I choose to cook and enjoy great mouth watering savory meals each day

How can not choosing be a real choice?

If I were madly in love with two men, dating one of them one week and one of them the next week and they told me I had to choose and I honestly could not because I really did love them equally I would have to say in a case like that not choosing is more of a stalemate than a choice to not choose.

By not choosing, the decision about the relationship reverts back to the two men. They can both continue the relationship with me, or they can both break it off.. then again they can decide to run away together and forget all about me.



Anyway, I don't consider deciding not to decide as a true decision. I see it as hesitation, stalemate, confusion, avoidance, a cop out.

Another example: I find two pair of shoes and I love them both but originally I had only intended to buy one pair of shoes. I can't decide which one to buy. Picking one would be a choice. Buying neither one, confusion. Buying both of them because I can't make up my mind... frustration. (or just plain greed.)

****

Reverting back to the first problem of the two men, I probably would want to keep them both if they were willing, as long as they didn't like each other too much.

I read through this and you still did not refute the unchoice as a choice. You named it what you prefer to name it or how you feel about an unchoice but in essense it is still a viable choice. Basically nature or others make choices for you and your life if you choose to unchoose but it is still a viable choice.

I agree in the respect that you consciously decide not to choose. But to not choose because you can't decide is like a stalemate. Yes, the decision could be made for you, by someone else perhaps.

Example: You are in a gunfight and two people are shooting at you. You can't decide which one to shoot at so you freeze or hesitate and you don't make a decision. Then someone shoots you first. I would say that was a "bad decision" or a bad "non-decision," what ever you want to call it. If you want to consider that to be a decision I guess you can, but I don't see it as much of a decision.

Very often when making a decision about something, we don't use all the relevant available information. We use, instead, only a single, highly representative piece of the total. And an isolated piece of information, even though it normally counsels us correctly, can leas us to clearly stupid mistakes.

~~Robert Cialdini, PH.D. Social Psychologist

Thank you all for participating...

While the conversation has been directed in several different directions with supporting evidence accompanying each viewpoint, I believe that there are common denominators. These elements which are evident in each example are necessary for the notion of choosing to exist.

The aspect of unconscious content combined with one's personality(how one consciously perceives and reacts to the world around them) plays the role... obviously. Sometimes people do not think things through. Sometimes people do. Having an understanding of the unconscious content's affect upon the conscious mind helps to gain insight.

Neuroscience has also been very helpful in understanding emotion and cognition in a physiological framework. Understanding how the brain develops throughout life, and which parts perform which functions adds overall understanding as well.

I personally do not believe that it is impossible nor improbable for a conceptual framework to exist which covers all human choice.

The term choosing requires more than one option. In order to choose, one must be choosing between things. In order to choose between things, those things must be thought about.

Anything less is not a choice.

I am still not clear on what the point of this thread is.

Yeah, it was way back at the beginning of the thread... in the OP, oddly enough.

Why does this subject interest you and what is the point of it? That is my question. What has it to do with science or philosophy? I don't get the point of the subject.

If it is true that “In order to choose between things, those things must be thought about.” then "thinking about" is a prerequisite for choice.

So what is the prerequisite for "thinking about"?

I call it "decision".

There must be a decision that drives the act of choosing. Without a decision to choose, no choice would be made.

This is where I differentiate between “choice” and “decision”.

To me “choice” is the selection of an option, but prior to that selection, there is the decision to make the selection.

The concept of choosing plays a, if not the major role in rational human behaviour. The elemental influences which determine if, what, and how one perceives the existence of possible options available combine to produce the long lived conflict between determinism and free will. There are a number of different topics and subjects in which the concept of choosing plays and important role.



Honestly JB, I do not feel as if I could help you to understand where I am coming from. It's ok...

The triune brain which we have consists of three separate general parts, the reptilian brain(brain stem), the limbic brain(seat of emotions), and the neo-cortical(the seat of cognition.)All three of these play major but differing roles in human behaviour. What is behaviour other than response and/or choice?

...Agreed...



...Disagreed. A subject which is capable of volition. A decision is the result of the act of choosing...



...Disagreed. Wants and/or needs drive the act of choosing...



...A clever play on words... However, it could just as easily be said that one makes a choice to decide, could it not?...



...It is the same difference as the one between 6 and one half dozen, as you have framed it above, however, there is a legitimate distinction possible...



...Choosing is the selection of an option. A choice is an option. Decision is not. A decision is the outcome or final product of the act of choosing....

This makes sense. Once I decide what I want, then I proceed to think about it. (The thinking about it, is the "decision" or "the asking" for it in the law of attraction techniques.)

Example: I want a Honda Prelude. So I begin thinking about it.

By thinking about it, I have alerted my unconscious mind that getting a Honda Prelude is "important" and my unconscious mind then begins to alert me to anything that will bring me to my goal.

Then I begin to notice Honda Preludes everywhere and I find several that are available for me to purchase. I am attracted to them simply because I noticed them. I noticed them because my unconscious mind alerted me. My unconscious mind alerted me because I told it that this was "important."

Now It is time to choose which one I will buy from the options.....

Yes, that is one definition for the word. And based on that definition, all the rest of the disagreements follow logically.

Unfortunately, that definition is not the definition I intended, so we’re not even talking about the same thing.

I appreciate your recognition Sky. I also understand what you are saying, however, I wonder what difference it makes whether one chooses to decide or decides to choose. The conceptual framework remains unchanged regardless of the semantical difference. The topic could have been named "Deciding to agree upon deciding". Either way it(the notion of voluntary decision[choice]) requires a subject capable of volition.

The unconscious influence(s) upon one's perceptual faculty is the key factor required when distinguishing between pure involuntary response and that of conscious contemplation(decision/choice).

Wouldn't you agree?