[Rq-rules] Farewell to CON

[Lev Lafayette]

--- Gary Sturgess <gazza666 at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Are you suggesting that every member of the
> species,
> > heck *regardless* of species, has exactly the same
> > motivation? Or that their motivation is generated
> > entirely by external sources (carrots and sticks)?
> 
> I'm suggesting that willpower is an illusion, and
> spirit just flat out
> doesn't exist. In the real world, that is.

If you can, by force of will, type on a keyboard, then
that's evidence that you can direct your fingers to do
things will mental expression.

As for spirit, it seems you have a particular
interpretation of the word which is regrettably
typical to monolingual anglophones. 'Spirit' in both
the Germanic and Romance languages (not sure of the
Slavic etc) refers to being connected with shared
symbolic values generated through mutual
understanding. English, perhaps clumsily, would
translate this as somewhere between 'language' and
'ideology' (which is why I referred previously to
l'esprit - the German geist would also have worked). 

Both of which are very powerful, meaningful and
motivating forces.

> The
> former is debatable, of
> course, but behaviourist psychology, materialism,
> and the laws of
> physics make it likely. Spirit, on the other hand,
> assuming you're
> using some metaphysical definition (which is the
> usual meaning), is in
> the same category as any other supernatural
> phenomenon - ie I'll
> believe it when someone wins the million dollar
> prize. YMMV.

Your assumption is way off the mark. The formation of
meaningful symbolic values is not something that can
be established through bio-chemical goal states - if
it were all members of the human species would speak
the same language!

> We're physical creatures; the fact that it seems you
> have such things
> as free will and willpower doesn't make it true, any
> more than the
> fact that it seems that solid objects are really
> solid is true - we
> know the latter are composed mostly of empty space,
> but that doesn't
> make the illusion that they're not any less
> convincing.

The fact we are physical creatures does not mean we
are only physical creatures. We are not robots (POW
0).

> > I'm pretty sure spirit (l'esprit, motivation) and
> > willpower exists, is variable among individuals
> and is
> > primarily generated by internal values.
> 
> Depends on what you mean by "internal". If you mean
> "inside my own
> brain", fair enough, but that's still definitely in
> the realm of the
> physical.

Inside your mind (i.e., the software part) is what I
mean.

> If you mean "inside my own metaphysical
> equivalent of
> 'self'", then I maintain that I don't believe any
> such thing is real,
> and Cartesian Dualism has not been a popular theory
> for a long time.

Not since the linguistic turn philosophy in the early
to mid 20th century, certainly.

> But if you are saying that certain collections of
> chemicals exert what
> we outwardly perceive as high willpower or
> motivation, and that these
> chemicals are distributed inequally amongst human
> brains, then I have
> no problem with that assertion. It's where it was
> implied to be
> metaphysical (which POW in RQ definitely is) that I
> took exception.

I've actually never interpreted the RQ definition as
being metaphysical. There is magical 'colour' to it
and a magical game-system, certainly. But it's much
more about belief systems. Have a reread of the
introductions to the magic book (The Shaman's Answers,
The Priestess's Answers, The Sorcerer's Answers).
Strip the comments of their metaphysical aspects and
read them as an anthropologist or historian trying to
understand values and meaning, the psychology of a
people.

All the best,


Lev


 
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