Things you don't believe in but do anyway

[lrkun]

I tend to correct people when they make an error, even if it's obvious. However, it doesn't work, because they're rationalizing the situation to suit their own beliefs.

The plural of sheep is sheep

Yes it is.

 

[lrkun]

I believe in being blunt. It doesn't work most of the time; but I still do it.

 

[Andiferous]

I believe in being blunt. It doesn't work most of the time; but I still do it.

And I appreciate.

Honesty is golden when coupled with humility. After a while, it becomes more and more obvious who is and isn't being honest, it seems I think.

 

[Aught3]

How come I don't a good contribution to male to this list?

I guess I say 'oh my gods' sometimes.

 

[Andiferous]

How come I don't a good contribution to male to this list?

I guess I say 'oh my gods' sometimes.

Aught's teeth! is that male singular or plural?

 

[lrkun]

I always test gravity, where I'd bring my pen to the hight of my shoulder and let it fall down. I know it won't change, where the results will always allow the pen to fall down to the ground, but who knows? Maybe it'll float one day, hehe.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Hmm... what else.

Prepare for the Zombie appocolypse, I guess...

 

[nasher168]

I always test gravity

You don't believe in GRAVITY? :shock:

 

[Krazyskooter]

Watch Fox News, we're living in a zombie apocalypse.

 

[DepricatedZero]

I always test gravity

You don't believe in GRAVITY? :shock:

It's just a theory.

 

[Jotto999]

Rationally I can find no reason to blame or fault anyone, ever, because we are all a million-way compromise of circumstances that have influenced us, both nature and nurture. Knowing this, I cannot find morally faulting someone possible, knowing there is mechanism in all our mistakes, I cannot morally judge.

Yet I still get pissed off and even directly lambast people for doing things that I find idiotic, as if they "should" have known better. But implying that their brains "should" have been up to whatever arbitrary standard that some other brain (like mine) decided makes no sense and simply thinking about that fact makes me forgive everyone. Soon as my brain clears out the event-driven rage, that is.

I don't believe in decisions being free of circumstantial influence, nor free will, but my emotions hijack that every day.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Rationally I can find no reason to blame or fault anyone, ever, because we are all a million-way compromise of circumstances that have influenced us, both nature and nurture. Knowing this, I cannot find morally faulting someone possible, knowing there is mechanism in all our mistakes, I cannot morally judge.

Yet I still get pissed off and even directly lambast people for doing things that I find idiotic, as if they "should" have known better. But implying that their brains "should" have been up to whatever arbitrary standard that some other brain (like mine) decided makes no sense and simply thinking about that fact makes me forgive everyone. Soon as my brain clears out the event-driven rage, that is.

I don't believe in decisions being free of circumstantial influence, nor free will, but my emotions hijack that every day.

I'm not disagreeing with you or anything, I just think you might find it interesting:


Sorry it's a tad long. You can entertain yourself by watching the audience nod off.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

I suppose I might as well add my entry to the list...

On the tennis court, I have an odd superstition that each direction of my shorts should be hit with a specific side of the racket. i.e. I always turn the racket so that the logo printed on the strings is "forward" on the forehand and "backward" on the backhand.

In general, I have this odd superstition about doing things in even numbers. Snacking, exercising, drinking, combing my hair, brushing my teeth... I do it all in even numbers. I even ensure that I sleep an even number of minutes, take an even number of sips of coffee. This goes back to an old rule that I was taught to apply specifically to exercise way back, and although I realize it's absolute bunk now, somehow the appeal of doing things in even numbers stuck, and now I just habitually apply it to everything.

 

[Jotto999]

I'm not disagreeing with you or anything, I just think you might find it interesting:


Sorry it's a tad long. You can entertain yourself by watching the audience nod off.

It was interesting. I see that after answering the last question at the end, Dennet himself says that Laplace's demon would know all outcomes and decisions in the future, at least on a macro-scale (bearing in mind the uncertainty that is in quantum mechanics).

I agree with him when he explains that the very idea of changing the future is flawed, because the future is simply what ends up happening, nothing more. If I seemed as if I was not going to dodge the brick but ended up doing it anyway, I have not "changed" anything. Me dodging the brick was what was going to happen all along anyway, we just didn't know about it. It is not equal circumstantial probability that I could have dodged or not dodged. It was causal and yes, predetermined, a variety of factors in my brain would cause me to dodge should I receive such visual stimuli as a brick flying at me in an entirely unexpected manner. it is inevitable.

It could only be evitable by deciding beforehand to not dodge (or whatever other factor, this is just an example), but that has in no way detached from being circumstantially bound, because it required me deciding to not dodge. It was caused like everything else, and therefore the outcome has not become any less inevitable.

Summary: Then it's still predetermined, and inevitable.
Therefore I am a bit puzzled. I think either Dennet has gone and used a different definition of "free" without giving that act due attention, or I misinterpreted his talk. My conclusions on the subject of free will have been that, while we do make decisions and have a will, it certainly and demonstrably is not "free".


I'd be interested to see other people's thoughts on this.

 

[Inferno]

That reminds me ShootMyMonkey:
I always take out all the M&M's out of their box/bag before eating them and then start eating the one color where the least are present. Survival of the largest, they get eaten last. :lol:
I know that a friend of mine keeps the last M&M to allow them to "live on".

 

[lrkun]

I always test gravity

You don't believe in GRAVITY? :shock:

No. ^,,.^ However, my continued experimentation suggests that something attracts objects towards the earth, where science explains the event as gravity.

 

[Giliell]

I forgot something. DICE in RPG's. Although I know it isn't true, I am highly superstitious about my dice. If I am playing and a die rolls bad, I change it with another one.

Every PnP player knows that dice in a PnP never follow the rules of probability.
They have fun with you.
I once played a character who's really good at climbing, but wasn't a that point very good at falling down without breaking her neck. I tried to climb that fucking palisade 5 times. I failed 5 times, but I managed each roll to find out whether I'd hurt myself or not :lol:
Usually, if I roll a 1, I go on rolling that die offgame until there's been a 20

 

[Lurking_Logic]

I play a little warhammer 40k
And I always change the name of a weapon
Missile Launchers always get called Rocket launchers

 

[Duvelthehobbit666]

I forgot something. DICE in RPG's. Although I know it isn't true, I am highly superstitious about my dice. If I am playing and a die rolls bad, I change it with another one.

Every PnP player knows that dice in a PnP never follow the rules of probability.
They have fun with you.
I once played a character who's really good at climbing, but wasn't a that point very good at falling down without breaking her neck. I tried to climb that fucking palisade 5 times. I failed 5 times, but I managed each roll to find out whether I'd hurt myself or not :lol:
Usually, if I roll a 1, I go on rolling that die offgame until there's been a 20

It gets worse when you play GURPS. GURPS is a 3d6 system which means the statistical distribution makes it so that rolling under a ten should be more likely than above. This is usually not the case though. :cry: But still, thats why you should always have lots of dice.

 

[Asrahn]

Back when I played ice hockey I had a bunch of superstitious bullshit I kept doing, not because I devoutedly believed they made a difference, but because it just... felt good.

Now, before anyone gets the wrong idea, I am mainly talking about which protection (right or left elbow, etc) to put on first. Occasionally if I reached behind me and got ahold of the left one first, it meant "luck". I also somehow added which way, clock or counter clock wise I would strap on tape over my leg protection.

I believe all this is related to some kind of subconscious routine that, whenever broken, made me feel like something was amiss. I simply took notice to it and somehow managed to add my own, more or less conscious quirks.

I don't walk under ladders, mainly because the probability of it falling down at that moment increases immensively through utilizing Murphy's Law.