Free Will

Ahmad, It would always have been an absolute impossibility for the 'individual' thinkers leaders or whatever to have functioned without the entire product of 'social' co-operation of one sort or another.

I am not just talking about basic things like pen and parchment, as important as they have been. I talking about the 'higher' developments of language and thought that proceeds the high points of development, including religion, philosophy, etc. I do not think that ideas spring from the heads of people. First there are the 'external' influences, including all social influences of that are created prior to the thought which all of us have always had to struggle with. I am not sure about the Muslim tradition, but the Bible begins with the 'word' "which was made flesh".  I now believe that this is an inversion of reality. First was the flesh = material world, then came the word and the idea. If you wish to withdraw from this debate I will not feel offended. And you are welcome to make the last contribution.

Best wishes Tim

Tim wrote: I am not sure about the Muslim tradition, but the Bible begins with the 'word' "which was made flesh".  I now believe that this is an inversion of reality. First was the flesh = material world, then came the word and the idea.

This is why I always ask my western bro/sis not to observe Islam from the monocule of Christianity.

Tim wrote:  If you wish to withdraw from this debate I will not feel offended. And you are welcome to make the last contribution.

I think this a polite way of saying "shut up and let others also speak". So I agree. I quit from this thread. No hard feelings. Peace.

Ketchup wrote: Tim Evans wrote: I do not think that ideas spring from the heads of people. Why not?  Mary Kelly wrote Frankenstein based on a nightmare she had.  This could, obviously apply to any writer ahead of thier time.  So why can't ideas come from the minds of man?  Regardless of subject matter....

How did the farcical concept, notion, of bringing the dead back to life, in one form or another, get into Mary (Kelly?) is it Shelly's? head. The themes love, ambition etc are re-workings, at a new level, as are all ideas. The raw material is experienced via the senses and possessed by the brain. Without the 'external' world including the complex and imperfectly understood self-conscious personal and social world, Mary and everyone can not have ideas that 'spring from their heads'. So, ideas begin and are part of the relationship between people,the world around them especially other people.

One of the important 'things' that sets man apart from the other animals, is the capacity to consciously make his own history by changing the world and himself, even if it is not under the conditions he would chose.