PensivePenny wrote:Because looking for responsibility to be 'generated' for them by some disembodied entity (or brain region) is like asking that same entity to 'eat' for you.

Yes, pretty much. Munch the homunculus for lunch.

Cito di Pense wrote:Nobody has to do anything he or she doesn't want to.

Yabbut if you go back one stage, and aren't responsible for your wants....

By all means call it 'personal responsibility' if all you want is a useful model. I call it being a robot. All the world's a stage and we are merely actors who think we aren't reading from a script.

zoon wrote:would you expand on the reasons why we should agree with you? Why must individuals generate responsibility for themselves?

Just in case they don't want to be complete dumbasses. But see my comments about what anyone who wants or desires something must do. For starters, it will involve admitting what one wants or desires. Of course, wanting is not getting. We have wise sayings about that one.

archibald wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:Nobody has to do anything he or she doesn't want to.

Yabbut if you go back one stage, and aren't responsible for your wants....

By all means call it 'personal responsibility' if all you want is a useful model.

What you're responsible for is responding to your desires. You will notice the similarities in the roots of both words. Whether or not you're free, or how much freedom you have, is an open question. Why do you want to know?

Cito di Pense wrote:What you're responsible for is responding to your desires.

And how am I responsible for that though?

This is back to page 1 of the thread. Groundhog Day.

archibald wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:What you're responsible for is responding to your desires.

And how am I responsible for that though?

Because when you responded, you generated the response. It doesn't mean anything more, and this has already been addressed in this and many other threads. If you want 'responsibility' to be full of metaphysical import, go with god.

It's not my problem that you find the discussion is circular. I never claimed it was anything but.

Talk about what will happen at the end of all our exploring. Sheesh..

archibald wrote:Talk about what will happen at the end of all our exploring. Sheesh..

QED

Cito di Pense wrote:Because when you responded, you generated the response. It doesn't mean anything more, and this has already been addressed in this and many other threads. If you want 'responsibility' to be full of metaphysical import, go with god.

Nope. I'm good with that, robot that I am. I'm like the weather, being responsible for a flood.

ETA: Minor quibble on the word 'you'. Not sure what that is.

It's not a good word though, 'responsible'. It's loaded.

This reminds me of the existential nihilist question, "What's the point?" As if that point must come from external something or other. It is distressing, existential anxiety as Cito calls it, to arrive at the realization that there is "no point" to life... IF the individual believes the falsehood that that 'point' is god-given/Gaia-given/whatever-given. Ultimately, the existential nihilist comes to the realization that we make our own 'point.'

ETA: Denying 'responsibility' is akin to saying 'life is pointless.' It's only pointless if you choose to not give it a point

Now, that little bit of info will be bollocks to anyone who has yet to shed the incorrect belief that we have an externally mandated 'point' to our existence.

ETA: fixed a negative too many

archibald wrote:It's not a good word though, 'responsible'. It's loaded.

No, like NSTableView inherits from NSResponder, 'responsible' inherits from 'respond'.

Read Maturana and Varela. Even amoebas respond.

Don't have to humble yourself to me,
I ain't your judge or your king
Baby, you know I ain't no queen of sheba
We may not even have our dignity,
This could be just a powerful thing
Baby we can choose you know we ain't no amoeba

John Prine, "Thing called love"

It's another song. All your fucking philosophy is already available in easy-to-digest pop-music form. Not a speck of serial. Cereal? a grain of Truth.

Cito di Pense wrote:

archibald wrote:It's not a good word though, 'responsible'. It's loaded.

No, like NSTableView inherits from NSResponder, 'responsible' inherits from 'respond'.

Read Maturana and Varela. Even amoebas respond.

I ain't no icon carved outta soap, sent down to clean up your reputation. I ain't no Queen of Sheba.
We can live in fear or act on our hope. We can choose, you know we ain't no amoebas.

John Prine, "Thing called love"

It's another song. All your fucking philosophy is already available in easy-to-digest pop-music form. Not a speck of serial. Cereal? a grain of Truth.

Citing the, er, eat-i-mology and not the usage is no good. See: deluded people like John Prine, who think they're sooooo different from amoebas.

PensivePenny wrote:Denying 'responsibility' is akin to saying 'life is pointless.' It's only pointless if you choose to not give it a point

Keep taking the blue pills, penny.

archibald wrote:
Quoting the, er, eat-i-mology and not the usage is no good. See: deluded people like John Prine, who think they're sooooo different from amoebas.

Well, when you figure out what something is 'no good' for, you're already figuring out for whom it's no good. When it doesn't refer back to god, it just refers back to you, and you have to fucking figure out whether you're gonna go with it or not. I can pitch that another way, which is dithering about decisions as if they had cosmic significance when they only have significance for you. If you take other people into account, then that's what you do. Sometimes you do it, and sometimes you don't. Is that science?

archibald wrote:

PensivePenny wrote:Denying 'responsibility' is akin to saying 'life is pointless.' It's only pointless if you choose to not give it a point

Keep taking the blue pills, penny.

Okay... you keep taking the red ones

PensivePenny wrote:shed the incorrect belief that we have no externally mandated 'point' to our existence.

Too many negatives in that sentence, methinks. At this point, I'm just woodshedding.

PensivePenny wrote:

archibald wrote:

PensivePenny wrote:Denying 'responsibility' is akin to saying 'life is pointless.' It's only pointless if you choose to not give it a point

Keep taking the blue pills, penny.

Okay... you keep taking the red ones

I take both. Seriously. It's better than taking just the blue ones.

Cito di Pense wrote:

PensivePenny wrote:shed the incorrect belief that we have no externally mandated 'point' to our existence.

Too many negatives in that sentence, methinks. At this point, I'm just woodshedding.

A fraudian slip maybe. Unintended. Unfree.

I don't have your way with words, Cito, no matter how much I wish I did.