Do we have free will ?

[Someone here]

10 minutes ago, Eothasian said:

The idea of randomness comes from a position that wants to confine it into tight linearity

Well ..what are the choices that we have ?

Either we have free will.  Or our choices are deterministic. Or they are random .

If you observe direct experience carefully..you will notice that your thoughts and actions do not come about from a CEO/separate self/controller agent that lives inside your mind . Neither it is deterministic because what exactly would make it deterministic? It's not like there is  a creator god who has written your entire life story down to every single little detail .I guess it's just random .because we can't anticipate the next choice that we are gonna make .

Humans certainly have the ability to make choices .. to anticipate the outcome of possible actions and select the action that will lead to a preferred goal.

People who believe in libertarian free will seem to see this as some sort of metaphysical event that is independent of the web of cause and effect that makes up the rest of the universe. However, this is undemonstrated and is a rather extraordinary claim. it’s also contradicted by the various ways in which human choices can be manipulated by drugs, suggestion, neurological stimulation, brain damage, etc.

It’s the process of choosing that people actually experience, not some metaphysical independence from causality, which, let’s be honest, we wouldn’t have the foggiest idea about from simple introspection.

[Phil]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

Well..I would say I'm awareness itself rather than a thing which has awareness. 

So in relation to my point about thoughts ..they don't seem like they are being willed by awareness .they just arise .

Awareness is said to be the self, and thoughts are said to be a they… which don’t seem to be willed by awareness. The implication is there is awareness and thoughts… which aren’t or are willed by awareness. 

If thoughts are a they, finite, as if objects, albeit described as abstract… then awareness by default is also finite. 

Infinite can not know finite. 

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

I mean you can try it ..close your eyes ..get into meditation and try to think of nothing ..Notice that you can't. Why Is that? 

Now there is said to be a separate self, Phil, which could get into meditation and try to think. 

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

You have a video called "there is no thinker of thoughts "if I remember correctly? 

There is no thinker of thoughts. 

Perhaps confusion arises from the conjecture of  “God’s will”, and the implication God has some thing (will) and it is missed that this is a solipsistic ego centered conceptualization…? Similarly, the conjoining of the synonyms God & Consciousness to arrive at the underlying implication there is a separate self which has “God Consciousness”…?

[Aware Wolf]

Okay lets say there's no free will. Is there volition ? 

 

The practical thing about free will is that those who profess there's no such thing, mostly live their lives as if there was Free Will. Someone bullies you -- you don't like that person at a minimum. How many people think it was inevitable? For parents, if your kid misbehaves, and uses no free will as an excuse for it -- but is it determinate? Something they couldn't help because the universe is deterministic? Ya, right. There's people that label themselves as an angry person and this label is an excuse. "Well, I can't NOT get angry. I'm just an angry type person!" I could go on here : "The deterministic Universe made me angry." or "YOU made me angry." 

 

Course if you say "There's no I, no You...." like a lot of nondualists say, if there's no self, there's no free will for a self or person to have. There's choice but choices just get made. Interestingly nondualist Jim Newman said on Sam Harris, that he still gets angry in traffic. Huh. The traffic though is deterministic. Idiot drivers have no other choice but to be idiots. If you rerean the road scenario 1000 times it would be the same. It was funny in the Harris interview, Jim Newman couldn't answer basic questions about his background and mentors "because there is no Jim Newman" but he still evidently has a self that doesn't like to sit in traffic and feels frustrated by it and thinks it could be otherwise. 

 

I don't believe in a Self or self, but there's a construction of a self. In a new book, Jay Garfield said there's clearly no self -- but there is obviously person. I don't know if we gain by this semantic differentiation between selves and persons. The same with Free WIll. If I don't have free will, then I can't choose to give the nondualist teacher or lama any money. A donation will simply be made. I don't have do do anything. Okay, sure, let's try that. Are you okay with that Jim? 

 

There's random number generators but in small print they say they are not really true random number generators. It's a simulation. But it does the job mostly. I think the same with selves and free will. There's no big self and no free will but there's a constructed person (using Garfield's terminology here) and a faux free will. One's choices do make a difference. Part of the benefit of mindfulness is that it can provide a gap for us to have a wise reaction. 

 

 

 

[Eothasian]

@Someone here

Randomness implies miscalculation by 100% accuracy of your ability to calculate correctly.

 

How does it fit into arising thoughts?

[Someone here]

5 minutes ago, Phil said:

Awareness is said to be the self, and thoughts are said to be a they… which don’t seem to be willed by awareness. The implication is there is awareness and thoughts… which aren’t or are willed by awareness. 

If thoughts are a they, finite, as if objects, albeit described as abstract… then awareness by default is also finite. 

Infinite can not know finite. 

Lemme see if I understand this correctly..so there Is not two. awareness +thoughts would be two. But since there is not two... .therefore awareness =thoughts. Another way to put it is that awareness appears as thoughts.  Am I correct?

So the question remains...where do thoughts arise from ? It seems like it arises out of nowhere. 

Even Rupert Spira says so in this video:

It seems like If we assume our identity to be anything (X for example) that our choices are not being generated by X. That's the claim I'm making based on observing thoughts and actions and how they come about .

10 minutes ago, Phil said:

Perhaps confusion arises from the conjecture of  “God’s will”, and the implication God has some thing (will) and it is missed that this is a solipsistic ego centered conceptualization…? Similarly, the conjoining of the synonyms God & Consciousness to arrive at the underlying implication there is a separate self which has “God Consciousness”…

No I literally didn't mention (to you at least) anything about god here . Ramana maharshi was once asked "what is God?" And he said "god is what is" and I agree with this definition. 

I don't know about "god-consciousness " either (didn't mention It in my argument).

As I mentioned in OP.  If you were to randomly write down on a piece of paper a list of your favourite songs or movies..you will notice it in direct experience that the thoughts just pop up unintentionally in your mind as if out of nowhere.  How Do you explain that, if we are the source of our thoughts? 

I think the free will issue is a thorny one because it represents a collision between two opposing, yet equally valid, perspectives. From a purely metaphysical perspective, if we don't have free will, why are we here? What is the point of life if we cannot choose our own paths? Yet from a purely scientific perspective, how is it possible that anything can occur without having been caused by something else? If we really can choose, then these choices must be uncaused  .something that cannot be explained within the model of science that many of us rely on.

[Someone here]

27 minutes ago, Aware Wolf said:

Okay lets say there's no free will. Is there volition ? 

 

The practical thing about free will is that those who profess there's no such thing, mostly live their lives as if there was Free Will. Someone bullies you -- you don't like that person at a minimum. How many people think it was inevitable? For parents, if your kid misbehaves, and uses no free will as an excuse for it -- but is it determinate? Something they couldn't help because the universe is deterministic? Ya, right. There's people that label themselves as an angry person and this label is an excuse. "Well, I can't NOT get angry. I'm just an angry type person!" I could go on here : "The deterministic Universe made me angry." or "YOU made me angry." 

 

Course if you say "There's no I, no You...." like a lot of nondualists say, if there's no self, there's no free will for a self or person to have. There's choice but choices just get made. Interestingly nondualist Jim Newman said on Sam Harris, that he still gets angry in traffic. Huh. The traffic though is deterministic. Idiot drivers have no other choice but to be idiots. If you rerean the road scenario 1000 times it would be the same. It was funny in the Harris interview, Jim Newman couldn't answer basic questions about his background and mentors "because there is no Jim Newman" but he still evidently has a self that doesn't like to sit in traffic and feels frustrated by it and thinks it could be otherwise. 

 

I don't believe in a Self or self, but there's a construction of a self. In a new book, Jay Garfield said there's clearly no self -- but there is obviously person. I don't know if we gain by this semantic differentiation between selves and persons. The same with Free WIll. If I don't have free will, then I can't choose to give the nondualist teacher or lama any money. A donation will simply be made. I don't have do do anything. Okay, sure, let's try that. Are you okay with that Jim? 

 

There's random number generators but in small print they say they are not really true random number generators. It's a simulation. But it does the job mostly. I think the same with selves and free will. There's no big self and no free will but there's a constructed person (using Garfield's terminology here) and a faux free will. One's choices do make a difference. Part of the benefit of mindfulness is that it can provide a gap for us to have a wise reaction. 

 

 

 

Yeah I feel ya .

The free will issue has huge issues for many areas of our society, including our legal system. If a criminal defendant has no free will, then he cannot be held responsible for his crime, because he could not have chosen otherwise. A child who fails an exam cannot be punished, because that test score could not have been different. A parent who spoils her children is not doing anything “wrong”, because she did not make the choice to raise her children in any specific way. Etc 

[Eothasian]

18 minutes ago, Eothasian said:

@Someone here

Randomness implies miscalculation by 100% accuracy of your ability to calculate correctly.

 

How does it fit into arising thoughts?

 

You could say, I will predict my next thought. 

But then: there are no thoughts, you hit the thought or you didn't.

 

Then comes the question: what is the probability of hitting that thought?

1: infinity?

If it's that, then it's either impossible or 100%

Because if you try to hit 1 from infinity then infinity exists and you have all the infinite time to get this thought out, so 100%.

If you said to calculate it in a finite time frame ( let's say within the next 2 seconds), then impossible, because how do you choose 1 thought between infinite in 2 seconds?

Unless you will it, but did you will it then or was it meant to happen?

 

We can go like this for infinity.

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Eothasian

[Someone here]

@Eothasian I'm having a difficult time understanding your posts. If you could simplify it? 

[Phil]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

Lemme see if I understand this correctly..so there Is not two. awareness +thoughts would be two. But since there is not two... .therefore awareness =thoughts. Another way to put it is that awareness appears as thoughts.  Am I correct?

👍🏻 

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

So the question remains...where do thoughts arise from ? It seems like it arises out of nowhere. 

Infinity / awareness, but thoughts don’t ‘come from’ infinity / awareness to somewhere or someone else. As you said, thoughts appear. 

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

How Do you explain that, if we are the source of our thoughts? 

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

I think the free will issue is a thorny one because it represents a collision between two opposing, yet equally valid, perspectives. From a purely metaphysical perspective, if we don't have free will, why are we here? What is the point of life if we cannot choose our own paths?

Happiness & experience in the same way awareness appears as thoughts. 

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

Yet from a purely scientific perspective, how is it possible that anything can occur without having been caused by something else? If we really can choose, then these choices must be uncaused  .something that cannot be explained within the model of science that many of us rely on.

First there is the believing of a thought that anything (any finite thing) actually exists (is happening) and then the thought that that thing happening must have been caused by another thing. 

[Someone here]

@Phil I watched the video . You said there Is no  chooser .and no two thoughts experienced simultaneously.  And that both statements "I have free will " and "I don't have free will " are apparent thoughts .

Do you mean that Whether there is (choice) or is not, is a duality?

Imo; I'm  stuck on neti-neti. Not realizing that it's only a polar response to me previously believing that there is, in fact, free will and choice. I'm trying to prove that belief false. Which is unnecessary. 

should I Simply recognize the duality and don't choose sides?  Remain in the center?

 

Also ..I guess it comes from observing direct experience plus contemplating what aspects of my life I did actually choose.

 

 From birth to death.. it seems like I'm on a ride in which I'm not the driver of.  For example..Did you make any choice to find and  read this thread today? 

I guess when you analyze the moment of taking the action.. It turns out there is no order or reason behind our thoughts and actions. It's all so random and chaotic. 

It also has to do with the illusion of the "chooser". When it's seen clearly that the sense of individuality is illusion.. It's hard to then make a case that "you" have a choice when there is no you to begin with.(as a separate entity). 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Someone here

[Phil]

24 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Do you mean that Whether there is (choice) or is not, is a duality?

What is a duality?

(7:05)

 

30 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Imo; I'm  stuck… my previously believing… I’m trying to prove… should I simply recognize…remain in… I guess it… my life… I did actually… I’m on a… I’m not the… I guess when you… 

Where, what… is the one those thoughts / words are about?

 

34 minutes ago, Someone here said:

it's only a… it comes from… it seems like… it turns out… it’s all so… it also has to do with… when it’s seen clearly… it’s hard to then… 

What’s “it”?

 

37 minutes ago, Someone here said:

It's all so random and chaotic. 

Random, chaotic, deterministic, etc, are all beliefs. These thoughts arise and are believed to label. Since these thoughts are believed, inspection doesn’t occur.

 

42 minutes ago, Someone here said:

should I Simply recognize the duality and don't choose sides?  Remain in the center?

Yes…when framings of… arguing, ‘my argument’, trying to prove, etc, etc, etc arises… instead of ‘grasping on’ … just allow it to come & go. 

Instead - inspect direct experience. 

 

Also, much more so than ‘remaining in the center’… simply recognize direct experience… awareness is always “in the center” which is to say, aware of the experience of thoughts. 

 

 

[Someone here]

6 minutes ago, Phil said:

What is a duality

A division between two things .you might argue that there are no divisions and no separation between things found in direct experience. But to me that's just half the story .

Paradoxially ..there is both duality and nonduality found in direct experience. If I present to you a good juicy steak for dinner or a pile of dog shit ..you will certainly go for the steak . You can't argue that there is no difference between the steak and the dog shit .

Again I'm not trying to argue aimlessly or split hairs here .I mean I get it ..you can't draw a clear boundary between two objects in the universe because its all one unified field of consciousness. But our "wrong " perception of duality is more handy and practical when it comes to navigating our experience.  So duality is an illusion..but it's a useful illusion  .its good for our survival to distuingh between a steak and a shit .

33 minutes ago, Phil said:

Where, what… is the one those thoughts / words are about?

Me .it depends on what definition of "me " is used .I think you  yourself have a confused notion of what "me " is . Sometimes you say "me " is a thought. And sometimes you say "me " is awareness or Infinite being .

It kinda reminds me of the conflict between Buddhism and Hinduism about the concept of no self or anatman in Buddhism and the concept of the Self or Brahman in Hinduism. 

36 minutes ago, Phil said:

What’s “it”?

Each sentence you  half-quoted was talking about a different "it ".

Let me tell you I'm not satisfied with your half-quoting that you did there .

37 minutes ago, Phil said:

Random, chaotic, deterministic, etc, are all beliefs. These thoughts arise and are believed to label. Since these thoughts are believed, inspection doesn’t occur

So what is it ? How do you describe the nature of "choice " in one word if all the above fail to label accurately? 

 

[Orb]

@Someone here why do you want an answer to this question? 

[Someone here]

31 minutes ago, Orb said:

@Someone here why do you want an answer to this question? 

It’s really not necessary.

But I think We don’t have free will. We have something called the illusion of free will. We have the impression that our agency is independent of external forcing causes.

It isn’t. It can’t be. We can show that.

But for many of us, this really does not matter. Because unless you are omniscient, the actual causes and forces which shape our moment-by-moment behaviour are unknown and unknowable. From our human perspective, this illusion of free will, and bone-fide free will are pretty much the same. We make choices, we take responsibility for them ..it’s all fine.

BUT.

If you are one of those people who is prone to religious belief. Then the lack of free will becomes more of a problem.

The religious believe that human beings were made without defect, by a perfect being who equipped us to all be perfect. In this mindset, all wrongdoing must therefore be a problem of bad choices. Sin and judgement for that sin only make sense in the context of free will. If human beings are just clouds of atoms following the rules of physics, then judgement is suddenly deeply unjust.

If we demonstrate that free will is impossible, and that a god cannot reasonably assign blame to a sinful human being, the entire basis for many religions is shown to be false.

So your average religious person is very much invested in the idea of free will. For them, it is a necessary fiction which holds their belief system together.

[Orb]

@Someone here if it makes you feel better, they're all God anyways 😄.

[Phil]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

A division between two things .you might argue that there are no divisions and no separation between things found in direct experience. But to me that's just half the story .

Paradoxially ..there is both duality and nonduality found in direct experience. If I present to you a good juicy steak for dinner or a pile of dog shit ..you will certainly go for the steak . You can't argue that there is no difference between the steak and the dog shit .

You’re back to the lens or framing of arguing. This is equivalent to choosing (seemingly) to eat the dog shit.

 Nonduality means not two. Duality & nonduality is two. 

 

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

Again I'm not trying to argue aimlessly or split hairs here .

I don’t suspect you’re trying to, I’m only pointing out what nonetheless is. 

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

I mean I get it ..you can't draw a clear boundary between two objects in the universe because its all one unified field of consciousness. But our "wrong " perception of duality is more handy and practical when it comes to navigating our experience.  So duality is an illusion..but it's a useful illusion  .its good for our survival to distuingh between a steak and a shit .

The assumption is there is a separate self or selves surviving. This is a reframing of choosing. 

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

Me .it depends on what definition of "me " is used .I think you  yourself have a confused notion of what "me " is . Sometimes you say "me " is a thought. And sometimes you say "me " is awareness or Infinite being .

Right, of course, the confusion isn’t directly experienced… it’s someone else’s. 

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

It kinda reminds me of the conflict between Buddhism and Hinduism about the concept of no self or anatman in Buddhism and the concept of the Self or Brahman in Hinduism. 

Similarly, the conflict isn’t found in the material referenced, but is, and is felt from the interpretation. 

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

Each sentence you  half-quoted was talking about a different "it ".

Every ‘it’ is the same. Truth is ‘found’ by inspecting, dispelling this dissatisfying labelling of what is believed to be an ‘it’, whatever that may seem to be. 

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

Let me tell you I'm not satisfied with your half-quoting that you did there .

Well of course. The separate self is never satisfied, and that feeling of dissatisfaction is not present ‘in this experience’. 

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

So what is it ? How do you describe the nature of "choice " in one word if all the above fail to label accurately? 

Monkey-mind. 

 

‘Fail’ is another discordant framing. 

[Someone here]

@Philso we are back again arguinng about the separate self 😅 ? When are  we going yo make progress lol jk ?

 

People commonly believe that they have a separate self that is fixed and unchanging, an inside core that is a me. Despite noticing that thoughts, feelings, perceptions and body sensations change every instant, it is believed that there exists a separate self that remains the same.

And I understand this perfectly.. There is no independent self that is ever separate from what happens. The whole mirage of subjectivity depends upon countless conditions that are not subjective. For instance, a seer could not exist without the seen. Therefore, there is no actual seer of things. For a seer cannot itself see. In other words, a subject needs an object to be a subject. Both are inseparable, mutually arisen. This also applies to thought, emotion, perception and sensation.

so my question still unanswered ..and I mentioned this point to you over and over again throughout this thread but you seemed to ignore it (not sure why ) even though it's the key point that unlocks this whole issue..is that if there is no separate self ..no thinker that thinks thoughts..no doer that do actions..then how can there be free will ,when the whole point is that free will belongs  to the person (which doesn't even funking exist )???

[Alexander]

@Someone here There is no free will.

The answers you get from here are hard to decipher. I don't know if it is that some deflection tactics or what?!

There is a subject ,you,me, my dog, cow in the next village.

[Someone here]

@Alexander I know. 

[James123]

2 hours ago, Orb said:

@Someone here if it makes you feel better, they're all God anyways 😄.

What is god?

 

36 minutes ago, Someone here said:

so my question still unanswered ..and I mentioned this point to you over and over again throughout this thread but you seemed to ignore it (not sure why ) even though it's the key point that unlocks this whole issue..is that if there is no separate self ..no thinker that thinks thoughts..no doer that do actions..then how can there be free will ,when the whole point is that free will belongs  to the person (which doesn't even funking exist )???

😂 You are always whqt you are. Just lost in process of thoughts. You are just focused on a drop of water in the ocean, You are the entire ocean, so one drop of ocean is not separate than entire ocean. Therefore, in a drop of ocean can seem as an free will meanwhile, in entire ocean is not. You have to what You really are. You are operating from so called ego now. And will never get it.