[Buddha-l] Students as potential spooks?

[sjziobro at cs.com]

Maybe.  But returning to a remark you made on February 7:

"The second theory is that there is no such thing as conscious decision making. Decisions arise in consciousness after processes of which no one is conscious have put the body in motion. Everything we call decision making is after-the-act rationalization. There being no conscious decisions, there is no free will and therefore no moral responsibility."

 

 Would you and the theorists who have come to this conclusion conceive of a distinction between pre-conscious activities allowing for acts of knowing and the further activity of reasoning wherein one does consciously make decisions?  In both cases the powers of intellect and will are necessarily active due to a de facto necessary cognitional structure.  The difference would be that between this necessary cognitional structure and a further exercise thereof precisely on the conscious level.  On the pre-conscious level there is no question of free will, since at this level there is no ethical or moral element that is at question.  But when applied to choices or decisions relating to ethical and moral issues free will is necessarily involved.  Basically, one is considering the relation of volition to intellect, love to truth, and in certain Buddhist circles wisdom to compassion.

Stan

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu>
To: Buddhist discussion forum <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
Sent: Thu, Feb 9, 2012 8:45 pm
Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Students as potential spooks?


On Feb 9, 2012, at 6:03 PM, sjziobro at cs.com wrote:

> Then you can now vote Republican with impunity, since now you've no compelling 
reason(s) to do otherwise and because I've now told you to do so!

It makes no difference whether one votes for a Republican sociopathic liar 
bankrolled by heartless kleptomaniacs or a Democrat sociopathic liar bankrolled 
by heartless kleptomaniacs. Kleptocracy is the only game in town. 

Richard Hayes
a republican democrat
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