Choice or Illusion?
Archives: Daily Issues
Issue #2571
- WEALTHY: Why human nature is an investor’s worst enemy (Andrew Gordon)
- HEALTHY: A surprising source of migraine headaches (James LaValle)
- WISE: William James on free will
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Is man nothing more than a stimulus-response machine? (Robert Ringer)
- Clean up your writing with a simple trick (Suzanne Richardson)
- It’s Good to Know… how to extend the life of your laptop battery
- Add “flapdoodle” to your vocabulary
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The Dispassionate Investor
From rags to riches. Redemption. An exciting story. A happy ending. These are things that make good movies, not good stocks.
Were you tempted to buy Bank of America, GM, or GE? Or wannabe giant-killer American Micro Devices that had Intel on the ropes for a few shining months?
Human nature can be our worst enemy when we invest. We think a company “deserves” better, is “misunderstood,” is ready to “fight back”… as if the market cares about any of these things.
There are a lot of screaming bargains available right now. Lots of companies with compelling stories. Lots of companies in sexy sectors (like alternative energy). But, you’re not looking for romance. You’re looking for a good investment.
Usually, you can tell a risky stock when you see one. GM never looked good last year. Bank of America made headlines for all the wrong reasons. GE kept revising its earnings down. American Micro Devices is the classic underdog, but had serious money problems it couldn’t hide from anybody.
You know better than to invest in companies like these. Look for your thrills elsewhere – and remember that the biggest investment mistakes are stocks you bought, not the ones you missed.
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“My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.”
William James
Choice or Illusion?
While it seems like a simple enough proposition, the fact is that choice can be a very complicated subject. I think most people believe “You are a victim of your own choices.” They have shared story after story about how they made bad choices that led to their downfall, as well as good choices that led to great success – often in the face of enormous obstacles.
I agree that where we are at any given point in our lives is primarily the result of the choices we’ve made. But I’m not as hard line on the issue as you might expect. For example, if a person does not have the mental capacity – or emotional makeup – to make good choices, it is virtually certain he will make a lot of bad ones. This is the plight of the so-called “special needs” child.
I’ve taken some heat from hard-core conservatives and libertarians for saying that Seung-Hui Cho, who murdered 32 fellow students and teachers at Virginia Tech in April 2007, was a victim as well as the perpetrator of a heinous crime. No one has the wisdom, let alone the moral authority, to decide who is, and is not, mentally capable of making good choices.
Another interesting way of looking at choice was sent in by one of my readers who said: “I would assert that none of us ever has free will or choice. Choice is an illusion – an illusion that ego is ever so proud of.” He went on to explain that extensive studies have shown that the brain is “already in the process of executing all actions and thoughts one full second before the action takes place, and a half a second before the action/process is noticed by attention/consciousness.”
In other words, the ego/mind notices something that’s already happening and, while it is happening or sometime afterward, says, “I did that!” or “I chose for that to happen” or “I willed that to happen.” But, my reader pointed out, since “the action had already started and would continue even if it never made it into consciousness/attention/ego/mind,” that makes us nothing more than stimulus-response machines.
So, it all comes down to the same old question: Does man really possess free will – the power to choose? Or is our every thought just a result of the way our brains evolved? Was the “thought” in my mind to type these words already set in motion 14 billion years ago, as well as the thought to even ask the question? Is my belief that I am, of my own free will, sharing all this with you just an illusion?
Gosh, I hope not. For if we are nothing more than organic automatons, life has no meaning. If we do not have free will, we are but actors on a cosmic stage, playing out our parts exactly as we were programmed to do. Which would make for rather dull theater.
And that makes the Dalai Lama no better or no worse than Adolf Hitler. One of them was simply programmed to be a good toy, the other a bad toy. In fact, aside from criminal defense attorneys and politicians, you’d have to give everyone a free pass for their “bad” actions. Which is why, though I believe in free will, humility compels me to admit that I don’t understand it.
Why not just make everyone good? Why give anyone the power to make bad choices?
Regardless, to one extent or another, most people do believe in free will. Which means they believe in some degree of self-determination, a concept with two divergent groups of adherents – humanists and “spiritualists.”
To oversimplify it, a humanist believes that man is totally at the controls and that science, in effect, invalidates God. From an intellectual viewpoint, the problem I have with this is that while man continues, at an accelerating pace, to figure out how things work, it seems clear that he will never be able to answer the “why” question. Why does gravity work the way it does? Why do atoms combine to form certain specific molecules? Why is math the language of the universe?
I am what I would call a “straddler.” I believe in self-determination brought about by connecting with a “Universal Power Source.” But, at the same time, I believe that many things are not within man’s control. Yet, there are two important questions this viewpoint does not answer:
First, why do certain events seem to be predestined and out of our control? And, second, which events really are out of our control? We pretty much know that macro events such as earthquakes, typhoons, and collisions between objects in the cosmos fall into this category, but what about events in our day-to-day lives?
And what about the age-old question: Why do bad things happen to good people? I’ve listened to many people do mental cartwheels in an effort to glide around this one, but my own answer is as straightforward and honest as I can make it: I simply don’t know.
The subject of fatalism versus self-determination constitutes far more than just a fascinating philosophical discussion. It gets at the very heart of making good choices. If you believe in fatalism, there is no reason to even try to make good choices. On the contrary, it gives you a good excuse to embrace the most extreme form of narcissism. This, I believe, is the underlying, perhaps subconscious, mindset of the John Edwards Genre.
But if you are among the millions who believe that some things are predetermined while others are not, my advice is that you not spend a great deal of time worrying about which things fall into which category. It makes a lot more sense to make a conscious effort to make good choices at all times. This doesn’t guarantee that you will always succeed in making good choices – but if you don’t even make the effort, it does guarantee that you will rarely make them.
And what if our choices really are nothing more than illusions? What if we really are nothing more than stimulus-response machines? Not much you can do about that except enjoy the illusion that you have free will, and keep on imagining that you’re making good choices… just in case, somewhere down the road, you should discover that you do have the power to control your own destiny.
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Do You Have Bad Writing Habits?
"I've recently noticed a little 'quirk' in your writing style," Charlie Byrne mentioned to me the other day. "It's a particular 'thing' you do a lot. Not necessarily bad, but now that I noticed it, I see it a lot!"
My bad habit? Starting sentences with "And."
I probably have other bad habits when it comes to my writing. But this one was starting to take over. In fact, it was starting to detract from the messages I was trying to convey. It's like noticing that a speaker says "um" a lot - and once you're fixated on that, you stop listening to the important things he has to say.
If all your reader can see when she reads your sales letters is "And" - or whatever your particular tic may be - there's no way you can make the sale.
Perhaps you overuse exclamation marks. Or you rely too heavily on ellipses. Or you use certain phrases repeatedly. Here's how to weed them out: Just have a third party read through your sales letters. She'll be looking at them with fresh eyes, which will make it easy for her to pinpoint the words or phrases you use too often. Then go back through the sales letter and eliminate 95 percent of the offending element.
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New Relief for Migraine Sufferers
Undiagnosed food allergies can cause dark circles around the eyes, fatigue, chronic sinus drainage, joint pain, and general achiness. But they may also cause headaches. I’ve known this for years, and research is finally validating it.
Many migraine sufferers can name their trigger foods – often chocolate, nuts, red wine, or cheese. Until recently, no one had a good explanation for why those foods act as triggers. However, according to a recent study in an allergy and immunology journal, migraines, which can occur in as much as 18 percent of the population, may be caused by IgG food allergies. (An IgG allergic response is a delayed reaction – as opposed to the immediate response of an IgE reaction, such as hives or anaphylaxis – which occurs when a foreign substance like bacteria or a food protein enters the bloodstream.)
In the study, migraine sufferers were tested for 108 food allergens. In those who tested positive for IgG reactions to foods, the headaches were successfully treated without the use of migraine medications. The subjects simply avoided the foods they were allergic to. Unfortunately, IgG testing is rarely suggested to those who suffer migraines, even though it is readily available and relatively inexpensive.
While IgG food allergies have not been fully recognized in the past, newer information is set to change that. So if you suffer from migraines (or any of the other symptoms I mentioned above), food allergy testing – namely IgG or ELISA testing – may be the solution to your problem. For more information, visit our website at lmihealth.com or go to foodallergy.com/about.html or immunolabs.com.
[Ed. Note: Breakthroughs in the health industry are published almost every day. To know which ones can help you live a longer, healthier life, sign up for ETR's free natural health newsletter.
It truly is possible to improve your health just by making wise choices when it comes to diet and lifestyle. James B. LaValle, RPh, ND, CCN - founder of the LaValle Metabolic Institute and a nationally recognized expert on natural therapies - can give you easy-to-understand directions for living the healthy life you've always wanted. Learn how to feel better and live longer right here.]
It’s Good to Know: How to Extend the Life of Your Laptop Battery
Business road warriors know all too well that laptop battery life is a precious thing, especially when working on a plane, in an airport, or anywhere else without readily accessible electrical outlets.
One way to extend the life of your battery is to change the power settings. In Windows, double-click on the “battery” icon on the lower right-hand side of the screen. You’ll find several power-saving options. One major drain on laptop battery juice, for example, is the screen. So making it less bright will significantly extend battery life.
(Source: Lifehacker)
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Word to the Wise: Flapdoodle
“Flapdoodle” (FLAP-dood’l) is nonsense. Though of uncertain origin, the word is usually considered to be an American invention.
Example (as used by Betty Fussell in The New York Times): “Behind the tourist flap-doodle, authentic [Key West] cooking is produced by the descendants of Bahamian English and Cubans, who migrated to this coral reef over a century ago.”
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Copyright ETR, LLC, 2009
You are fool~! (and I don’t say that lightly although I struggled trying to decide between “idiot” and “fool”) That is a decision I made after deliberation and after my mind/brain had made several rapid decisions. What you and your fellow eggheads don’t understand is that YOU program YOUR mind to act rapidly so you don’t have to take the milli-seconds needed to make an choice in order to get your body to act. This is what allows you to “jump” before you think it out(evaluate alternatives) and make a decision when you touch something hot.
However, you don’t keep jumping because your brain told your body to jump. After that milli-second reaction your logical brain takes over and tells your body to stop jumping. Those who study the martial arts constantly program their bodies to react a certain way without taking the time to evaluate alternatives. This is so the body will start to react before they have time to think it out and make a plan. But this program is the result of many repetitions of a consciously made decision.
Is this Cho who killed the 32 students a murderer – yes! Is he a victim – only if you say that anyone who has ever had been mistreated in anyway is a victim. His mommy scolded him when he was a baby so he has the right to now be a victim and kill 32 others.
I make decisions by the millions every day. My body does not start moving toward the pusher to buy drugs before I make a decision. I made a choice many years ago that was not the way I wanted to live.
Besides you are always assuming that the first impulse before a decision is the bad(your idea of course is that nothing is bad – just different) way to move. You program(make a decision) your body to act in certain ways. Your program is like a computer program with many lines of code. this code does not suddenly materialize from the ether – it is painstakingly built line by line to execute actions that you want to take.
You see the problem with our nation is that liberals, not true liberals (since liberal thinkers are those who allow their minds to consider and evaluate any and all ideas for its merit not some ingrained immoral ideas,) but labeled liberals by society, cannot look beyond the lies they have been taught and believed, that is that we are all responsible for our actions.
You are not destined to do that which you do – you decide to do that which you do. Just as great leaders consciously decide to do the things that make them great – great evildoers decide to do the things that make them evil.
For example; Adolph Hitler was treated well by Jew when he was younger, but he made a conscious decision to kill the Jews when he achieved the power to do so. Martin King was treated by well and badly by whites when he was younger because he was black, but he made the decision to treat whites and blacks as equals when he was at his highest level.
Under you and your liberal (labeled liberal) agenda we should treat both those men equally. Well you are wrong! I have the wisdom and the moral authority to make that statement. I have observed for many years the results of good decisions and bad decisions made by people, including my own family.
Finally God set before us both GOOD and EVIL and said CHOOSE which you will serve!.