I have reason to believe that the pursuit of our understanding regarding human nature and behaviour has been largely founded upon the false dilemma of "free will" vs. determinism.

Attributing false cause to an observed effect can, and often has, resulted in devastating effects on future human developmental knowledge. For when a severe form of misdiagnosis attains the false virtue of being true within that society, then the shared misunderstanding can become grounds for an entire civilization to possess an illusion of understanding which increases with each additional piece of "knowledge" also based upon that falsehood.

Sky,

You said this...The only thing I can address is what you write, which is exactly what I have been doing, to the best of my ability. Below are a few of your points, which have already been taken into consideration. I feel like it is perhaps you who have been missing the point, so I have taken the liberty of elaborating a little later on in this post in order to build that bridge of understanding between this author and the reader(s). First I will address a few other things...

You asked...What does the answer to this question have to do with the fact that you have attempted to dismiss or deny the existence of the human need for acceptance?

Your points to support the alleged need to redefine the human need for acceptance as if it were equal to a desire to communicate are below, as stated...To which I had already shortly responded as such...Then you said the following things...

Here you define your stance again, quite clearly. You suggested that the innate human need for acceptance(approval) is based upon a desire to communicate.

I hold that the diagnosis you give is grossly incomplete, and therefore as a result of being based upon only a few minor factors involved, it is also inaccurate . In fact, the need for acceptance has little to do with the desire to communicate and everything to do with the judgmental nature of humans which results from none other than the fact that we are self-aware. Making distinctions between us and other things through the use of language meant for value assessment which was originally based upon a collective sense of ought is what the need for acceptance stems from. Allow me to extrapolate...

The beginnings of a learned language are rooted early in childhood. At this time children are taught meaning behind vocalizations and gestures. As the knowledge base grows so does the (mis)understandings. The influencing parties involved not only teach the child the names of things, but also the different properties which belong to those things. Children are taught WHY so and so is what it is. They are taught judgement.

When a child speaks s/he is laying out their own personal thoughts according to their individual interpretations of what the words being used mean. This is in an effort to seek approval for the expression. The reaction either supports or negates the confirmation, and either way the child is instructed. As a result, in the next venture of the same sort, the child will adjust the method accordingly while continuing to seek the approval from those who the child deems admirable. It is clear that knowledge and understanding lead to judgement(value assessment) through a general consensus, the collective sense of ought.

As a result of not only how humans are hardwired but also the different environmental(human) influences which are present in everyone's life, there are certain words and phrases which each of us transform into a significant series of individual elements pertaining to a general idea and/or symbol which is stored into our perceptual faculty for later revisitation. Those key words bring about entire conceptual (mis)understandings depending upon the accuracy of the initial assessment. The element which determines which pieces of knowledge are judgmental is identified by which ones exist independently of social confirmation. The meanings which are used and intended for judgement are those previously developed in their presuppositions and implications during the confirmation of social intercourse.

Therefore the personal sense of ought is acutely trained within social renderings and honed by the successive interaction it's social world which thereby validates it's accuracy within the person. Subsequently, the personal truth, being a product of the personal sense of ought, will later be projected upon that world.

To deny the existence of the innate need for acceptance in humans is to deny the existence of the products which facilitate that need's fulfillment such as the ego, persona, masks, worldly fingerprint,etc. I would suspect that any person capable of volition would concur that those things exist regardless of what we name them, and that they are products of the human need for acceptance, which is a bi-product of personal judgement.

Sky, what you suggested actually is the exact opposite of what is. The conscious adaptation of one's behaviours in an effort to become more acceptable to others is a direct result from precisely understanding that there are things about us that others do not like and/or find unacceptable. Therefore, the need to feel as thought you are accepted can, and often does, override one's natural inclinations for certain behaviours and/or likes and dislikes in such a way that the person consciously chooses to modify themselves or their behaviour accordingly, not in an effort to be better understood, just better accepted.

Freewill is an ill constructed concept, either there are immutable laws governing the universe, meaning everything is predetermined, or there is an element of chance as displayed in quantum physics. Either way there is no room for freewill.

An interesting experiment done ny a neuro-scientist demonstarted that you dont feel or think or register anything in your concious untill after .5 seconds after the neuron has fired. Meaning conciousness is passive and does not iniate anything especially thought.

This is simple and makes sence and I really dont think it can be any other way as our conciousness is estimated to be able to process about 10-100 bits of informatin a second, our total brain proceses are estimated to process 11 millions bits of information a second. ANother interesting view is that if the universe is a closed system than it is predictatable if there are immutable laws, if it is infinite an infinite amount of forces would be acting upon one other and therefore completely hindering any predictability as a whole. Again either way no room for freewill as an absolute.

Question do you choose who you are attracted to? Do you choose to get angry when someone says something you do not like? I am not asking if you can have an effect on these processes, I am asking if you choose for them to occur? Or do they occur and you choose how you respond or not? When you feel justified, is it because you choose to feel justified.

Have you never looked back on something and wondered why you where so mad?

Do you choose what you will eat when you go to a restaurant? Do you choose which major you will follow when you go to college

Why would food be any different then attraction?

Do you really choose what foods you like?

Why would choice of career be any different than aptitude; say learning a musical instrument? Do we choose what we are good at?

I really don't think absolutes will get at the nature of this particular beast Sky, I have said as much many times. I don't take a position on free will vs determinism, from what I can tell making such a distinction on polar ends makes no sense.

We can choose to be good at something by practicing.

As I said ... etc., etc.

Sure I guess that depends on your definition of good. I doubt most people would be good musicians from the perspective of an Amadeus and especially a Salieri. I study music, its my hobby, to me I am good. To a professional I would not be good, good is subjective, but that doesnt make it free of determinism.

Practice is still deterministic however sky . . . each new neural connector that outputs the desired effect reinforces itself each time it is triggered, the brain counts how often and how much it is triggered and adds new receptors for that function to be sharper. As you learn new effects that you consider good, you gain new receptors to respond to that. Even if you choose to participate in this activity, it could be said that your predisposition toward that activity is determined.

These things . . . determinism, free will, I really don't think they are opposites.

To me determinism is all about perspective. People talk about god like they know him . . . like THEY could know the mind of god.

God if anything would be the only perspective that could determine everything. This god perspective, this ability to see and know all variables, it is the utmost hubris to think anyone could even gain this perspective or to judge from this perspective, I think that is my core issue with religion and even spirituality, its the hubris to think you know without so much as an ounce of real work the mind of omniscience.

I think that is what science is for humanity, its additive. We are individually simple beings who can never know this god perspective in our lives, but each of us has the ability to work hard and discover small parts of this hidden image. Together we can unlock the mysteries of the universe. If there is a god, its all intelligence combined in the store house of knowledge.

If there will ever be a consciousness capable of accounting for all of this knowledge we will not have been created by it, but we will be its creator.

Well I think when we as a single perspective consciousness try to understand something we are forced to reduce and simplify the details of the thing in questions, I think we lose parts doing this, and it leads to the view that things cannot be determined.

(assuming by "determined" you mean "understood" and not "caused") No argument there. "We can never prove that we're right. Only that we're wrong."

To take off on a wild flight of fancy with that, one might conclude that "rightness" has nothing to do with physical reality. It is only a mental construct. Whereas "wrongness" (or more specifically "non-rightness" is what defines physical reality.

That is, physical reality is defined by what we know it's not.

Some interesting lines of reasoning there, like...

Reality is actually a mental construct, because all we can actually prove is what it is not.

(Don't mind me, I'm just a compulsive thinker prone to following random trains of thought.)

No I don't mind you! You bring up good thoughts even when I don't always agree with them

"To take off on a wild flight of fancy with that, one might conclude that "rightness" has nothing to do with physical reality. It is only a mental construct."

I agree here, right and wrong is definitely a mental construct . . things just are, things are only good or bad for what thinking makes them (my mom said this often to me as a kid when ever I had a disagreement with someone)

Question do you choose who you are attracted to?

Do you choose to get angry when someone says something you do not like?

I am not asking if you can have an effect on these processes, I am asking if you choose for them to occur?

Or do they occur and you choose how you respond or not? When you feel justified, is it because you choose to feel justified.

Have you never looked back on something and wondered why you where so mad?

I wonder where the unconscious aspect of human behaviour comes into play...

Those things that one does not think about consciously, yet they do play a huge role in emotion and that which is recognized as being an available choice.