romansh

Karma - the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.

No not really.

The not-me is not coming back .... it never left.

I think opposites are illusory and just an arbitrary point on a continuum placed by individual perception and judgement.

I broadly agree with this statement ...that is why I dismiss relativism as a whole.

So as to life and the inanimate, conscious and unconscious, sentient and non-sentient, purpose and purposelessness ...

These divisions I find are illusory and dualistic ... but I am left trying to explain myself in a dualistic language.

I believe in purpose in exactly the same way I believe in the colour purple.

Thanks Rom and Steve for your specific responses.

 

It seems to me our universal purpose here as humans is to evolve. The existence of Evolution seems to me purpose itself or else it would not be.. If asked.... Evolve exactly Into what ? i cannot say. Even if there is no intrinsic 'me' or the existence we think we perceive is the nature of an illusion, i have no internal conflict because belief in a purpose or evolution is optional and not necessary for Life. Absolute Reality is what it is and subjectively formulating an answer that sounds reasonable will not change it. Then as far as the purpose of life goes, it seems to me.... 'the reason is in the pudding.'

 

Peace,

Joseph

 

PS In short perhaps we could say.....Life is the way by which soul or spirit experiences physicality! The soul or spirit not combining with physics cannot experience physical existence... And so, the meaning of life is LIFE ITSELF!

Joseph

Whether we have a purpose or not humanity will evolve.

I think we are using evolve in two slightly different forms ... the strict biological sense and a more vernacular form.

What will we evolve into? A reflection of of our environment I suspect.

As to souls and spirits ... these words just add more confusion to the mix, at least for me.

While cognitive dissonance may be ones choice, however limited, perhaps one will find there are at all times other options present.

 

Joseph

I must admit I would prefer not to have cognitive dissonance when it comes to my world views .., but if we treat purpose as an illusion too, then all is good.

You draw a line between evolution and straight lines ... fair enough. You describe us having sentience which is also fair enough, I think I understand what you mean. But is my sentience/consciousness what it seems to be? I somewhat doubt it is.

Blackmore talking about Dawkins' controversial thought experiment:

Blackmore's assertion was that if we have (for any system that replicates)

heredity (traits aquired from a previous form)

variation (slight changes to the inherited traits)

selection (an environment will tend to allow a particular trait to replicate preferentially)

then

we must have evolution.

Is there any purpose in replication, heredity, variation, selection individually? I would argue not. So why must there be a purpose in evolution?

I think human beings a capacity for perceiving morality, purpose, colour, differences and such. Our environment fills those perceptions.

It seems to me that if nothing else, evolution has the purpose to evolve and everyone plays a part.in it

I don't "know" whether we have a higher purpose or not. I don't think so. My world view on purpose has a certain degree of cognitive dissonance in it. Any purpose or meaning in life I might have has not been generated by me ... there is no intrinsic me to generate such things. That purpose or meaning is simply a localized unfolding (if we like) ...

Regarding evolving ... evolution is a description of what we observe ... a straight line has no purpose in being straight ... it just is.

Your post reminded me of a Carl Sagan quote ... We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

Now I might take pedantic issue with the word know ... but I think I know what he is saying.

On a slightly smaller scale I might say our neurons are a way for me to understand my myself.

Note I have used meaning and purpose here. I find the two closely related and in turn are "one" with the pairs of opposites thread. We divide things into is and is not.

I don't think there is a purpose.

But if there is one mine would be to ask dumb questions.

Are not nature induced suffering such as Ebola, breast cancer, tornados, car accidents, childhood leukemia, quadraplegia, loss a loved one, and earthquakes enough to pay for human orginial sin?

 

Human greed, selfishness, and laziness are real and some kind of reckoning is in order though.

There are couple of things I see differently here Starr:

1) I do not somehow see human activities as somehow separate from nature ... Man, his motor car and greed are part of nature as far as I am concerned.

2) The original sin is not a rebellion against god, but starting to think in terms of good and evil, ie Tasting the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I would argue Genesis 3 is relatively clear that we should not think in terms of good and evil.

How somebody dying a dew thousand years later stops us from thinking in terms of good and evil is a bit beyond me.

Not to derail Paul's burka thread ... do the women who wear such clothes have a free choice? Here the word free could have a sociopolitical meaning or a more philosophical meaning. You can find people who can argue quite eloquently for and against. On a slightly more philosophical level how do people find themselves with a particular world view? Some people simply grow into that world view, some perhaps after many years research and study find one that resonates with their experience and after the fact they say yes I choose this world view. Others continually search. I suppose there are other models.

The point being yes we can argue the women have been brainwashed by a patriarchal world view and that they should be liberated. But if we have an understanding that we too have been brainwashed by circumstance (the universe unfolding) our approach to liberating women who have succumbed to burka wearing changes.

A couple of general questions ... Why on Earth would I want to make choices that are somehow without cause (reason)? ... ^{as opposed to purpose}

Is there any part of me or my actions (or anyone else fort that matter) that are not without cause? Soma might argue for some quantum phenomena causing me and my actions, but is this really what we mean by free will when we speak of such a thing?

Joseph has expressed my point of view quite nicely ...

And I am not sure how I can turn compassion on at will ... I either have it or don't for a given situation. I might be able to go through the motions of compassion which is OK as far I can tell. I find understanding is a better tool, but then I cannot understand situations at will either, but I can understand there are a myriad of causes behind every thought and action. No one single cause other than the universe unfolding.

The expression, there but for the grace of god go I, sums it pretty nicely. It is an understanding that if my particular bit of the universe had unfolded in a similar way I could also be responsible for an act I disapprove of. It allows me to cut some slack for others and for myself.

Yes how we perceive color seems like a valuable tool to reason with. Be Safe and return

Yep ... I would agree the ability to perceive and reason has given us an evolutionary advantage.

On my way now ....

rom

If we apply our understanding of how we perceive colour, we can be very skeptical about whether the colour purple exists or any colour for that matter.

Colour is a perfect example of why we should treat our perceptions with care and perhaps a pinch of salt.

................

Going to be on the road for a few days

Mundane and miraculous I think are just states of the brain ... which in turn is a state of the universe unfolding.

Our language is dualistic ... we divide things into is and is not. We end up believing the products of our language.

The universe for me is a source of awe. And when I look deep inside of myself I see the universe quietly staring back at me.

In essence that what monism is for me.

Except Christ and God

John 10:30

I and the Father are one.

What about believing in what you experience?

I am not sure about this .... Personally I am very sceptical of my experience.

Here is some reading that seems to agree with my distrust:

Sleights of Mind by Macknick and Martinez-Conde

The Illusion of Conscious Will, Daniel Wegner

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain David Eagleman

The Self Illusion by Bruce Hood

Subliminal: How your unconscious rules behavior by Leonard Mlodinow

The Ego Trick: What does it mean to be you? by Julian Baggini

The OP reads like an agnostic call to arms ....

Regarding the mundane and the miraculous ... its all one, is it not?

Did not Bohm and Bell (who carried on with Bohmian mechanics) believe that the universe was causal (deterministic) although in a probabilistic way ... as opposed to the more orthodox interpretations of quantum theory?

Yeah, but I can choose to do what I don't want to do, even if I don't want to, just like most people can.

 

So what you are saying here Elen is that you have some wants that are stronger than others, are you not?

From the link you provide; it says that we are only the products of our heritage and our given environment. I think that we can be products of much more than this. We can find new ideas,

What Strawson is asking is, are you responsible for who you are (in an ultimate or absolute sense). Whether we take on responsibility or not is really not the issue when discussing free will.

I think that a part of free will is choosing to take up responsibility

While this is valid a definition of free will as any other Elen, the central question remains ... what caused you to take up responsibility? We (as a society) tend to be derogatory of people who don't take responsibility for their actions, don't we? Another way to look at the problem of free will is, does our body chemistry cause us to have thoughts? If so, can "thoughts" cause body chemistry? If we believe the latter then we have a dualistic view of the mind and body problem.

This dualistic view is difficult if not impossible to reconcile from the scientific point of view.

Where you’re saying I can’t for five minutes be a god dis-believing atheist, I don’t know maybe I can. I was one for some many decades of my life. I don’t know if I want to try to fit my thinking back into that mindset, but I think that maybe I could if I really got involved in it.

Elen ... We don't live in the past or some future. We live in the now, even when we think about the past or the future.

That you say you don't know if you want to fit your thinking is my point exactly ... You don't really control your wants. OK you can have multiple layers of want but this results in an infinite regress. eg:

http://www.naturalism.org/strawson_interview.htm

Regarding truth ... I am not sure I have an unfettered access to it, but I do think I have some degree of access, and when viewed through the lens evidence and logic then, concepts like free will I think are found wanting.

The word religion comes from the Latin to reconnect.

The question for me becomes to reconnect to what? God, the universe, the community, to family to one's self, to the atoms we are comprised of.

Do we need an orthodox religious belief ... speaking personally ... definitely not? I don't even need to view life through some mythical perspective.

I’m kind of thinking that part of it is about what lens(es) we see the world and creation through and this will influence what choices we make and this influences and affects our free will.

Hi Elen

I agree with you, but I have this theory ...If two lenses point to essentially opposite points of view then one or both of them are wrong.

For example if I believed the Earth was six thousand years old, but every scrap of scientific evidence points to a 4 billion year old earth, then either my belief is wrong, the scientific interpretation is wrong or both. And this is deference to Paul's relativism.

You say you don’t have a choice to “go with God or go with Christ”, because you don’t believe in them. But you do have a choice to go with the truth and the best of your perception and ability as to what the truth is.

I did not say I did not have a choice. I said I cannot make this choice... Here is an experiment for you ... for the next five minutes please choose to a god disbelieving atheist ... just five minutes. I suspect you can't do it. We don't actively choose our beliefs ... at least generally so.

But at this juncture (whether it takes 10 minutes or 10 years) it becomes up to us, that is that it's our choice, whether to go with Him and God or not.

I would argue it is our surroundings that make this choice for us rather than an innate choice that is in us. I am not in an environment that is conducive to beliefs in Christ and gods in general. My past has also conditioned me to be somewhat skeptical. Of course that might change.

But then equally possible, something might click in you and might see things from a more skeptical point of view as well.

Are you using Internet Explorer? If I use Chrome or FireFox as my browser things behave more normally.

Hi Elen

I suspect the free will debate predates Christianity.

I am not a Christian any more than I am an atheist.

The free will debate is not about whether we make choices or not. I think it is clear that we do.

Using your example of free will means the choice to go with God and to go with Christ. I cannot make this choice, for me it any belief in a vaguely literal sense in Christ is a nonsense. How can I freely choose to go with God (a personal god) and Christ?

So the free will debate is more about the how and the mechanisms behind our choices. And once we start using phrases like mechanisms for free will we start having a hard time reconciling a belief that we freely chose to go with Christ as opposed to we were caused to go with Christ.

Welcome to the forum

rom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS5Q-9uNCLU

Interesting but I disagree with Dennett ... He is always interesting

romansh I do agree with what you said, but when I act like a jerk and comtemplate it, I go against the conditioning and make new pathways, which you might call new conditioning, but it can work against intolerance.

When I behave like a jerk and contemplate the behaviour I find that my contemplation is also a result of my education, past experiences, and the general state of my biochemistry of my brain/body complex.

I have been very definitely been conditioned not to be perceived as a jerk.

So that there is conflicting conditioning built into us, is not terribly surprising.