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Quote by: oracle13 Of course it has a cause, but the point I was making is that even the knowledge of the cause will not change the fact that this person acts in ways that people would not deem reasonable around pickles.

True. That's because people act on emotions all the time.

Let me try this and tell me what you think:

Humans have the *ability* to use reason, but that doesn't mean they always do.

Emotions are the human response mechanism that tells us something (a stimulus) is good or bad for us. And that good or bad value judgment is determined in our minds based on our currently-held beliefs. But our beliefs may or may not be valid.

Our actions are based on our emotions, which are based on our beliefs.

If our beliefs are irrational, then our emotions and actions probably will be, too.

*Most* people live their lives this way. *Most* people have been influenced by irrational ideas from the time they were very young. They just don't realize it (yet).

1. I have certain desires that I have no control over.

Everyone has unlimited desires, yet limited resources.

2. Many of these desires can be best achieved through practical reasoning. 3. Often, my brain's reasoning faculties allow me to overpower a particular urge in order to allow the satisfying of another more important urge, or to allow the postponement of the satisfying of that urge. (this is basically the crux of any politics). 4. Sometimes, however, a particular desire cannot be overcome by the brain's own reasoning faculties (ie: pickle woman.) Or, another example, the film A Beautiful Mind. In fact this perfectly illustrates the point I am trying to make. In one scene the main character describes to his doctor how he feels his schizophrenia is like a math problem, and he just needs to time to find the solution.

If we are talking about a person with a *healthy* brain, then of course people have conflicting desires and emotions all the time.

For example, I want to be a professional bodybuilder, but I also want to eat nothing but chocolate cake. Well, there's a conflict. Only the process of reason will allow me to figure out why I am not achieving my desired goals. If I fail to use reason, then I will not achieve my goals, no matter how much praying to the gods I do.

If, however, we are taking about a sick mind (schizophrenia), then we have to acknowledge that something is broken here and may not work the way a healthy human mind would. We cannot use it as an example of how a healthy mind works.

Ever seen a three-legged dog? It's still a dog, but not one that could win any races. To a certain extent, it functions a little differently than other dogs, but it still barks and does all the things dogs do. We just can't use it as an example of what healthy dogs do.

This objective system of knowledge is perhaps possible if we could somehow gather every piece of knowledge about this world, including the contents of every person's brain.

Umm ... how do you *know* this? You state it as though it is a *fact*, yet you did *not* ask every person on the planet about every thought they ever had. Yet, you arrived at a conclusion anyway. This means you already know that the statement is nonsense.

*You* already know that this is not necessary. Newton did not need to do it to figure out gravity. Why should you?

Blind people don't take in the information of sight ... What this means is that either the external world is not concrete and people are perceiving different things...

Blind people are a good example. They *know* they are blind. They *know* they are missing some information about reality.

This does *not* mean that reality is not objective.

Remember: reality exists independent of anyone's consciousness.

...sometimes we can't reason with people who choose to act differently from us, simply because their brains might not comprehend the kind of reasoning that we believe is self-evident.

But that is *irrelevant*.

Reality exists independently of anyone's consciousness. It makes no difference that lots of people think the world is flat or that lots of people believe in the existence of an imaginary guy in the sky. None of those thoughts determines what *is* reality.

People will disagree. Sure! And *only* reason can adjudicate our differences to arrive at truth (some people are unwilling to participate in such a discussion, but that just means they are dogmatic and unwilling to learn what the truth is).

It's like the difference between a scientist who is willing to run tests to find out if his hypothesis might be true or false versus the scientist who is unwilling to run any tests at all because he just wants to stick to his beliefs.

Reason is a slave of the passions, after all.

No, *emotions* are based on our beliefs. But our beliefs may or may not be valid.

So, our "passions" (emotions) are a slave of our beliefs, which we may have come to believe via reason or myth.