood's part is going to change the truth.

Ad hominem, in addition to being false. The anger is entirely your own. You are consumed with anger over having your author’s claims proven false again and again.

The claim that the light is at our eyes instantly when our gaze is looking at an object is false. If God turned on the sun at noon, it would take eight and a half minutes for the light to reach our eyes, which means that we always see the sun as it looked some eight and a half minutes in the past. I’m sorry if this fact makes you furious.

 

[pood]

So I'm not sure how this relates to free will or a way to improve the world. I've got a lot going on, but I'll see if I can make time to read the book.

It has no relation to determinism or free will whatsoever.

 

[peacegirl]

In a deterministic world, everyone acts according to their will (being determined, we must), where how we see the world and respond to its conditions is determined by our genetic make-up and life experiences. We don't have a singular will, but a set of competing wills, to do this, no do that, where the dominant drive takes precedence.....just like the world at large, business and profit motives competing against environmental degradation, some wanting war, others peace, etcetera, and the world is reflection of our divisions, our competing wills, where our dominant wants and needs as a society take precedence....

That is true, but most of these conflicts can be reduced to a bare minimum when insecurity over finances is taken off the table. When this transition takes place, there will be much more money available to work on the problems of climate change and the environment. I'm curious, did you read part of Chapter Six that I posted a while back? I can't post it again, but it will give you more information on how this transition will work and what needs to be changed (which includes the elimination of all authority and control in government) before it can begin. That is why this world looks like a fairy tale, but that's only because people have not seen the entire blueprint and how everything comes together.

If a government must choose either depression or war, the latter may be judged the lesser of two evils. A salesman who needs a certain income to meet his expenses doesn’t hesitate to lie or cheat in order to make a sale because telling the truth might make him a loser. In reality, if this condition or form of first blow is not permanently removed, the basic principle would not only be unable to prevent this retaliation, but it would make it impossible to turn the other cheek for greater satisfaction. However, to accomplish the removal of this economic condition without hurting or blaming any country, individual or group for anything, which rules out all existing governments because they cannot even approach the problem without blame or hurt in some form, I am going to demonstrate how it is now possible to guarantee to all the people in the world who are doing, or able to do something to earn a living, whether legal or illegal and while decreasing taxes, ending inflation, war and crime (that is, without robbing Peter to pay Paul), that should they ever find themselves in a position of being laid off, displaced, unable to get a job/business or one that pays enough to sustain the standard of living attained at the start of the transition, but only after using up all their reserve cash towards this end; and if there are some people who are below a basic standard and cannot find a job doing something to earn the necessaries of life, we will give them the materials or money needed. Since this is an extremely crucial point I shall clarify it.

 

[pood]

peacegirl, what’s happening in this thread, as it has in so many other threads and other venues over the years, is that people present you with detailed arguments refuting the author’s claims, and instead of addressing those arguments, you respond with ad homs and insults. Such responses are sure signs that someone cannot defend their argument, that their argument is bogus. So every time you use this tactic, you are tacitly acknowledging that your author’s claims are void of content.