Free Will and Stuffs

In response to Kyle - full post here

I was recently thinking about this post and about the concept of something completely new; now, I think this is difficult to answer this question because we cannot actually conceive of the notion of a completely new experience. As we know from experience as creatures partaking in space-time, we are always forced to action (even inaction is actions); we cannot not act in any given situation. Your question is something akin to "what determines you to act in a certain manner if you are in a completely new situation?"

I think that the answer would be the same as with non-new experiences. Your mindset at any given time, determines your actions in the immediate future. If you found yourself in a shockingly new experience you would be terribly confused, but would be forced to act in away that your neurons and so on cause you to act. The unfamiliarity would undoubtedly lead to a predictable hesitance and confusion. If your safety was at risk, the predictable reaction of panic would ensue. This is why I cannot appropriately answer this question, it's much to impossible to even entertain the notion of a completely new experience. Especially since this entirely new situation would be unrecognisable as a new situation because it would be so drastically different from every other new situation that we've ever experienced.

Response to Nicole

In response to Nicole - full post here

While I think it's fine to say that you refuse to see the Bible or other religious texts as anything but literature, I think that it is slightly unfair to say that such texts could not be anything more. There are many people who take the Bible to be a factual work, although you may not agree with those people. I agree that it's unfair for others to feel that they can pressure their views of the bible on to you, but it's not fair for you to do the same to them.

I also cannot say that I agree with the assertion that the Bible is dry. It's often very poetic and filled with impressive metaphors. The fact that people in this modern day are too lazy to read a holy text that they claim to support does not mean that the text itself is boring. One of the problems is that the metaphors do not apply quite as nicely in contemporary society. People would have to actually work at interpreting it to discover a more relevant meaning. I think another reason for not reading the Bible is that in our society people are all about reason, and those who take the Bible literally are fearful of relying on faith because they will receive ridicule in this society. Therefore, if they actually read the Bible, relying on reason will only lead them to contradictions and things that are otherwise unbelievable. Choosing not to read the Bible makes it easier to believe that the text does not contradict reason, and so that an adherent of Christianity does not actually have to rely on faith at all.

Blarg 2

Even if literature did not have cognitive value would it still have another kind of significant value?

I think that even if literature does not actually contribute original things to the world, reinforcement still has incredible value. We learn things through reinforcement so, it would still be just as valuable if it did manage to convince people of a point which was unoriginal but still valuable. Even if Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo didn't actually contribute towards science, It did, as I mentioned in my previous post, cause many people to give up geocentric views for heliocentric views. It sort of reinforced the ideas from Copernicus' De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium. This sort of reinforcement is very important to out human history and understanding; creating many works of literature to reinforce some moral point or truth about the world, helps to spread the message to a large number of people around the world. People who did not read Copernicus' book may have read Galileo's instead.

Blarg

What are some examples of literature that have had a great effect on human history and understanding?

Well, to start out, many religious have had a tremendous effect on the course of human history. The Bible, the Torah, the Qur'an, the Dhammapada, along with many other religious texts have influenced human policies, behaviours, and attitudes for thousands of years. These works of literature continue to influence people to this day. Many social issues (especially in America) are met with opposition from people who used the bible in defence of their point. Policies regarding which animal to kill for consumption also come from many of these holy books. 

Apart from religious texts, the likes of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle greatly influenced the meat industry and people's opinion on eating meat. Also, many scientific texts, which can be considered literature, have contributed greatly to a more wide-spread understanding of some scientific truth. Galileo's Dialogo Sopra I Due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo lead many people to reconsider their views of geocentricism and replace them with the more accurate heliocentric views.