LastThursday

Free will questions pop up on the forum like the many headed Hydra. In my curiosity I thought I would quantify and provide a rundown of the Free Will related questions that have appeared on the forum. My guess was right: a lot. Anyway, those curious about Free Will should start here: And to dig further into it, some forum posts: February 8 2016: 442-how-can-i-master-something-when-there-is-no-free-will February 15 2016: 1058-no-free-will February 18 2016: 1287-destiny-vs-free-will-question March 5 2016: 1999-free-will-vs-determination April 21 2016: 3359-free-will December 8 2016: 7133-question-about-free-will December 11 2016: 7186-free-will-vs-free-choice December 15 2016: 7277-is-there-a-free-will-final-answer January 25 2017: 7997-are-we-all-living-a-predetermined-destiny February 5 2017: 8234-free-will-vs-determinism April 17 2017: 10122-free-will April 20 2017: 10190-please-help-free-will-no-good-or-evil-got-me-depressed May 6 2017: 10633-anything-is-possible May 28 2017: 11241-awareness-and-free-will July 2 2017: 12235-insight-on-free-will July 3 2017: 12247-if-there-is-no-free-will-how-can-i-decide-to-surrender-to-the-idea-that-there-is-no-free-will August 28 2017: 13704-determinismno-free-will-and-meditationenlightenment September 28 2017: 14442-how-to-reconcile-no-free-will-and-action-taking-the-worst-limiting-belief-ever October 25 2017: 15072-who-becomes-enlightened November 3 2017: 15258-no-free-will-determinism November 19 2017: 15728-enlightment-no-free-will-happy-with-not-being-able-to-hold-down-a-job November 20 2017: 15757-no-free-will-limiting-beliefs November 21 2017: 15767-no-free-will-suicidal-thoughts November 21 2017: 15797-you-have-100-free-will-and-you-also-have-no-free-will-the-other-side-of-the-paradox March 9 2018: 19267-question-about-the-free-will January 5 2018: 17318-rupert-spira-about-free-will February 22 2028: 18799-determinism-vs-dream June 27 2018: 22655-does-free-will-exist July 28 2018: 23664-is-determinism-a-truth-or-just-a-belief August 10 2018: 24075-if-all-a-dream-and-no-free-will-then-no-awakening September 15 2018: 25462-no-free-will-vs-life-purpose-compatibly September 21 2018: 25734-sadhguru-says-we-have-free-will October 12 2018: 26515-free-will-does-exist-within-the-illusion-and-must-be-exercised-to-achieve November 11 2018: 27574-if-all-timeline-were-created-in-an-instant-and-free-will-does-not-exist November 15 2018: 27765-forrest-gump-and-free-will November 28 2018: 28361-the-illusion-of-free-will-is-life-scripted December 18 2018: 29225-everything-is-predetermined December 20 2018: 29320-does-god-have-free-will January 2 2019: 29895-you-have-free-will January 4 2019: 29984-is-this-a-workable-view-on-free-will-vs-predetermination February 2 2019: 31165-free-will-vs-no-free-will Fabruary 14 2019: 31659-how-can-i-choose-to-awaken-if-i-have-no-free-will February 15 2019: 31673-laws-of-infinitygod-and-free-will February 18 2019: 31792-do-you-believe-that-we-have-free-will February 21 2019: 31925-free-will/ March 24 2019: 32851-im-starting-to-think-there-is-no-free-will March 30 2019: 33071-i-don%E2%80%99t-have-free-will-i-am-free-will April 9 2019: 33466-how-much-do-you-think-were-constrained-to-gods-plan-free-will-vs-destiny Aprril 17 2019: 33766-free-will May 15 2019: 34801-if-free-will-doesnt-exist-then-acting-also-doesnt-exist May 19 2019: 34946-determinism-or-free-will June 11 2019: 35862-disagreements-on-free-will June 27 2019: 36478-no-free-will-and-pure-awareness July 11 2019: 37037-if-leo-say-we-are-god-then-do-you-think-free-will-exist-or-we-have-control July 25 2019: 37534-leo-new-video-on-free-will August 9 2019: 38049-if-i-am-god-how-do-i-not-have-free-will%C2%A0 August 15 2019: 38321-free-will August 28 2019: 38931-is-there-not-even-a-tiny-bit-of-free-will August 29 2019: 38952-free-will-is-not-free October 23 2019: 41226-freewill October 27 2019: 41372-is-there-freewill-in-absolute-love November 8 2019: 41864-determinism-vs-free-will-with-higher-states-of-awareness December 10 2019: 43135-so-do-we-have-free-will-or-not December 20 2019: 43524-about-volition-free-will-and-determinism January 3 2020: 44012-life-is-deterministic-isnt-consciousness-a-free-will January 13 2020: 44339-what-it-means-for-there-to-be-determinism January 18 2020: 44502-free-will-rant January 18 2020: 44504-is-determinism-just-a-paradox January 30 2020: 44953-leos-recent-video-confusion-determinism February 9 2020: 45345-why-is-there-no-free-will-why-does-god-allow-this March 3 2020: https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/46184-fred-davis-free-will/ May 11 2020: 48844-is-there-free-will-most-beautiful-answer-i’ve-ever-seen June 3 2020: 49739-if-everything-is-predetermined-why-try-why-pray August 18 2020: 53042-the-oddities-of-no-free-will September 12 2020: 54122-had-the-experience-of-where-human-free-will-comes-from

I'm losing the will...

Intention seems to be talked about a fair amount in self help, law of attraction (LOA) and law in general. With regards to law if the intention was to kill someone that's murder if not that manslaughter - and they carry different penalties. With regards to self help, intention is important for sticking to goals, making goals and for generally developing yourself - without intention you are lost in the wilderness. Lastly, LOA is solely based on intention, without it there is no LOA. What is intention? At a high level it's a kind of directed "will". I use the word "will" because of its connection with "free will" and intention being the product of that free will. At a low level, intention is a type of goal orientated decision - a decision is made to either perform an act or in the hope of acquiring something. So you can intend to apply for a new job (an act) or intend to be a millionaire (acquisition of money). Because the goal is future orientated there is a sense in which the intention continues to be in force until that goal is fulfilled. It's worth comparing intention to random events or to accidental acts. Things can happen to us, for example we're left an inheritance of a million pounds; or we get headhunted for a new job. These are things which happen out of our control. So, even though the results can often be the same (become a millionaire), how those results come about makes the difference. Where does intention come from? Intention arises within consciousness from nowhere. That's a little bit misleading as everything arises within consciousness from nowhere. However, the cause of an intention is ultimately mysterious. It could be argued that context is important in forcing an intention to happen; for example someone may have the intention to steal food because they're starving and poor - but they may not - the connection is tenuous. In this sense the law does not particularly take context into account (other than to perhaps reduce a sentence), intention itself is all important. With regards to LOA the source of intention is never discussed, it's just a given that intention causes or increases the likelihood of an event in the future. But an interesting angle is that both the source of (the) intention and the source of the outcome are actually both connected (potentially non-materially). That would mean that intention is not the means to the outcome, but just a by-product of the same cause. In this way the illusion of free will is maintained, but the external world and internal intention are connected in a much more profound and meta-physical way. You attract a certain person into your life not because you intended it beforehand, but because the "event" of that attraction is spread across time and space (in your head and out there) and has a different underlying cause (the work of source itself). For self help intention is also all important and often talked about as if it were possible to control it at will. Those that don't control intention well are lazy or dispassionate or is doomed to stay where they are in their development. This is disingenuous. If ultimately the source of intention is unknowable, then it isn't possible to control it. Those people blessed with strong intentions are just lucky. But if there is even a sliver of a chance at all of being able to affect the source of intention, then the first step in all self help should be the mastery of that source. A tall order indeed. Those that are unable to help themselves need compassion and outside help, not stronger intentions. Resisting intention. If intention does indeed "arise from nowhere" and it is happening constantly and randomly, then why don't we all follow through with our intentions? Because intentions are judged and often blocked from the outset. It's easy enough to have an intention to meet friends for lunch tomorrow, but there are many things that can stop that intention from happening. Not least of all judgments about the particular friends themselves or about the venue, the weather, timing and so on. If we're intention machines then we are also intention resisting machines. And this is what is meant by flow. When an intention arises we actively don't resist it, we let it play out and take the consequences. In fact LOA requires us to somehow "forget the intention" - this is a way to get us to stop resisting intentions that arise. It seems that the very act of resisting or interfering with the pure intention weakens it considerably. In terms of self help, resisting intention is the norm, and flowing with intention is the state we want to reach in order to change ourselves for the better. Again, a good grounding in not resisting intention would be a help here.

Future notes: intention, resisting intention.

Ok @wakeup my sincere apologies. I'll get off my high chair and stop boring everyone. You're right, carry on.

Because that's pure arrogance. It's not helping Who are we to know better than Leo what he needs? He's a big boy, I think he knows how to evolve all by himself. I'm all for people speaking up. Believe me if someone upsets my sensibilities then I'm the first to bitch about it. But don't think you're doing Leo a favour, you're not.

My intention was stronger? Erm. Dunno. Just pasted it in

I'm definitely observant enough. What you want is Leo to be different to suit your own needs and delicate ego. Why should he do that? I repeat again: that is insanity. You're only here for the value. Why not let everything else go?

@tuckerwphotography it's quite simple really, your sister exists. Who cares if she's a dream character? Does it matter?

Leo has his own energy and style as we all do. It's hard not to take things personally when you identify strongly with a leader, and that leader doesn't always align with you. Leo has a masculine, sometimes abrasive and sometimes jokey quality. Best of all he's very direct and he takes criticism extremely well. He shouldn't have to change just to suit us, that would be insanity. The best thing we can all do is to let our own energy and qualities shine through. It will be much appreciated by other forum members.

A human songbird: Oh yes and there's this: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180328092527.htm Sequitor or non sequitor?

Am I special? I think we all have narcissistic tendencies or bias at least. Even those folks who label themselves as self haters single themselves out as being special from others. Where does this bias come from? In a naive sense it comes from having an ego. The ego needs to carve itself out from the maelstrom of appearances. By definition it is a special arrangement of feelings, thoughts and sensations. The ego is not a stupid entitity. It knows very well how to keep on surviving and thriving in the face of entropy. One of its tools is to think about itself as somehow special and separate from everything else. The very definition of an ego is that it is special. Disolve the ego and the specialness disappears. Or does it? Outside of the ego, we are all deserving of the "special" label. Ego or not, we are unique. There are seven billion humans, and each one of us is unique. That's quite a thought. Strangely though, we all seem to be cut from the same cloth. We all realise our uniqueness early on, unfortunately we confuse this uniqueness for our egos and cause ourselves self hate or narcissism. We can and should cut loose. That doesn't mean we are not special, just that we're special in a way that transcends our egos. This specialness comes from a place of self love not self obsession. It allows us to extend our egoic boundaries and include more humans in it. But how can everyone be special? Doesn't that burst the specialness bubble? No. Because we all share that same specialness. We are all capable of love for ourselves and the universe we find ourselves in. Being special is "built in" to the design.

99.999% of people couldn't care less about you or your appearance. Those that do care are either insecure about their own appearance, or they find you attractive.

I've never not moved. I don't seem to be able to choose to stop.

@Mvrs there is no synching. Think of it spatially instead. One guy walks from A to B and another guy drives from A to B. They both go at different speeds, but they both arrive at B. B is a fixed point in space. It's the same with time, midnight is a fixed point in time. Although if you talk to Einstein all this fixed point business goes out of the window.

I had my beef with the word "consciousness" a few posts ago. Today's turn is the phrase "direct experience". We'll call it DE for brevity. I like a good definition, because it gives a base to spring off from. Without a definition we're just left second guessing each other. So what is DE? Good question. One place to find a definition is to look at what would be "indirect experience". Already we're in slight murky territory. But at its simplest it would be experience that was told to you second hand, or slightly more abtractly an experience that was inferred by you. Anyway, let's take a more solid example of indirect experience: A friend is run over by a car and in hospital he explains to you the whole ordeal. You can tell from the result of his injuries and the story he told you, what it might be like to be run over by a car. You see some flowers strapped to a lamp post and you know that someone was killed by being run over by a car at that spot. You can guess what it might have been like to be run over by the car and the grief of the family involved. Ok. So a DE of being run over is not either of the two above. It is the visceral feeling of a tonne of metal slamming into you at 30mph and throwing you through the air, only to land on hard cold road. So a DE is "reality" so to speak and 1 above is a story and 2 above is guesswork. But. Note that both 1 and 2 above are both still DE's. They are just DE's of sitting in a hospital listening to a friend or of standing on a pavement looking at flowers. And that is the crucial point, all experience is DE, there is nothing more than DE. So why use this phrase at all? Because, the phrase is missing something, and it should always be qualified. It is a direct experience of something. And this is how it should always be used. Ok. So some guru goes and tells you that you know nothing until you have a DE of God for example. The question then arises, if you have never had a DE of God, how would you know it if you did? Secondly, how would you actually arrange having a DE of God? You see unlike being run over by car, God is far more abstract - God isn't something you can infer or guess at (you can try). "Take a psychadelic" might be an answer as to how. So you take a psychadelic and have a DE. But what was it a DE of exactly? How do you corroborate that what you experienced was God? Hmm? And that is the problem with offhandedly saying "Go have a Direct Experience of God by taking a psychadelic. You don't know what you're talking about." It's unscientific, because there's no way to check a DE after the fact. For example after taking said psychadelic you say "I experienced God and it was X and Y and Z." And the retort is simple: "No you didn't. That was a different DE you had, it wasn't God." In short: all there is is DE and DE is unverifiable by others. And that in a nutshell is spiritual work.

Choice is too vague a thing to argue about. At which point is a choice made? Is it: When it arises in awareness? When you commit mentally to do one thing or another? When the physical action starts to take place? When the physical action finishes? Is a choice without a resultant action really a choice at all? Can an action take place without a choice? For example breathing? Do all actions happen as a result of a choice made either consciously or unconciously? Or does stuff just happen and we pretend that I made a choice after the fact? because all action requires agency by a sentient being? Dunno. Questions questions.

If you live under someone else's roof, then you'll have to abide by their rules. So you would have to give up some of your freedom to do whatever you want. And it can be especially hard to say "no" to family. But it has its benefits too. Parents can give you love and attention (and help with the loneliness) and the cost of living will be cheaper. However, it's a lot harder to have any new friends come round and to have privacy or intimacy if needed. Swings and roundabouts. But in my opinion I think moving back in with his parents is just a distraction. @John Mitchell needs to get at the root cause of his loneliness and inexperience of love life: his social anxiety. In my experience there's a strong correlation between being a software developer and social difficulties. I know because I'm a software developer myself and have suffered socially and have seen it in colleagues. I would go so far as to say that some of the social anxiety and difficulties is caused by being on the autistic spectrum (not saying it is in this case though - but there's definitely a link). Software development is also a male heavy industry and meeting women through work is pretty difficult.

What is living like? It certainly feels constant and unrelenting and sometimes unforgiving. At some point in childhood something becomes obvious: life isn't here to suit you. What's it like before that point? Stuff happens. But because our awareness is underdeveloped we soon drop any memory of what went before - we live in a perpetual state of newness and freshness. What should living be like? The greatest gift of being (alive) is awareness itself. Awareness is a double edged sword though. We can get lost in a maze of awareness which can cause us suffering and to lose the spark of life. But awareness is a lot more alive than that. We can break out of the maze and see with clarity once again. So yes, we can be like children and live life like new every day. But we can also be like adults who aware of the beauty, love and fantastical nature of life. And as adults we know there will only be greater and more profound awareness in future. Life is immense and awesome and here we are.

Before enlightenment, chop wood, love wife. After enlightenment, chop wood, love wife.

Loneliness is relative. In the end you go full circle and become everyone.

Warning: I'm going to be using one sentence paragraphs, heh. What is the real language of love? Is it gift giving? Is it hugs? Is it doting? Kisses? Valentines cards? Sex? No it's something more fundamental: being present and being attentive. Society is so contrived with its social mores and the corporate selling machine. We are so inculcated in all this that we throw out the baby with the bath water. Loved one forgotten our anniversary? Got the wrong year on the birthday card? He never buys me flowers? Takes me out? Boring sex? Doesn't care about Christmas? What's forgotten is that you are not entitled to have anyone pay attention to you. You are also not entitled for a person to even want to be in your local vicinity. Forget the corporate advertising, forget social functions; even having the same person near us regularly (and them not wanting to hurt us) is a great honour. And if that same person regularly gives us attention in any way: they love you. Simple.

Notice how in my last post I said Reality is not Consciousness. Neat trick eh? IT'S STILL A LIE. Reality is just a word like consciousness. You think you know what reality means. You do not. You are imprisoned by the word "Reality". If you are to push forwards in your development, then it can't be done with words alone. Notice how "development" is just a word. It's meaning is circumscribed and totally relative. IT'S A LIE. Development is not what is happening. Notice how "happening" is just a word. IT'S A LIE. I could go on. But hopefully, you get the drift. At some point you must stop reading and listening to others' words - and directly experience. Hang on. What does "directly experience" mean? Ahahaha, more words. I think I'm going insane. Must sleep.

@Nahm that's great! I must use that with my bosses. Constantly talking over each other like naughty schoolchildren.