I consistently make bad decisions. I have ruined my life because of bad decisions I've made in the past. I will probably go on making bad decisions for the rest of my life. I am puzzled by your post, Rick. President Bush has made a lot of bad decisions, and he has a team of people advising him. He surrounds himself with bad decision-makers.

Gary: I think maybe you didn't read Part 2 closely enough, "....unless overridden through conscious intent, whatever the reason or consequence".

As far as your own personal situation, obviously I'm not a shrink, but perhaps Part 4 applies: the overriding of 'right' decisions grows in an exponential way also. You've already made up your mind that you're going to continue that way in the future...a self-fulfilling prophecy, after all, you don't want to make a liar out of yourself!! I'm not meaning to sound harsh, Gary, I'm meaning to say I've spent a lot of my life where you seem to be at, and still am to a degree.

I guess I'd like to say that I see myself turning the corner, though.

Self-affirmation is as strong, if not stronger, than self-toxicity.

Take care

Rick

I also think my default decision-maker is faulty.

Perhaps you have just made my point better than I did. You just consciously overrode it.

R.

To elaborate, so you don't think I'm either being trivial or splitting hairs here. You made the 'right' conscious choice to post your reaction, because that's where you see yourself being at the moment. It's your self-image that you're looking at, and 'reporting' it as you see it. It would be a lie, at this moment, for you to flippantly say, "Aha, I'm saved!". The vast number of 'decisions', are not conscious mental decisions. We reflect most decisions through action, from whether you eat in order to sustain your body, or worship in some form to sustain your spirit, however you conceive it. There would be an infinite number of examples I could have chosen.

Hi there! I have absolutely no clue as to what I just read, but that is OK! LOL! I wanted to come by and thank you for the lovely comment you left on my blog today. Thank you for taking the time to come and read it. I see you are from Edmonton - they grow good people there!! :)
Thank you again, beck

I will agree that learning to trust your gut is good, and I will agree that the existence of anything implies the possibility of that thing's non-existence. (In fact I'd go further and state that the possibility of anything existing must exist before the thing itself, which is a fun little mind game to play.)

Beyond that I'm not with you at all. The words are big and the rhetoric is forceful, but these notions seem to me just things you THINK might be true, or ought to be true.

Just as one example, how would you corroborate the idea that human nature is pre-programmed not to harm another person? Nothing in history or science (experience or experiment, that is to say) shows that to be true. Even chimps make war, as Jane Goodall observed, and I don't think for a second that they consciously override their guts. They fight for food, females, and turf. So do we. Always have. We also fight for money and religion, but the basic idea remains the same.

In fact, I think the only way we've ever managed to STOP doing that is to... consciously override our instincts, which may be RIGHT (though not by your terms) but are seldom, if ever, GOOD (a socially constructed idea, I freely admit.)

They do grow good people in Edmonton though...

Dave:

You're putting words in my mouth now. I didn't say we were "pre-programmed not to harm another". Further, you seem to equate "fighting" or "making war" with "not doing right". Humans harm others because either they have the ability to choose to do so, or as you point out with chimps, it's an instinctive behaviour. When they make a choice, I would argue, it is because at that moment and for that reason, they judge it to be the 'right' thing for them to do (part 2) "whatever the reason or consequence".

There are two vital concepts you might have overlooked, or perhaps I didn't clarify sufficiently.

1 b) "overriding", implying that the species survival, even in a so-called civilian one, is paramount.

Combining parts 1 and 2, even when we "override" our default, we are still driven by the inherent constant of choosing what we deem to be the 'right' option....after all, that's the only plausible reason to override a default in the first place.

To deny that would yield only the possibility of eventual complete anarchy, and therefore species annihilation (counter to Part 1b).

I'm trying to say that it's the making of the choice that is 'right', not the choice itself or future consequence thereof. It's a critical distinction, and not at all hair-splitting.

(P.S. as far as your fun little mind game goes, that's covered by the generalized part 5a) "...the capacity to initiate itself")

History or science, experience or experiment, are but two limited fields of analysis and view. I'm by no means presenting this as a scientifically-provable treatise that can be taken into a lab somewhere and tested out; but I'm also not submitting that it can be dismissed as easily as being something I think I want to be true! I'm also not limiting it to the miniscule component of the universe called the human species.

I'm simply putting it forth as a constant universal pattern. Nothing more, nothing less.

R.

P.S. At least judging by your first paragraph, we have some common ground for agreement! That's a start!

And yeah, Edmonchuk is a cool place to be!

As you know, in my feeble old age, I can't get from the beginning of one paragraph to the end of the second paragraph without getting lost. But I did want to stop by and thank you for coming by and commenting in what I have done. Thank you.

howdy, here's an 'intuition & synchronicity' story you might appreciate:

www.actionsquad.org/crawlspace1.htm