Ten oz

As outlined in the OP I am of the impression that what we rationalize as correct doesn't actually have any impact on what we desire. In this example you clearly rationalized one candidate to be the more logical choice yet desired the other. The action you desired ultimately beat out what you had rationlized. That has nothing to do with the U.S. population being an entity of whatever. You are deflecting and avoiding the example for some reason. Perhaps your rationlized arguments against the action at the time were lies and you always intended to do what you ending up doing. I am posting on the assumption you were honest. If so it is a good example for this conversation. Your outlined rational reasons against an action and then committed to that action anyway. Just because one commits suicide doesn't mean they didn't reduce. What happens to an individual life after it already passed along its DNA for future generation isn't nearly important to evolution as the passing DNA along part is.

I am not saying all decisions are an illusion. I can speculationing that perhaps all our imagined choices are. That our unconscious makes the decisions and our conscious imagines the decision as a choice we have made. Whether a decision is made by our conscious or unconscious (subconscious) a decision is being made. I am not implying otherwise. Additionally I am just speculating. I don't believe I have the answers.

Support for the govt we have has nothing to do with what I posted. My point was that despite what you rationally knew to be true you acted in the oppisite manner. It is an example of the limits of our rational mind. That is no attack on you. We all do it in various forms. Some women find themselves in abussive relationships over and over. It is too simple to say the good and bad experiences are stored and then repeated. There are many bad experiences people repeat. Many mistakes and traps we find ourselves falling into over and over. I think it reflects that the choices we make are to atleast some extent beyond our conscious control. We think we are making the choice when we are actually be led to the choice unconciously.

Ironically there was a small window in our histry where these dangerous activities made one cool and attractive actually helped in finding a mate and increased their chances of reproducing. Amongst groups which do move towards most fit; that cantake many different forms. Humans came out of Africa in to Europe a couple different times. The first group became more physically fit to survive the colder environment. The developed shorter and stockier builds that could better withstand cold temps. They also developed more muscular frames which helped them hunt the available game. The second group came out of Africa with higher levels of social interaction and perhaps the imagination (intanginles). Both groups had the same size brain with relative capacities. The first group is dead and gone, extinct. The greater overall physical adaptations and relative similar intellegnce notwithstanding. Evolution has many twists and turns and certianly isn't linear. The choice to buy the next hit of a narcotic doesn't have survival value. Our currunt opioid crisis is an example of people making choices which make them feel good yet do not help them survive. I see no link between feeling good about a choice and that choice being useful to survival. The following example is not an attack. I am using it an example of you clearly acting against what you consciously knew to be true. You acknowledged more than a few times prior to the election that Trump had silly politicies, was a liar, was incompetent to do the job, was bad for the country, and Clinton (though you didn't like her) would be the better choice for POTUS. Then you voted Trump anyway against your own rational judgement. I would agrue that the choice you made, think you made, in supporting Trump wasn't a choice at all. Your conscious mind reasoned and understood Clinton to be the superior candidate but your subconscioius had its mind made up. The reasons you tell yourself for making the choice you made are illusions. There was really never a choice. When the time came you were always going to make the choice you made regardless of what you conscioiusly thought. You subconscious allowed you to go through the motions up making a choice but in truth the decision was always in stone. I think we all do this. We tell ours that if we get home from work early on tuesday we'll do X. Then tuesdays rolls around, we get home early, and immidiately find a reason to not do X. It is because we didn't actually believe we'd be home early on tuesday. Our subconscious was just allowing us to imagine. We do it all the time. We ponder about the things we would do if we were in this or that situation. However, despite the conclusions we imagine, people often don't know what they will do until they are actually in the situation. That might be because we aren't actually in the drivers seat consciously. Our fears, complusions, desires, and etc take over once a situation presents itself.

Which was point before. I don't disagree with any you are saying. I think we are just negotiating term a bit here.

Obviously, in the context of my post I was referencing survival in terms of life or death and a trait allowing one to survive (hunt and gather better). Not all traits help with survival. Take for example the research which indicates all blue eyed people are related. Blue eyes come from a lack of pigment. It is not believe there was any survival (ability to find food, shleter, water, make fire, etc) advantage related to having blue eyes. Rather the population of humans at the time simply thought blue eyes looked good and bred it into the population. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130170343.htm

I think they might be an illusion. Consider the following analogy. A parent plans out a family vacation to Disney. They schedule time off work and purchase a family package. The trip is 100% set. Then they tell their children that if they keep their rooms clean for a month they will reward them with a trip to Disney. In reality the trip to Disney is already a done deal. The offer to the kids is just a manipulation. The parents are presenting the kids a choice yet in truth no choice really exists. Yet it accomplishes a few different things:it gets the kids to buy into cleaning their rooms, makes the kids think they can earn things through good behavior, the satifaction of believing they earned the trip probably makes the trip more enjoyable, andetc, etc, etc. Our descision process may work similarly. We present ourselves options and choice when in reality there are none. Then when we make the choice, which was actually dictated to us, we feel a sense ownership and accomplishment. I don't disagree. I would like to add though that survival isn't what drives evolution. Reproduction is. Obviously one must survive to reproduce but amongst all those who survive there can still be individual things that are preferred for a variety of reasons not associated with survival. Like birds with more colorful feathers. In many cases the more colorful feathers have no advantage other than to help attract a mate. It is pure window dressing. Perhaps having a consciousness separated from our unconscious made of more able to lie and cheat because we could hide our true intentions and feelings. That might have given us some advantage in scoring a mate while actually having few advantages for obtaining the basic needs for survival like foods, water, shelter, etc.

Are we actually able to make the choice or are they provided to us in such a way that a specific one will be what we choose. Sort of the way parents manipulate children with quid pro qou set ups which the adults know children with 100% fall for, The children believe they have made a choice but really they were led to make it.

But are the choices real or just a carrot?

We carry genes of our ancestors down through time and there is definitely a repetitive nature to societal behavior. Many battles are fought over and over against. Currently we are experiencing a rise in a type of nationalist driven facism throughout western culture. Could just be an organic movement reacting to the times or part of a larger repetitive cycle. Maybe we cannot see the forest through the trees. Maybe some part of our inherited cognitive traits attempt to resolve past experiences which leaves some segment of the population in a loop. We know that the thoughts and fears of women while pregnant impacts the fetus. Maybe those who reproduced in the mist of all the chaos of WW2 put a different ghost into the machine than those who reproduced in during the resolutions which followed its end. *Just spitballing I have no desire to pull anyones pants down. And as we have discussed desire is someone presented to us unconsciously and not a choice. What I do in the real world cannot be taken back and has domino effects that connot be predicted or known. That doesn't mean that my unconscious isn't influencing what I will choose by controlling the strength of my desire.

Or could it be defaults? Ones unconscious mind just completely takes over as needed when needed. It is constantly running on the background providing choice and jumps in when it doesn't have time to set up choices to provide us. I have so many questions about it and no answers unfortunately.

To influence future pre-consciouse decisions you are implying our real time decisions are true decisions and not illusions of choice. Believe we are making choices for ourselves does provide a source of motivation. If my wife orders me to vacuum the carpet I won't want to do it. If my wife hints it needs tobe done and then at some point I make the choice to do I will then want to do and feel good about doing it. The illusion of choice could purely be internal manipulation designed to keep of motivated and satisfied. When I become aware in my dreams I am able to control my actions within the dream. However the world of the dream itself continues beyond my control. If I become aware I amdreamin the middle of a dream about hiking in the forrest I remain in the forrest I just gain control over myself. The world as presented and thechoices I am presented still exist beyond my understanding. It is a bit like a video game in a way. We can control our character, control their choices, but ultimately are confined by the game itself. As such the characters we are "controlling" never actually do anything unpredictable or beyond the confines of the game.

I don't think it is anything outside us or anything profound within. It seems the unconscious process is actually rather basic. Most animals seem to have fight or flight. Have a instantaneous cognitive process that guides them. Maybe it is the most straight forward way a mind works. It is selfish and entirely focused on need/desire. Our self aware consciousness may have been a filter that simply allowed us to cooperate or organize thought into language. Or believing we had a choice may have had the evolutionary advantage of enabling us to manifest the motivation to do things which we emotionally didn't want to do but needed to do.

Conservatives consistantly vote against their own self interest. Even the couple conservatives on this site acknowledge Republicans are basically dishonst and or wrong about most things yet indicate they'd support them all over again.

They made it clear they wanted to repeal the ACA.The house voted to do so over 70 times over the years. They lied about their reasons for wanting to do so but they made it clear they wanted it gone. The Tea Party movement that gave the control in 2010 was largely a anti ACA (Obamacare) movement. Yes, they are cheaters. Enough isn't made of it from progressives.

What if we aren't making any choices. What if the belief we are has an evolutionary advantage of some kind. Our unconscious directs us through life using a series of false choices. I am not saying this is the case. I am just pondering. The jacket was a bad example. I was not able to this of an ideal example. Ultimately thoughts pop into a person's head all day dealing with everything from desires to memories. So you are right that the choices aren't always yes vs no. Sometypes it isn't even a choice at all. Sometimes it is smiling out of nowhere because of a random thought. What I am interested is understand the relationship, why it exist, and where the thought come from. The relationship - are they equal? Why it exists - does our consciousness need to be stimulated international to function? Obvious we receive external stimulation in the form of sight, hearing, smell, and etc. Maybe that isn't enough. Perhap it requires a dilemna? Where the thoughts come from - is it genetic. Like animals that are born know migration patterns and what not. Are we born with certian desires, fears, thoughts,and etc? How do you know the choice is also ours to make? I didn't choose to be a hetrosexual. I just react to my attraction to women. I suppose I could choose to try and ignore it but that would cause a termendous amount of misery and pain. There are things that make people feel good which are good and may never have been good. Some sick people feel good murdering people. Other people amputate limbs as part of freakish fetishes.

We seem to have the ability to make choices about how to handle our compulsions but no control over what our compulsions are. To me that possibly mean that we aren't fully self aware. Rather we are confined/limited to only making specific choices by a larger or more dominate consciousness in our minds which we are unaware of.

This is what "the people" want. Republicans have been campaigning since 2010 that they repeal the ACA and have won majorities in the House and Senate. I understand that the majority of the country actually supports keeping the ACA as is but we elected politicians who made it crystal clear they would not keep the ACA. It doesn't make any sensethat voters have done this, voting in people to do what they don't want done, but they have.

There have been a couple good threads recently which deal with awareness and consciousness which has gotten me thinking a bit about the function of consciousness and what it actually does and doesn't do. I consciously reason and make choices in life but only after I have unconciously interpreted things. I know instantaneously without any thought what I do and don't want or how I feel about everything. My consciousness chooses an action but the action chosen seldom ever changes what I want or feel. Simply examples of this happen all day everyday. While walking down the street I see a jacket in a store window and immediately am aware that I want it. The desire to have it comes without any thought. Then I consciously tell himself that I don't need it because I have others,can't afford it, don't have time to go in the store, or whatever and continue walking. Despite making the choice not to obtain the jacket the desire to have it, which sprung from up without any thought I was aware of remains. A stronger example would be a homosexual who spends decades of their life trying to consciously suppress their desires yet is unable to. Why would one be unable to change that which they desire if one has conscious control over their own mind? If I am fully self aware and consciousnessly control my own mind than I should be able to choose to desire healthy food, choose not to fear spiders, and etc. Instead I have the ability to ignore my desires and fears. I cannot control what those fears and desires are. Which means I actually have limited influence over what things I will be making choices between. I do not consciousnessly determine what captures my attention, what pops into my mind. Instead my unconscious interprets the world and presents me with actions and ideas which I consciously reason through. My consciousness is led by unconscious thought I do not control and prehaps have no influence over. Some will agrue that a person can tap into or learn to control their fears, desires, and etc. I am very skeptical of this. There are millions of depressed people who would strongly prefer not to be depressed. Millions of people who suffer form one of a thousand personality disorders who would prefer to just make them go away. It isn't simple. Is self awareness simply a mechanism our minds use to make choices?

Different regions and cultures are more closely related. The OP seems to be using Ethnic group and race interchangably to a large extent. We are all the same at the end of the day. Some populations are less genetically diverse but that can change in a single generation. We live in a world where people are born and raised in India immigrate to England and end up having children with someone from Ireland. Or a person raise in Africa moves to Hawaii and has a children with someone from Nebraska and that child moves to Chicago and eventually becomes POTUS.

Any relationship which is mutually beneficial.

1 - Any population which is more genetically diverse. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19633717 http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-study-finds-genetic-diversity-may-be-key-taller-smarter/ 2 - No and your examples excluded and/or ignored countries in Asia which aren't getting along as well like parts of Myanmar, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, rural China, North Korea, and etc. 3 - No 4 - We are all related 5 - Enthic group typically refers to culture while race refers to preceived differences in physical appearance.

Trump needs Healthcare to pass or else his tax plan is not possible. Enough Republicans want those tax cuts. They can only avoid a fillibuster in the Senate and pass the tax bill if it isn't projected to add to the deficit over ten years. Eliminating the ACA with its various subsidies gives Republicans some breathing room on paper to cut taxes without adding to the deficit over ten years. The bill the House just voted on however hasn't been scored by the Congressional Budget Office yet. I don't think the Senate touches it until that happens. Once those figures do come out I think the bill is more or less dead. It will save little money and millions will lose coverage. I don't think it will find enough support to pass in the Seante. This will drag out and become a centeral issue in the mid term election.

When confronted with 2 "experts" of differing opinion most people, in my opinion, tend to favor the middle. There is a over simplified concept of equality or fairness where people assume conceding some to bothsides of an argument is automatically better than not. Those who refuse to take the "bothsides have valid points" position is typically veiwed as some combination of arrogant, self righteous, rude, or out of touch. Because of this a tactful debater can almost always force a draw in a discussion regardless of the level of error contained in their argument(s). Many people are aware and take advantage of this in order to forward concepts that are provably false. People have no problem trusting experts who provide them with innovations they enjoy. Techonolgy companies from Apple to Tesla enjoy loyal costumer bases who trust their products. People seem to be less impressed/interested in innovations which do not provide entertainment or something immediately useful to their own lives directly. Consumerism seems to be one of the few areas in society where people marvel at science without defaulting to accepting that all pros and all cons are equal.

That was my point about commuting. I see a lot of my co-workers giving up a lot of their travel just to sit in traffic. It clearly wears on them phycology as the mere suggestion of changes to the daily schedule is enough to give a few what seems like a near nervous breakdown.