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Harvester
02-09-2005, 11:02 AM
Despite all kind of help attempted on me, my curiosity, my doubt and my most inner feelings cause an anxiety at analyzing the system presented by NLP, and generally, success in society, rapport etc.
The whole system crumbles when we take into a logic calculation the most important statements of, for example, NLP.
NLP, like other similar directions of human psychology, enforces the freedom of choice, the freedom of mind, which is also subject of existentialist philosophy, and thereby also brings into foreground what we call individual responsibility.
NLP implicates the subjectivity of how real and vivid a belief can be when one really believes in something.
NLP makes suggestion and influence possible.
NLP talks about human minds.

Think logically:
If suggestion and influence are applicable on human minds,
and if we, as human minds, are able to use suggestion and influence,
whether voluntarily or not,
we logically deduce that we, as human minds,
are also vulnerable to suggestion and influence,
and that we have always been.

Simple example:
Famous popstar to young guy with long hair:"You know, my friend, all decent-looking people who have success with girls do have trimmed and short hair!"
Young guy with long hair cuts his hair.
Consequently all his good friends, who additionally know that this was the guy who talked with that famous popstar, also cut their long hair, and so on...
And all this started only because a few days before the famous popstar saw Eros Ramazzotti surrounded by girls.
The famous popstar didn't have to know of the existence of influence tools since being a popstar makes everything more easy.

Social influence is often a very evident example, but also in common life this occurs, not only among young people, everyday.
Some of the situations I dislike in a particular way is how certain false beliefs can be spread, how anxieties can be transmitted from one person to another.

Another example:
Mary and John are married. Mary has always loved making cakes. Also John likes making cakes and together they spend a lot of happy times making cakes. Five years later the couple is divorced.
When Frank comes to Mary and asks:"Hey, do you like cakes?"
Mary:"Who do you think you are? Get out of my life!"
Mary doesn't like making cakes anymore since it anchors her feelings towards the bad experiences with her ex-husband.
What a pity! Mary could have become a professional cakemaker and earned a lot!

These are all very simple and common examples, but if these things happen on an infinitesimal level, we can simply deduce, and I don't think it's so difficult to understand this as valid, that our whole life, our behaviour, our personality and all our actions are the result of what has influenced us from the day we were born.
Beliefs, thought patterns, everything.
Infinitesimally speaking, We are the mixture, the balance of all we've encountered throughout our life and what feelings it has given us.

You just need a bit of common sense after this to understand how come people in a group or in a certain level of society have static standards. To understand how come very rarely a "normal, friendly" person manages to grow, to outstand the others, and, obviously, very rarely manage to climb up the social ladder (in few words: from poor to rich) if this person isn't prepared to sacrifice somethings (emotionally).

You can guess where we're coming to.

"We are what we like and We have the freedom of choice"
Many people say this.
Yet, as also the basic knowledge of NLP reveals, what we like and what we are depends on how we have been molded, how we are influenced, not only on the infinitesimal level, but also in normal daily decisions.

This makes us, as sane human minds, conclude that what we call "freedom of choice" can exist only if we believe in it.
Infact, the guy who cut his hair or divorced Mary will surely say that they spontaneously cut their hair or hate making cakes, that it is their own personal choice.
And this happens in many other fields of our life as our experience also says.
It only appears to us that it is "us" who is choosing because we BELIEVE so, but we are constantly exposed to influence.

A person who believes in freedom of choice and smokes also believes (often happily) that HE chooses to smoke! Unless there is no great willpower (and also this willpower obviously has to be the result of what the person knows on smoke, like e.g. my friends know that they could spend less money etc.) how can we talk about freedom of choice?

We can talk about freedom of choice, in my opinion, only when we want that other people feel "responsible" for their choices and acts, which can turn into our advantage, right?



Now let me shortly depict a summary of my life, since I perfectly know that my personal life is very different from that of others and thereby also my attitudes, my philosophies and my art of thinking is different. As many of you might have already inferred by my previous posts of sometimes almost depressive tone, I am a person who seeks total solutions, who is never satisfied and maybe thanks to that I found the bugs, the incoherencies of what I learn.
In the following I will only talk about the different processes and changes I've had in my life together with the consequent symptoms.
Later I will write down clear and evident reasons to the symptoms.

Before I encountered NLP, my philosophy of life was "Be your best at what you can, that means everything that has nothing to do with having friends and success in society, and improve exponentially". I followed that philosophy in a very optimistic mood and always achieved what I needed. I didn't care very much about what my friends ("friends") thought about me ("silly goat", "nerd", "antisocial", etc.) and only focused on my academic success.
Then, together with some of my first true successes in social and love life I also started studying nervous system, from nervous system to different fields of psychology and from there on, it was unavoidable to meet up with NLP.
"Be the best you can!" And since now I also knew about how easy it actually was to be social and so on, that also belonged to my way of life. And then my initial reputation (among new people I met) was "leader", "omnipresent", "my idol", "the best lover", and so on.
But ever since this thing became part of me, I started becoming worse and not improve (and they have even brought me into total misery, totally making my own behaviour contraddicting my philosophies).
I won't go deeper into my personal subject here but mention the different examples and situations of personal experience to support my opinion.

As I said, in previous years I was good at ALL subjects. Ask any other person who doesn't have lot of social contact and they may say the same thing.
I loved writing. I loved calculating. I loved being creative and I loved simply learning, all subjects. And then, after I started social contact, I loved being friends of all, and maybe I exaggerated in communicating with them also about their anxieties and negative opinions.

I didn't consider that after having heard some negative opinions on mathematics by some of these people with whom I had an extreme rapport, I initially didn't understand why I wasn't paying anymore attention during classes. "I" had simply lost interest.
Today, when I get up and try to do a normal exercise, "I" really FEEL (pain in the veins etc.) bad and depressed when I try to do a simple math homework.
Thereby I start again to be less among those friends who talk negatively about subjects.
And even now, I often notice: when I'm at home and read a book, I find it totally interesting.
Back at school, boring atmosphere, a person who I don't really like much talking about the subject and thereby I not participating during the lesson, almost like a marginalized person.
Back home: I didn't even have the will of doing a normal homework.
And when I said "I WANT TO WRITE THAT ESSAY!" I litterally felt bad!
It's TOO EVIDENT that there had been influence on me. It simply can't be that in a span of two months I feel bad to do something I normally like.
And when I tell my "friends", they just say "Hey come on it's normal!"
As long as we believe that it's normal,
and as long as I believe that I'm doing things out of my own freedom of choice, the only difference could be that I would be unaware of the fact that I have worsened and driven to happy-go-lucky attitude!
My school report has fallen from 94% to 69% within three semesters.

Now, independently from what I wrote about my own experiences (although any advice is obviously welcome; up to now nothing has helped me back to my earlier state of productivity)
What if we all really believed in freedom of choice?

DrMattJames
02-09-2005, 11:28 AM
Hi Harvester,

There is a common theme in hypnosis which I also emphasize in NLP which is all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. NLP, Time Line Therapy(TM), Hypnosis and any other change work is a do-with process not a do-to process.

You seem to have proven this and you are right, everyone has a choice. NLP, Hypnosis, etc. does not make your life perfect nor can I do anything to anyone else. The client / individual has to choose to make the change and apply the techniques.

If I could control someone with NLP or Hypnosis, I would stop doing trainings and I would work in prisons and stop people from committing crimes. Then I would work with governments to make them get along.

Since I am unable to control someone, I choose instead to guide someone to achieve a specific change in their life.

As I said previously, we all have choice and it is great you have discovered you have the choice to change or not.

Harvester
02-09-2005, 11:33 AM
no no... I proved that freedom of choice doesn't exist

Terry (existing)
02-09-2005, 11:58 AM
No you didn't, you proved perhaps that you can make bad choices, or make choices for bad or insufficient reasons. You proved that you have an inordinate dependance on the views of your friends, but that is personal to you, not applied to the rest of us. You did not prove there is no freedom of choice for me, or for anyone else on this board......

Harvester
02-09-2005, 12:23 PM
Can you find a counter-argument to this?

If suggestion and influence are applicable on human minds,
and if we, as human minds, are able to use suggestion and influence,
whether voluntarily or not,
we logically deduce that we, as human minds,
are also vulnerable to suggestion and influence,
and that we have always been.

j0hnny#
02-09-2005, 12:48 PM
Can you find a counter-argument to this?

Can you find a counter-argument to this?

Quote:
If suggestion and influence are applicable on human minds,
and if we, as human minds, are able to use suggestion and influence,
whether voluntarily or not,
we logically deduce that we, as human minds,
are also vulnerable to suggestion and influence,
and that we have always been.

You seem to be saying here: we are able to use suggestions and influence and we are susceptible to suggestions and influence. What is there to counter? So I can influence and be influenced. From the outside (third person) seems I was determined. From the inside (first person), I make choices. Are you ever really the third person? Look around you, everyone else is determined. Influenced. Well this must apply to me? HALT! one minute! Choose to read on or not read on - two paths are now open to you - what influences your decision. What makes it a decision? It is a decsion, surely? the secret lies below........ :D








































































































INSIDE, and, OUTSIDE.
Did you hand over your free will to me?:)

Harvester
02-09-2005, 01:05 PM
Why does a decision have to be necessarily handed over to somebody else, to another person, in order to not be called "free will" anymore?
What's important is, I scrolled down to check the "answer"... (well...).

Another symptom you can notice in the world (I don't talk about myself, neither of the people on this forum, but of the human being in general):
When you learn a new language, you often tend to pronounce the language in the same way you hear your friends speaking it.
Even swearwords. I mean. It's something spontaneous. Have you really never noticed how unconsciously people adapt to conformities, to fashions, to ways of speaking?
Well, what happened to me.
I always knew speaking french well.
Ever since I started contact with friends (lot of rapport!) with whom I sometimes speak french, I speak broken french with an english accent. I've adapted it without even wanting it. It's registered in my mind. Although I want it it's as if I have never known it perfectly.
This you can see everywhere in the world ;)

j0hnny#
02-09-2005, 02:46 PM
Why does a decision have to be necessarily handed over to somebody else, to another person, in order to not be called "free will" anymore?
What's important is, I scrolled down to check the "answer"... (well...).


did you make a choice? Decide? or did I influence you? Free will and determinism is a paradox of the human condition. As strange as how something as different as mind and matter can interact and as weird as how I can have an identity whilst everything is deteriorating. Inside and outside - make any more sense to you? Where does one event end and another begin?

Have you really never noticed how unconsciously people adapt to conformities, to fashions, to ways of speaking?

Once you notice it can you get free of it? What makes a conformity a conformity, a fashion a fashion, a way of speaking a way of speaking?

YOU adapt to IT????? Why is it IT?

;)

Harvester
02-09-2005, 11:37 PM
Free will and determinism is a paradox of the human condition. Then why do so many people still believe in free will?
In the above case, I was determined to scroll down. Determined by my subconscious need to continue the discussion, to find answers and so on. Actually, there was no choice at all. I didn't understand the inside-outside thing, honestly.

Once you notice it can you get free of it? What if you don't notice it or you notice it clearly only on other people? What if you notice it too late?

What makes a conformity a conformity, a fashion a fashion, a way of speaking a way of speaking?
e.g. the example of the guys who cut their hair, or people who listen to one kind of music because the people they're in rapport with listen to that kind, or when all people speak the same way, with the same accents, brokenity, and so on.
What makes it happen? Well, as far as I have understood, NLP gives an answer to this. There's always a subconscious process of pacing and leading and counter-pacing ;)

YOU adapt to IT????? Why is it IT?
Or better, your subconscious processes, which influence your will, MAKES you adapt to a certain behaviour.

j0hnny#
02-10-2005, 03:03 AM
Then why do so many people still believe in free will?

What you think paradox expresses nonsense? Isn't it just an attempt to transcend the bounds of sense? Can you do without that belief? Try it for a few days, then you might have your answer.

What if you don't notice it or you notice it clearly only on other people? What if you notice it too late?


There's always next time!:)

Or better, your subconscious processes, which influence your will, MAKES you adapt to a certain behaviour.

that's a useful understanding for a therapist, is it useful understanding for the therapist?

Harvester
02-10-2005, 06:06 AM
Can you do without that belief? Try it for a few days, then you might have your answer.

To be very honest, ever since I've started studying the mind, neurostuff and NLP, the main thing I learned was that this belief is only a belief. Even now I know that I'm influenced by all that has enforced the doubting memories in me, and exactly that's why I'm here talking to you until my mind is at peace and may start pursuing the goals that I really want to achieve. Even now, while I'm writing this, I constantly think that I'm wasting time, that I should get up, switch off and start studying for the examinations, but all influence keeps me from doing so. I have been so much influenced that I will probably not even do my homework today. Selffullfilling prophecy? Or analyzing how I have been influenced?
When my friends ask me "How do you find that girl?"
I always say "Although my brain may subconsciously be in love with her, if I calculate all the opportunities she could give me, compare her with other girls, and analyze her qualitative and aesthetic value, I don't like her! But my brain (instincts, anchors, etc.) likes her and that creates conflict... howevermuch I may calculate my subconscious could some day compromise my final will."

There's always next time!:)
So many people realize too late that they could have done something earlier to achieve their dreams. Next time could be death!
Tell me how many young people realize in time that all that happy-go-lucky behaviour during examination period will have strong effects on their future?

that's a useful understanding for a therapist, is it useful understanding for the therapist?
And also for someone who observes social behaviour, economics, politics.