Re: Free Will/ relevant lecture on impulse control/brain/free will

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

I have just been listening to a lecture by the biological psycologist

Prof. Fred Toates who also has OCD. I thought it was particularly

relevnat to your post Kavy.

To hear it you will have to go into the archives at the following

link. It's also viewable on-line.

I found it really interesting and not at all boring!

http://stadium.open.ac.uk/berrill/

Inaugural Lecture

Human nature and human motivation - desire and temptation

Prof Frederick Toates

This event took place on 18th March 2008

Berrill Lecture Theatre, The Open University, Walton Hall Campus,

Milton Keynes, United Kingdom

The theme of the lecture is how we might gain insights into human

nature by looking to the psychology of motivation. Professor Toates

will consider various approaches to this issue, starting with that of

B.F. Skinner and his utopian vision. He will then look at more recent

ideas in psychology, including the distinction between 'wanting'

and 'liking'. It will be suggested that human desires, failings and

temptations can be better understood in terms of the layered

organization of the brain. He will argue that recent developments in

psychology lend support to much of the wisdom of philosophers,

prophets and saints of past centuries.

Human Nature and Human Motivation.ppt

Enjoy!

Louise

PS I'm also regularly tempted by bananas!

>

> Free Will,

>

> I'm, sitting on a sofa and I decide to have a banana. The image of

> the banana pops into my mind and I have a craving for one. I did

not

> decide this, this urge came from within. As I go towards the banana

I

> feel fat and I think that I have been eating too many bananas

> recently so I decide not to have one. I think I have made a

decision

> but all that happened was that a stronger urge came over me – a

> desire to get slim. So I have made no decisions; I just acted on

> desires and impulses which came without my conscious control.

>

> Now imagine a drug addict, he has a craving for a fix, but he

fights

> against it. He knows he will never be really happy if he keeps

using

> the drug. That he has lost his wife, his job, etc. His craving for

> the drug is immense, but he has an even greater desire to be happy,

> have a lovely wife, a family, and a rewarding job. Every now and

> again the desire for the drug overwhelmed him – who cares about all

> that when you can feel something more amazing than God, even if

it's

> only for a short while. He fights the desire and on this occasion

he

> wins.

>

> Can't you see that he does have free will, although very limited?

He

> is a human so he cannot choose to have the desires of a dog. His

> desires and cravings are human, typical and preset. But he fought

> with all his might and won. This was a combination of his ego and

his

> unconscious. In my opinion the mistake that people make when they

say

> we have no free will is to believe that the ego, our consciousness,

> is in the driving seat. The whole of our bodies make the decision.

We

> are not free to choose our urges as such, but we can motivate

> ourselves in a direction that is best for us. We have conscious

> control.

>

> Those that say we don't have free will are only half right.

> Ultimately we do have a free spirit, and all animals do, but only

> within the framework of what we were born to be.

>

> Kavy

>