Tyrant

You only think you're making a choice. What you are really doing is reacting to a situation the way you are designed to.

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Kurushimi

Here's an example. You go out to buy a car. At first, you were thinking about buying a Ford Mustang. When you get there, the salesmen tells you about the different cars they have. You decide to change your mind and pick up the Fusion for it's lower price and higher efficiency. Did the salesmen control your mind? No, you made a decision based on the information you were given. It's that simple.

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~ xkcd

GENERATION 4: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.

Tyrant

Not really, you were going to buy a car. You were presented with some information that caused you to react differently. No free will, free will is an illusion.

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Madness

And as such your freedom has been changed due to outside influences. It isn't really your choice anymore.

Besides, who truely thinks that absolute freedom exists anyway?

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Kurushimi

Huh? How was our freedom changed?

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~ xkcd

GENERATION 4: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.

Ames

Everyone has their own destiny. Its whether you recognize it and work hard to attain what you want to be or let your emotions get the best of you and become, "what you always wanted to be".

So yes, everybody has a free mind to a certain degree. Its whether you accept it or not.

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Ignorance is Bliss...

Madness

Because it has been altered from it's original purpose.

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Masked_Felix

Madness, Frieza, you two do realize that anything and everything is an influence, right? You should also realize that all an influence can do is suggest. It can't make the choice for you. Gaining information doesn't make the choice not yours. It just provides more background, valid or not, for you to decide from. If your choice with a certain intel present is different than when it wasn't, so what? It's not taking away anything, and it's not making the choice for you. Free will isn't an illusion. Just your concept of it.

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Madness

And you do realise that from what I've learnt you are wrong don't you? Media Studies teaches us how the media is used to change our perceptions and shape our beliefs. If you believe that all it does is suggest and provide information than you are sadly wrong. I'm saying that you are influenced from the very moment you see a TV screen or read a book. It shapes your beliefs.

A truely free mind would not be influenced by anything and would makes its choices ONLY based upon it's own experiences, rather than anything from the media or passed on. Ideology makes this impossible these days, unless you live under a rock.

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Tyrant

You do realize that if you could study life at the smallest scale, you could predict the future? And why is that? Because life is based on preset actions. There is no free will, only actions and reactions.

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Masked_Felix

Then I must say that what you've learned is flawed. Media does it's best to shape your perceptions. Yeah. How does it do that? Information. The information as noted previously, doesn't have to be benevolent or even valid. In the end, all it is is information, though. You have to choose what you want to do with it. It can't make you do anything without you choosing to go along with it.

If I were to think down your avenue, a truely free mind can't exist. Experiences are influence. Anything and everything is an influence, human or not, valid or not, benevolent or not. However, what you don't understand because of whatever you've taken away from whichever class you attended is that no matter how tricky, how intentionally misleading, or attemptively controlling the media and other people are, they can't make the choice for you, else the guys in charge would just do it, we would all be mindless robots incapable of breathing without being told, and such trickery wouldn't be necessary.

Weak. The choices a person has can be potentially limitless, and the reactions to each of those choices equally so. Choices can just be narrowed down based on things that people adhere to, like law. I could just as easily stab a waiter in the face as I could ask for a refill. The consequences of that action, or as you would say, reaction to it, would be me getting in some deep crap with the authorities, if not the waiter's buddies first. It doesn't take away my ability to make that choice.

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Skrrp

Damn, I was trying to stay out of the sales/advertising/marketing angle on this one, but you got me.

The example you gave, of a salesperson influencing based on fact. It's a good one and I can't argue. If that is the fact, it is such and will evaluate to true.

I have been a salesman. 10 years on the floor I have served. I tried to keep my integrity, in that I tried not to lie to customers and that I tried to base my advice on what was best for them, not my commission. I have also known people in sales for whom the opposite it true.

Now, onto advertising. Your example is of the most extreme 'correct' viewpoint where a customer has been won over by fact. I am going to take the polar opposite position to highlight problems.

Advertising: where a company buys a slot on TV/radio/newspapers/magazines. They define the format, text, layout and besides a very limited set of laws (emissions on cars for one), they basically make up what they say. They pay for the space, they write the script.

Consumer organisations: (Eg: Which magazine) work for the consumer, make product comparisons and reviews fairly and independently, but due to running costs, have to charge for their service.

So - the consumer has adverts shoved down their throats even against their will at all times, but to get an objective independent view, they have to go out of their way to find it and pay for it.

Now, when a company runs an advert campaign, they are the ones that write the script. If you follow advertising, you will notice that they usually argue on one point. It may be price, or quality, or some other property that their product has and their opponent doesn't.

They lie by omission. Unlike the consumer sources, they are not forced to tell the whole truth. They only tell that which makes their product 'seem' to be better than another.

As noted - in order to get the whole truth, a consumer must go out of their way to seek it and pay for it. Adverts are rammed down their throats all day long for free.

You should be able to see what I am trying to say by now.

Basically (my PoV), if marketing wants to remain as a legitimate industry, for each advert they put out, they should be forced to publish (alongside the corporate propaganda) at least 4 customer reviews; 2 positive, 2 negative.

If a product is so good (as in better than the competition in every aspect) - it would not even need damn marketing. It would stand on its own 2 feet as it is. Marketing is money spent by the company as a bet that they can dupe stupid people into buying their product when really, it is not any better than the opposition.

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http://skrrp.net/

GENERATION 16068: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 57 to the generation. Social experiment.

Madness

Have you never heard of ideology? Why would the majority of men rather be with a thin chick than a fat one? Ideology. That is an example of a belief that was changed through the media.

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Tyrant