Or choosing Coke instead of Pepsi? Like that?

Yes.

But maybe it should be understood in terms of having a pepsi, or not having a pepsi.

That is to say, that basically any choice is either conservative or progressive, to keep things as they are, or to actualize a possibility. I have not made up my mind what the proper basic understanding is.

any choice is either conservative or progressive — Syamsu

I would agree that there is some kind of a "gradient" applicable to the choices of free-will. It seems that you might be operating in a framework of meliorism, which is definitely my own orientation.

The spiritual is defined as what did this job of making the choice turn out A.

It can only be identified with a chosen opinion. That is, choose an opinion that a choice was made out of fear, joy, etc. — Syamsu

Ok, let's try this. I chose a hamburger for lunch instead of a hotdog, A instead of B. What exactly did the spiritual do? Did the job of making the decision not come about because of the workings of my unconscious/subconscious reasoning abilities processing the knowledge that I have acquired in my life?

You should focus on the logic of it. — Syamsu

Please point out where that part is.

It doesn't fucking matter what to call it, it's about the logic. — Syamsu

If it does not matter why are you ranting on about it?

You want to give the words supernatural and subconscious the logic that it is agency of choices, and it can only be identified with a chosen opinion, go ahead. — Syamsu

You are the one using spirit, not me. I only asked if it was super natural because from what you are saying the agency of choice is apparently not part of a human.

Having alternative futures available, making of them the present, and then what the agency of the choice is, is a matter of chosen opinion. — Syamsu

Having alternate futures is acceptable, making them today is ridiculous.You can decide to do something today that will change what tomorrow might be, but it is impossible to make that today.
So what led to today being today instead of an alternate today was the choice you made yesterday.

And what was that agency then?

One's agency is one's independent capability or ability to act on one's will. This ability is affected by the cognitive belief structure which one has formed through one's experiences, and the perceptions held by the society and the individual, of the structures and circumstances of the environment one is in and the position they are born into. — Wiki

Where does your spirit fit into the picture?

That is to say, that basically any choice is either conservative or progressive, to keep things as they are, or to actualize a possibility. — Syamsu

Wrong, all choice are between any available options. They do not have to be either conservative or progressive. I am going to eat a sandwich, do I want it with butter or mayo? How can either one of those be progressive or conservative when I usually have neither or both.

It seems that you might be operating in a framework of meliorism, which is definitely my own orientation. — Pantagruel

The world is getting along just fine, actually much better without us humans right now so I think that is sort of a nonsensical idea.

Having either neither or both would be conservative and choosing one or the other would be progressive?

Help me out here, OP. :razz:

Conservative is to leave things as they are, and progressive is to change things.

You can think up reasons for both eating a hotdog and eating a hamburger, and reasons for why one would be better to have than the other. That reasoning would involve many decisions, like expression of appreciation for the pure meat of a burger.

So then you have many subdecisions to the decision which to eat. And then you are choosing it in your imagination or mind first, and then choosing it physically.

The spirit in this case are the emotions, the appreciation for eating the hotdog and burger.

When you are talking about people's decisionmaking, then from a physics point of view, those are hypercomplex decisionmaking processes. But the fundamental logic of choosing still holds true.

You are exploiting the complexity of people's decisionmaking processes to argue for ignorance on how decisionmaking works. I mean you don't offer a competing understanding, instead you just set out to make a conceptual mess. Probably in order to avoid dealing with emotions, because that is a common theme.

The alternative futures available in a choice, should be considered as physical properties of an object. The object has a present state, and then it anticipates alternative futures on some parameter, for instance velocity . So anticipation in this sense is not as that the object has a mind in which mind is a picture of the future results of having made a choice, but instead anticipation is the relation of the present state of the object to it's alternative future states.

Basically I imagine this as like the objects has 2 lines stetched out into the future. So then mathematics crap describes the present state, and mathematics crap also describes these possibilities coming out of the object. It is just physics with alternative values for time now + 1, for a parameter like for instance velocity.

The world is getting along just fine, actually much better without us humans right now so I think that is sort of a nonsensical idea. — Sir2u

Why would you eliminate humanity from the equation? That was never part of the discussion. The human species is as much a part of the world (universe) as everything else, and so deserves the benefit of melioration. Unless you are an anti-meliorist.

Why would you eliminate humanity from the equation? — Pantagruel

The world universe does not need us to be here. Why would anyone think that anything we do would make the place better.

The human species is as much a part of the world (universe) as everything else, and so deserves the benefit of melioration. — Pantagruel

Would you care to explain why we "deserve" anything? Is it a part of nature, a natural right? a universal rule maybe? Based on what do come to the conclusion that humans deserve to construct principals such as this?
I think that it is rather preposterous to think that humans can be anything more than humans and therefore they will always act like humans. Most of human improvement has been accidental, coincidental or genetic, while the world has just gone about it ways trying to ignore us.

We can through effort make the universe less shitty by looking after it better, but make it better how?

Unless you are an anti-meliorist. — Pantagruel

I don't wear labels, thank you. Stereotyping, name calling are lame ways to to make yourself feel better.

meliorist = A disputant who advocates reform

anti-meliorist = a non disputant who advocates reform

or

anti-meliorist = A disputant who advocates no reform

You are exploiting the complexity of people's decisionmaking processes to argue for ignorance on how decisionmaking works. — Syamsu

Not even you know how decision making really works.

I mean you don't offer a competing understanding, instead you just set out to make a conceptual mess. Probably in order to avoid dealing with emotions, because that is a common theme. — Syamsu

If you had read what I wrote, I asked for explanations of your theory to understand what you were talking about. Without understanding how can I propose a competing idea?

The spirit in this case are the emotions, the appreciation for eating the hotdog and burger. — Syamsu

So it is what I thought it was, the subconscious. I did say from the beginning that you were just adding fancy names to things.

Having either neither or both would be conservative and choosing one or the other would be progressive? — Outlander

Choices made can lead to positive or negative results, but the choice itself is neither. Do all changes have to be progressive or conservative.
I have seven shirts, one for each day of the week, how could it be counted as either progressive or conservative if I choose which one to wear randomly each day?

Help me out here, OP. :razz: — Outlander

Don't hold your breath there mate. It seems he thinks you need a dictionary, not an explanation.

Conservative is to leave things as they are, and progressive is to change things. — Syamsu

And he uses a rather deficiente one as well.:lol:

The world universe does not need us to be here. Why would anyone think that anything we do would make the place better. — Sir2u

As I said, the human race is as much a part of the universe as anything else, so your premise, or rather, your objection to my premise, is flawed.

No the spiritual does not equate to subconscious, because the subconscious is not defined in terms of that it makes choices, and that it is a matter of chosen opinion what is in it.

You just make a conceptual mess, where now you have obliterated the idea of emotions and subjective opinion. You have also undermined the concept of choosing and free will, because the concept of choosing does not function, when the question of what the agency of a choice is, is regarded as a factual issue.

All the definitions of the words must be consistent with each other, without contradictions. Locking into each other to make a functional conceptual scheme.

There are alternative futures A and B available, and A is made the present, meaning A is chosen,

Then there is the question "what was it that made the choice turn out A?"

Then the answer is a choice between X and Y.

Where either answer X or Y is equally valid.

But a forced answer X or Y is invalid.

Where X and Y are subjective words like beautiful, fear, God.

An opinion that a painting is beautiful is formed by spontaneous expression of emotion with free will. To choose the opinion that the painting is ugly, would be equally logically valid. To be forced to say the painting is beautiful, provides an invalid opinion.

An opinion that a painting is beautiful is formed by spontaneous expression of emotion with free will. To choose the opinion that the painting is ugly, would be equally logically valid. To be forced to say the painting is beautiful, provides an invalid opinion. — Syamsu

Not necessarily invalid, merely arbitrary.

No, the correct explanation of free will is, having alternative futures available, one is made the present, what the agency is, is a matter of chosen opinion. — Syamsu

This appears circular, although I can't really tell, because it is so confusing.

I will...I do. — Pantagruel

Seems like what you do is determined by what you will, but what determines what you will?

It is therefore proven that there is a spiritual domain, constituting the agency of choices, from which is decided how the material domain ends up. — Syamsu

Am I understanding that Syamsu's explanation is that spirits determine what you will?

Free-will is the idea that you could have chosen some other course simply because you thought of it at the moment when your were contemplating the best course of action. But when the decision is made the others end up being imaginary futures had you chosen otherwise. The fact that you can think of imaginary futures is no indication that any of them are possible simply because you think of them. You have to make the decision to act to realize them. Even then, sometimes that isn't enough.

It's like running through an IF-THEN-ELSE statement in your head. Every IF statement can only be true if the conditions are met, if not then the instructions are never executed and it passes down to the next IF or ELSE statement. You could only execute the instructions if the actual conditions met the conditions of the statement.

You are repeating yourself again and it still does not make any sense.

Speak plain English and give an example that is valid in everyday life, I do not know anyone that has to chose between A and B except in game shows. So either explain the process clearly or give up and read a book on human psychology.

And don't tell me that it cannot be done, because that would mean that your theory does not apply to reality.

As I said, the human race is as much a part of the universe as anything else, so your premise, or rather, your objection to my premise, is flawed. — Pantagruel

Yes we are a part of the universe, but if our atoms where rearranged into stones we would still be here but in a different form.

meliorism - The belief that the world can be made better by human effort

Mother Nature will take care of fixing herself, like she is doing now while the humans are locked up.
No matter how much effort humans make they cannot repair the damage that they have done.
The easiest way to make the world better would be to remove the humans.

Not counting try to repair damage, exactly what about the world could we actually improve?

The best we could do would be to make conditions better for humans, making the world more to our liking would be an improvement. But how much more damage would be done to others because of out efforts?

Mother Nature will take care of fixing herself — Sir2u

"You imply disparity where none exists"

You are trying to describe the hyper complicated decisionmaking processes of people, and failing at that. You should instead formulate the basic logic of choosing, as it is presented in common discourse.

Defining any choice as by definition being for the "best", that is mixing your opinion of optimism with the facts of how things work.

You just don't do any logic. I gave examples already, then you proceeded to ignore and change the logic. You must pay more attention to logic.

Trump has alternative futures available, like closing travel from China, or not closing it. That is called anticipation of alternative futures. Then he chose to ban travel from China, meaning he made the alternative future of closing travel from China the present.

Then there is the question what emotions in his heart made the decision turn out the way it did. Some might say it is a xenophobic hate for China, others might choose the opinion it is a care for the people he is responsible for.

These chosen opinions are all equally logically valid. Some opinions may be said to be generous, mean, or unfair, but being generous, mean or unfair is not logically invalid.

What is a wrong answer is to say that there would be a fact of what emotions were in his heart, which made the decision turn out the way it did.

What is a wrong answer is to say that there would be a fact of what emotions were in his heart, which made the decision turn out the way it did. — Syamsu

So where are is emotions, more importantly what are emotions?

"You imply disparity where none exists" — Pantagruel

How so?

You cannot simply divorce humanity from nature by fiat. Whether you approve or disprove of our actions, we are as much a part of nature as everything else. Speaking personally, I feel that global recognition of this fact is the key to a brighter future. Systems Theorists in general also tend to this view. Organicism.

Speaking personally, I feel that global recognition of this fact is the key to a brighter future. — Pantagruel

And there is the key question. A brighter future for whom or what?

And there is the key question. A brighter future for whom or what? — Sir2u

It's just the difference between optimism and pessimism really, isn't it?

It's just the difference between optimism and pessimism really, isn't it? — Pantagruel

No actually it is a valid question. Do you have an answer?

Then that is what they call a "fundamental disagreement". I think that I can make a positive contribution, you think you cannot.