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Free Will


romansh

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7 hours ago, JosephM said:

I would agree with Rom's conclusion.  Most people i know use the words free will to indicate we have a choice or that we can freely choose but being connected as part of the whole i see that choice as limited by a multitude of variables that we as individuals have limited control over and therefore it limits our choices to not be truly free. That is a hard pill to swallow for many but that is my current understanding.

Yes ... this is a very powerful blind spot in the human condition. We are only subliminally aware of all the influences that shape our choices. We, on a personal level, are oblivious to the way our genetics have shaped the way we make choices. And by and large we don't even want to consider the chemistry and physics that goes into making a choice.

We are content with an imaginary homunculus.  

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  • 1 month later...

Paul said on the Progressive Christianity channel

Quote

Perhaps the challenge is simply to do the best with the limited time we have and to be happy with that.  I just don't see futility in living a good life and then blanking out so one doesn't recall any of it when they are asleep for eternity.

While I see this as fairly safe and innocuous and even "good advice", but seen through the lens of no free will it seems a little strange, especially the first sentence.

Through the lens of no free will all we might do is either we will or will not do "the best" and be happy or not. 

Our belief in free will creeps into our language all the time.

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And here we have Thormas in reply

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What I'm saying about belief is that believing one thing over another is a choice

My beliefs are not a choice in any of the usual senses of the word choice. I cannot choose to believe in life after death for the next five minutes, but I do believe I could choose to make a cup of tea ... and I believe I will. 

But my choice to make that cup of tea [or not] will not be free of prior causes.

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13 hours ago, romansh said:

And here we have Thormas in reply

My beliefs are not a choice in any of the usual senses of the word choice. I cannot choose to believe in life after death for the next five minutes, but I do believe I could choose to make a cup of tea ... and I believe I will. 

But my choice to make that cup of tea [or not] will not be free of prior causes.

And I doubt you could make yourself choose to believe that that tea is not in fact tea.  

15 hours ago, romansh said:

Our belief in free will creeps into our language all the time.

Agreed.  Even when it comes to 'choosing' to make tea.

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8 hours ago, PaulS said:

And I doubt you could make yourself choose to believe that that tea is not in fact tea.  

Agreed.  Even when it comes to 'choosing' to make tea

Unless it is some kind of 'weird tasting' stuff, then I choose to refuse to believe or accept it is TEA (the nectar of the gods).  Thus one or some can choose to believe that tea is not in fact tea. Actually the same can be said of some beers :+}

Yet when there is coffee, it is definitely a clear (and correct) choice to make tea. 

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9 hours ago, PaulS said:

And I doubt you could make yourself choose to believe that that tea is not in fact tea. 

And apparently I did (at least according to the Gospel of Thormas) ... The tea I chose did not contain a single leaf of Camellia sinensis 

Therefore I had tricked myself into drinking a non-tea. 

And this all plays into the duality of language. What is tea and what is not-tea. Where does tea stop and the rest of the universe begin.

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16 minutes ago, romansh said:

And apparently I did (at least according to the Gospel of Thormas) ... The tea I chose did not contain a single leaf of Camellia sinensis 

Therefore I had tricked myself into drinking a non-tea. 

And this all plays into the duality of language. What is tea and what is not-tea. Where does tea stop and the rest of the universe begin.

Tea makes the universe go round.

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2 minutes ago, thormas said:

Tea makes the universe go round.

While I understand the answer to be a joke and frivolous ... which is fair enough.

It does not address the deeper aspects of tea and not-tea .... the self and not-self.

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58 minutes ago, thormas said:

Has this been addressed in this thread or on this site? Care to restate or summarize?

Yes, it has been addressed in this thread on this site in various forms and places.

Very simply, we are a product of the way our chemistry (and all the other sciency bits) behave. Our bodies, thoughts and resultant actions have prior causes, that stretch back to varying degrees into time. Consequently the perceptions/thoughts about an independent self are an illusion. Ultimately our "selves" are product of and part of the environment they have crystallized from.

A scientific perspective of interbeing

or bit of discussion on this site 

 

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The way I 'see' IT (LOL), we don't have a choice not to be ' IT, because THAT is what we are! But, given that ' IT is LOVE and JOY (or something like THAT :D,) as and to the extent that we learn and become more aware of (alternate) possibilities, we do have (more and more alternative) choices to experimentally explore greater an greater LOVE and JOY actualization possibilities, and so have (a greater and greater! degree of) 'freedom' to change what we personally willfully subscribe to - this (IMO) is 'the truth' referenced in "the TRUTH" shall set you FREE ", I think.

Watch out for 'sophists' who seek to derail you into their own (faddish?) set of 'sophisticated' but going nowhere meanderings (presumably so they can have 'company'), dudes and dudesses!  B)

JosephM, do you 'hear' me now

 

Edited by Davidsun
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1 hour ago, Davidsun said:

Watch out for 'sophists' who seek to derail you into their own (faddish?) set of 'sophisticated' but going nowhere meanderings (presumably so they can have 'company'), dudes and dudesses!  B)

I mean nowhere 'better' (as a matter of 'free' choice) , that is.

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  • 1 month later...
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Well, as discussed before, some of us have more faith in free choice.

Thormas

Well some of us had all sorts beliefs.

Having a belief in free choice or free will is quite easy ... all it takes is a lack of awareness of the strings (causes) that underlie our choices or wills. When asked why did we did some unexplainable stupid thing and if we come up with the answer I don't know ... is this what we mean by free will? Sometimes we deliberate and think we can explain our choice or will. But here we are pointing to the strings that caused our choice.

A belief in free will (for some of us) boils down to a considered ignorance of the underlying causes of our will. 

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24 minutes ago, thormas said:

I freely choose to disagree............but I do acknowledge, once again your name calling. I choose to let it pass for today.

Ahh name calling ... I am ignorant about many things thormas. Say compared to other people's [here] familiarity with the Bible I am ignorant. 

Being ignorant of something is not a problem, not recognizing that one is has it downsides. Being ignorant is not a crime thormas or anything that unusual. 

If you mean by freely: completely unaware of what are the underlying mechanisms for your disagreement, then we are in agreement. 

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1 hour ago, romansh said:

Ahh name calling ... I am ignorant about many things thormas.

Your admitted ignorance was not the topic of the conversation. And yet we have more name calling ........ 

Edited by thormas
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1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Here are your relevant posts to this topic - in which one do you address which bit of us is free of cause and effect? Interestingly Joseph denies cause and effect and sees the universe as unfolding (more or less) without any mechanism ... so we cannot responsible for any hurt we might think we cause (or joy for that matter). In a more causal model of the universe we can consider ourselves as a proximate (proximal) cause for hurt and joy.

In the post of yours below, it highlights your unwillingness to enter into a dialogue that explores the reality of free will.

Quote

Obviously you freely chose to say that: wrong but free. 

I may very well be wrong, but my wrongness would be formed by my misconceptions, biases, desires etc. These are underlain by the chemistry that goes to form my thoughts. And the chemistry is a function of the underlying physics. Unless one takes Joseph's position, then it is just a happy coincidence that our mathematical models describe the chemistry and physics so nicely.

Your posts listed above touch onto Being, Love etc  without  addressing does cause and effect exist and if so is there any part of you that is formed by cause and effect? We don't need to derail the thread by going back to the point of creation of the universe here ... just the moment before our conceptions will do.

Edited by romansh
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