Do You Know That You Have NFW? ( ie. 100% GED )

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I have NFW, or, in other words I am 100% GED.

A lot of people absolutely refuse to believe it about themselves; there's a lot of people in denial about it.

Who else on here knows they have NFW, that they are 100% GED?

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Um, translation?


M.

NFW stands for "No Free Will" and 100% GED for "100% Genetically and Environmentally Determined".

I like the way GED is the same as the secret/"real" name of the wizard of Earthsea in Ursula le Guin's trilogy of the same name.

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Is there a good reason to abbreviate those? Personally I think it dumbs down the argument (pseudointellectual) and making it into a gimmick.

There is no absolute free will. That much is obvious. However, relatively speaking we make choices in our "mind's eye".

I don't know whether it is a good reason, but my reason for abbreviating them was because I think that a lot of the power, and appeal, of the Spectrum labels/diagnoses is in the "determinism" they express. They "provide" scientific support for/recognition of our being, in profound, lifelong and wide-ranging ways, ( not just violent, destructive, or temporarily as with some other dx's ) determined by our genes and environment.

So I wondered whether describing oneself as being GED, or having NFW, could, while not having medical backing, have the same effect, if expressed like a dx.


It isn't to a lot of people.

Do you mean that most of the time it seems to our "I"/"eye" that it makes choices when in fact it doesn't, it just observes the decisions that the "rest" of us, ( body incl brain ), arrives at, and ( observes ) micro-instants after the decision has been arrived at? ( which is what I believe ). Or do you mean something else?

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Yurr, that bain't be obvious to me. We know very little about it.

Thank you for the clarification. You're welcome to your opinion, but I disagree thoroughly. Genetics and environment are an influence, not a determination.


M.

You can't separate influence and determination. Chaos is the determination. It is no the same as predetermined life. People vastly underestimate influence, and due to their sense of self that is a product of all this believe in their ‘will’

Relativism rules out absolute free will.

The clue is in the word 'absolute'. We are obviously limited.

Influence only provides a direction; determination provides a destination. Two different things, entirely. That people believe their world is purely the result of their will, or the opposite extreme (fatalism), does not surprise me... yet it does not make them right, either. The confluence of all aspects results in one's reality.


M.

It sounds a little bit like learned helplessness.

The idea that our "I" is nothing but the flapping of the door between inner and outer environments is actually zen buddhist, and ( full ) understanding that everything is buddha/the universe, that we are one with it, nothing independent about us at all, is considered the highest state to reach before enlightenment.

But I posted this thread in In Depth Adult Discussion because I wanted this to be as much a discussion about the power of labels like AS/Autism as about free will; how for the first time science is handing out labels which recognise not only that violence or short term "aberrations" are determined, ( and put people in hospitals rather than prisons because of it ), but that whole swathes of behaviour, neutral and positive, are too.

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The Autism dx is liberating for many because it casts doubt on, cracks open, the dominant western belief in people's behaviour being "blameworthy" or "praiseworthy".

The AS/Autism dx is like the thin end of a wedge which in its entirety says "I have NFW; I am 100% GED".

As Derk Pereboom says in his book "Living Without Free Will", our best science is already telling us this ( "we have NFW" ). Medical approaches are always 12-17 years behind scientific progress.
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Last edited by ouinon on 08 Dec 2009, 2:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

I may be wrong, but I don't think that there is any other medical diagnosis which combines determinism of the person to such an extent with so many inoffensive, non-violent, non-"ill" behaviours. The autism spectrum dx is unique, and revolutionary. This is not just a PPR matter.

Why was it not allowed to remain where I posted it, in AID?

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It's ok, thread been set up again in AID with an introduction which makes it clearer that I wasn't after yet another argument about free will, but more a discussion about how it felt finding out about/getting a dx of autism from the free will/determinism point of view; what the terms/labels may mean/have meant to people from that perspective.
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Last edited by ouinon on 07 Dec 2009, 3:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If there is no free will, isn't it a bit silly to argue about the question? After all, doesn't that mean that those who disagree with you are destined to do so, and cannot change their minds? Seems to me that in order to change your mind, you have to have the free will to do so...

Ouinon, one problem with your choice of terms is that, in the US at least, GED already has a definition - I came in here because I was trying to figure out why you kept starting threads asking people about their General Education Degree (the equivalent of a high-school diploma for those who didn't finish high school).