we choose who we are by choosing what we like

[ttt]

Do you agree?
As your identity changes over the years, your preferences also change. Is the reverse true: since there is nothing inherently devoid of value, if you decide to consciously start looking for that value in something, you will find it and you will start genuinely liking this thing for its worth. Then naturally your personality will change because of the change in your value system. Has anyone started/stopped liking something on purpose? Like an activity or a food or another person? How did it affect you?

[Hanselich]

I can agree with you, although this is not the whole story. Values are only part of the complex behavioral pattern, which lead us trough the life. You still can wish to do something else, but are aware that you can't change your behavior, even if your values changed.

[Andyee]

oh I don't know about that ttt....

values and personality are not always equal. But, you have a point there, because you can't be an engineer unless you know physics or something...

[Remiel]

It could be that. Could it also be that we are all wired with certain unchanging facts and that as time goes on we can choose to become more in alignment with that truth?

[James81]

I would say "we choose who we are by choosing what we do."

I believe that "who we are" is simply the culmination of all our experiences and how we dealt with those experiences.

[ttt]

I believe that "who we are" is simply the culmination of all our experiences and how we dealt with those experiences.

Maybe what we do and what we like/don't like go together- one is based on the other.

Could it also be that we are all wired with certain unchanging facts and that as time goes on we can choose to become more in alignment with that truth?

That's what i wonder But if we are 'wired' to like certain things then where is the free will?

values and personality are not always equal. But, you have a point there, because you can't be an engineer unless you know physics or something...

Is there more to personality apart from instincts and habits (they can be changed) and values?

You still can wish to do something else, but are aware that you can't change your behavior, even if your values changed.

Is there a behavior impossible to change?

I think if we have free will we should be able to decide not only how to behave but also what to be attracted to, because otherwise our preferences 'dictate' us what to use our free will for...

[YourHumbleNarrator]

No.

What we like has no bearing on what we are at our core. It is an expression of our core but it does not define it.

Free will doesn't apply on this level of existence. The ego is an action-reaction mechanism; it provides feedback. Through it we are able to identify, experience, and change our expression. It is the spirit which has free will, and until the ego is conscious of it on some level we are entirely ego-driven and thus, if it can be said we have free will at that point, it is extremely limited.

If you were to take a less mystical approach, it's still a fallacy to define yourself by what you like, or to say that your preferences limit you. Your preferences may be automatic but you decide how you'll act on them or if you will at all. Some drives are harder to override than others but it can be done. If you choose to indulge it doesn't mean you are less free. Your urges only become your prison when you feel compelled (by addiction or obsession) to indulge and you succumb.

[Nicholls]

I agree with YourHumbleNarrator. My preferences have changed over the years but I think ultimately it's just an expression of who I am. I'm not sure who I am has changed that much. I'd still say I want exactly what I wanted several years ago, but where I go looking for it and how I go about meeting these wants (or they could be called secondary needs) has changed.

[Plays With Life]

I've wondered about this too; but I kind of think that choosing happens AFTER wanting. You have the experience of wanting something; then you choose what to do about it. Or, you experience want for a feeling, then by seeing other people who seem to achieve that feeling via a certain route (religion, sex n drugs, meditation, whatever you happen to see in your world); you choose to pursue the attainment of that want via that particular route. I don't know that I've ever actually CHOSEN to experience want for a particular thing.

If anyone has a differing experience please share away; I wonder about this.

I might call want a personal, internal response to the possibility of an experience.

[ttt]

What about one's sense of beauty- does it change and can it be altered by choice?

[brendannz]

I think our tastes are very subjective. Like, we could like a movie, or a song, more if we changed our attitude towards it. Same with people, I guess..

so maybe our attitude and our experiences are who we are..

[YourHumbleNarrator]

Originally Posted by ttt

What about one's sense of beauty- does it change and can it be altered by choice?

What doesn't change? Every boy who's ever gone through puberty will tell you it can change.

If you want to change your taste for aesthetics, the crudest means would be to expose and submerge yourself in cultural ideals of beauty not your own be it through film, literature, art, or moving to another part of the world. I mean crude in the sense that it's the least efficient and the least willful. Other methodologies have to be discovered by the individual.