TruthSeeker

Heres a metaphor to help explain my point... Remember how old wars used to be fought...where 1000's of people from one country go head to head with thousands of people from another country with swords and spheres etc... Imagine two countries in a battle. There is a limited area that constitutes the battle front - ( i.e. where the battle takes place). The majority of the territory of each country is behind the front, and is not, at that point, involved in the battle. Likewise, the "battle" within each person. Meaning...we each have a certain battle front....somethings are just not in the battlefront in our lives (like for example for that angry one that one of you guys mentioned...for him, lets say to punch out a certain guy when he got angry was not in his battle front...BUT there were somethings that were in his battle front, like how many times should he punch the guy...could be the fifth or sixth punch he could have done without...so by that punch he now makes a freewill choice of whether he should keep going...(that was just an example))

My answers are in bold @TruthSeeker I was in a mental hospital for some time due to some panic attacks and other some psychotic episode. I meet people there that made me change my opinion about a guy who murder, rape or did some other bad thing, I really now think that they are not guilty really. hehehe... Same thing about people who commit suicide. One of the guys I met, he told me, he had problems with violence. When something happened inside of him, he got so angry he couldn't stop and he could kill someone when that happened. That's not his will to do it, there's something on the environment, on the way they were educated, etc that makes them act that way. You say something about that. I used to think like you before, that everything that they say (I heard it mostly from psychologists and psychiatric doctors) that a rapist or murdered is not really guilty and I though "bullshit", he must go to jail. Basically I've repeated this many times but Ill say it again. Every person's freewill is limited to certain cases...it could be that this guy who got so angry didn't have free will to do CERTAIN things but there for sure were things that he could have chosen to do or not to do. Each person is different each person has a certain POINT that they are struggling with..anything above that point is out of their free will and anything below that point is also out of their free will...only the things that lie within that point are in their free will. Believe me that this is not about wanting not to take responsibility and wanting to do bad things so we are not guilty. Nothing farther from the truth. But think about this, when someones commits a murder, he goes to jail and if he makes crazy things they send him to solitary confinement. It is proved that people in isolation go crazier, we as human beings need interaction with other to be sane mentally. Now I think that people need to be treated, in jail they get worse. I'm not trying to convince you about free will, just my point of view. I am always open to any new idea so, maybe I can be wrong. Its wrong because its black and white thinking. There is free will or there isnt. Its not black and white...there are certain decisions that are within our free will ND CERTAIN THINGS that are out of our free will.

My responses are in bold Think about its requirements. What does free will require? It requires some entity in which to have free will. Look in your experience. Do you see anything other than thinking, seeing, feeling, touching, tasting? Where's the entity that has free will? My mind makes the free willed choice and is followed by some sort of action with my legs arms etc Try to predict your next thought. You say you have free will, so tell me what your next thought is going to be. You must have control over your thoughts if you have free will, right? Try to stop thinking for thirty seconds. Its true that thoughts pop into our minds and theres not free will as to which thoughts pop into our minds. BUT (with a capital "B") once the thought comes into my mind I do have the choice of dwell on those thoughts...for example if something pops into my mind I can choose to go for a run or do a sudoku puzzle or something else to get my mind off of that thing...even though during those activities (running sudoku) if the thought again pops into my mind I have no control over it but I am doing my part to get my mind off of it...Meaning like I keep repeating a bunch of times that our free will lies in a very narrow range of cases. Meaning, I'm admitting we have free will but to a certain extent. I call it the Free-will point. Our free will lies at that point and that point only. Anything above that point it out of our freewill and anything below that point is out of our freewill. So to an extent I do have control of what thoughts pop in my head and to an extent I dont have control of which thoughts pop in my head. If you're not convinced, just think about the concept of free will itself and how little sense it makes. If I have the freedom to choose one thing over another, where did my choice to choose come from? And where did my choice to choose to choose come from? The environment must have played some role in my freedom of choice, otherwise my choices would be completely random. If the environment played a role, my free will is no longer free. But on the flip-side, if my choices have been random this whole time...is that really free will? OK, I agree that environment and biological and physiological factors play a role in someones decision. But that doesnt mean they dont have free will...it just means they have a MUCH harder decision to make....Example: a kid who grows up in a getto neighborhood where all his neighbors smoke drugs and rob people and carry guns...so that kid when he grows up has a much harder choice to not smoke drugs or carry a gun or shoot people etc etc...BUT at the end of the day he does have a choice to do or not do those things...albeit a much harder choice to not do those things than it is for me...but he DOES have a choice. Do you remember choosing anything as a baby? Do you choose to fall asleep? Do you choose to stand up after sitting down for too long? Babies dont have freewill... Now, set your monkey mind aside for a second and just examine your experience. My monkey mind? "The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier." Mark Twain Dont understand the relevance of your quote sorry

This is crazy...I don't agree with this Coyne guy or his definition.. According to that why would anyone be responsible for their actions in a court of law...according to that "he had no other choice" Meaning, every time there has been a murder or a rape or robbery...it could not have possibly turned out differently...they couldn't have decided not to do those things...thats CRAZY....anyone who believes that is a very big idiot...I'm sorry and don't mean to offend anyone...but if you believe that you are a moron!!!!!! No offense. What I'm starting to think is that the people who claim there is no free will are just trying to no be responsible for their lives. They don't want to be responsible for the decisions that they made. They want excuses to do the wrong thing etc. I read the article...its not a contradiction to what Im saying....if you look back at a previous post of mine....I said that most decisions we make are not free willed decisions. There is a small rage of decisions that are free willed. Meaning for example, for the majority of men in the world, they did not have to overcome an internal struggle to rape someone...because such a thing is just so cray and far out to them they would never even consider it. So to not rape someone (for these people) is not a free willed choice...or for example: in that article the whole proof that we dont have free will was from a test about moving your finger...well I'm in agreement in that case....What I'm claiming is that we do have free will in a very narrow range of cases and those cases are defined by: So in the case where they asked the guy to move his finger so he did not believe he shouldn't do it.

Well I've already said that we don't exist...we are now trying to figure out the basis that theres no free will. Meaning that will just be a paradox! Just like someone mentioned before that even though we don't exist theres still the paradox that theres"perception" (according to the enlightenment theory) I just don't see the necessity to say theres no free will just because we don't exist!!!!

Well...I know there are thoughts in my mind. One thought says "ooooh thats sum good lookin cookie" and then another thought says "No...it has so many calories don't do it" Then another thought says "just one!!! its no big deal" etc... and then lets say I take the box of cookies and I throw them in the lake!!!! I decided with my free will to throw that box of cookies in the lake. Im not sure if that answered your question "Do i know where the experience comes from"...it could be I don't know what you mean by that question.

Sorry I don't understand what your saying or what your trying to say or what you mean or what you mean to say. Care to explain more or say it different words? If not I'm still waiting for someone to to explain to me! Thank you!

Just one more thing... I too had a very similar part of my life...I started seeing life in a different way than all my friends and family. I left the country for 5 years to do spiritual searching and studying. I basically didn't talk to these friends of mine at all for that time and haven't spoken to them since. On the other hand I am very close with my family. I just deal with them because their my family and I wouldn't be comfortable doing otherwise and they are there for me and I am there for them. But I don't let them interfere with my growth. Ok what I want to say is...I sometimes think if I should have every TOLD my friends that I was "leaving them"...sounds crazy but I just stopped speaking to them cold turkey... dont know if that was the best thing to do. It might have hurt there feelings. Feelings are real. I dont know what you should do...you have to decided for your self or wait for someone else to post lol Either way its the same its just a matter of HOW to leave them (i.e. by telling them or not.) peace

Ok...please...kick away... well I've stated my premise and my definition of what I think is true. (yes by defining freewill in a way that makes sense to me) Leo said that theres no such thing as free will. I started this post to ask what his basis is and how he got there...I have no idea. If someone knows how my definition is faulty or wrong or understands what it means that there no free will Ill be happy to listen. Thank you! I'll quote my previous post:

well if you read further!!!!!! I said I don't need to provide a basis because I'm defining it (freewill) as something we're all familiar with...if you don't want to read the rest thats fine...have a great day!

Seems simple to me. Ditch all these people..you have no obligation to spend time or communicate with them. Search for a friend or spouse who you relate to and develope your relationship with them...search hard and I believe you will find a person you can relate to...during this search spend lots of time developing yourself....the more developed of a person you are the more developed person you'll attract and be attracted to. Congrats on your mature developed mind set!!! You're ganna do great!

Sorry I missed your comment on the previous page I feel that I don't need to provide a basis for there being free will...its just so obvious. For example a guy comes home and finds his wife cheating on him with another man. He's so hurt and in pain and starts to get very angry and grabs a gun and starts chasing the guy to kill him...he's running after him for 5 minutes, each minute getting more filled with anger. The cheater finally trips on his shoelace and falls on the ground. and the husband is standing over him with his gun pointed on the cheaters head and starts to have a struggle in his head "should I really kill him" "I really want to" "I probably shouldn't" "No one will ever find out" etc etc...whether he decides to kill him or not is a freewill choice. Also a more normal everyday things is "Should I eat that extra cookie" "I know its not good for me" "It goes against my diet" "oh but its soooo good" "just one isn't a problem"...whether he decides to eat that cookie or not is a freewill decision. Now like I pointed out in one of my first posts on this thread. If he has already decided to eat the cookie, then to decide whether to eat a chocolate chip cookie or an Oreo is NOT a free-will decision. Its a decision but not a free willed decision. Meaning thats how Im defining a freewill decision. When you believe you have a pull or attraction to do something you believe you shouldn't do, then at that moment you have a freewill decision to do that thing or rise above and not do that thing. Thats my basis.

Dude Im totally fine with that...I get that this paradox exists that even though there is no me...perception nevertheless continues...and it cannot be understood period...fine I get that. My question is...why cant we also say that another paradox exists...that even though we don't exist but nevertheless freewill continues... and it cant be understood period. You know what I mean?...why is one paradox more easily accepted by you than the one I'm proposing?

I see your point... Im supposed to say "Me, you...we all have free will" Then you say "Ahh but you see, no one exists" Well based on that...I can easily say something like "theres no such thing as jumping" then someone will say: "What do you mean dude, I just jumped... look see I just jumped..." and you can say to them: "But dude...who jumped? you? but you don't exist" Meaning what Im trying to say is that, if you say we don't exist, and THATS your explanation for why theres no free will, then that should also be your reasoning why anything else doesnt exist...like jumping or apples etc etc

Great quote. Also in the book seven habits of highly effective people, Steven Covey uses Victor Frankl as his main example to this foundational idea. I've copied and pasted the part of that book from this website for you guys.

Let me summarize what Leo said. I asked "Whats the basis for there not being free will" He said "Well buddy you don't exist so obviously theres no such thing as free will" Ok lets assume its true that we don't exist and the whole universe (including "us") is really this one big unity that were all apart of and "we" don't really exist and enlightenment is just realizing that etc etc. Lets say thats true. Now, for the man who gave a whole video about his Love of paradoxes and how theres many of them in the world and how he's fascinated by them etc etc. (and by the same man who gave a video of Openmindedness) Im surprised he's not even open to the possibility that Free will exists. Maybe thats just one of the paradoxes of the world, that even though we don't exist and nothing really exists (like literally nothing) its all this big oneness...but even so, theres free will. Just because you don't want to accept that paradox doesn't mean its not true. This would be THEE paradox. Could be our minds are too small to understand how that can be but just because our minds are to small to understand how we cant exist but even so theres free will...doesn't make it not true. Listen I'm not saying Im right. I just trying to look at both sides the the question.

I have no idea what you mean by that... If any one has an answer that would be helpful....Thank you I just can't grasp the idea that I don't have free will. Doest that mean we are not responsible for our actions? If someone shoots someone. Well it's not his fault...he didn't have free will...he didn't choose to do it. If I see an old lady carrying 20 grocery bags up the stairs and I ignore her. Did I not have the choice to help her or not. At that moment of me standing there watching her...don't i have the choice to say "hello miss can I help you" or not. In that dumb article you attached he spoke about a case of which ice cream to choose...and proved from there that theres no free will. Well I too agree that in THAT case theres no free will. Free will is only in a case where the decision is actually difficult for you. Meaning for example, most people don't have an internal battle of whether they should blow up a city or a school (some people unfortunately DO have that struggle). Do for most people its NOT a freewill decision whether to blow up a city or a school. What Im trying to say is that Free will lies where the decision is actually difficult for you to make and you have a force inside you pulling you to do the opposite. For example in the book 7 habbits of highly effective people he talks a lot about how we choose our perspective on the events that happen in our life. For example, most people are sad if its raining outside. He talks about how circumstances dont make happyness rather we choose how we react to events and that decides our mindset. But thats a freewill choice and how to react to certain events...We can choose to be negative or choose to see the positive aspects of what happened. (That was just an example). Again to summarize. There IS free will. Its just only in a very narrow range of cases and that narrow range of cases is different for every person and even within the same person can change and he grows and develops. For example, for years it could be difficult for a person of whether he should eat a certain not healthy food. Every time its a struggle and he has to make a Freewill choice whether to eat it or not and usually fails. But then he watches Leos health videos and it inspired in and the next day he DECIDED not to eat that thing. It was still hard for him and still a struggle but he overcame and used his free will. After months and months and years and years of not eating that thing. Its no longer a challenge for him not to eat that thing. He now grew and overcame that challenge and now to not eat that thing is no longer FOR HIM a free will decision. Now he has other things in his life that he can make freewill decisions on. Should he focus more on giving his woman pleasure in bed or just focus on busting his load. Thats a free will decision for most people. Because its difficult. Now for some people who have worked on themselves...so even THAT is no longer in the range of there freewill and they are above that. Meaning he all have a FREE WILL POINT thats on this meter. This point is always moving based on our actions. Anyting below the point or anything above that point is NOT a free will decision (i.e. choosing an ice cream flavor or blowing up america is not a FREEWILL choice for most of us hopefully)...but for each person that point is at a different spot on that meter and that point moves up when he practices his free will properly and those things are no longer a struggle for him. Ok

Can someone summarize the video for me...I cant watch videos on my computer!

Can truth be explained?

The following is a quote from Leo's video "All religions explained in one video" I think this is a really awesome idea. I want to start this thread to really expand on this idea. Specially that this "nothingness" which encompasses all of reality, is the source of all reality. Or like Leo put it "this nothingness is a unity, it’s a One" So if we take that as the ultimate truth, then that means everything in the universe (apples, clouds, water, the ocean, mars, bubbles, fingernails, fire, wind, protons, thoughts, ideas, desire/will etc etc etc) all came from this nothingness. "He" (the nothingness) is the source of all those things. Ok, now lets think about this. That means that this nothingness created all these things (everything in existence). That means every enjoyable experience that you've ever had and will have in this world and everything you see in this world is all unity with this nothingness and sourced in this nothingness. So given all of that as absolute truth. I guess we can ask "why did he do it?" Obviously if this nothingness is the source of all reality, he must of had a reason for doing it. Think about it...image you had the ability to create an entire universe and an entire reality with trees and planets and humans etc etc (what if God was one of us...just a stranger on a bus....) why would you do it? Just for fun? Why would you create these little humans with brains and eyes and tastebuds and genitals and the entire universe etc etc...WHY DID "HE" (the nothingness) DO IT? Before I start postulating ideas as to why he did it, (And again i'm assuming that there IS a reason) let's realize that whatever the reason issss, it wasn't made known to us. Meaning, this nothingness never "communicated" with us and told us why "he" decided to be the source of all of reality. So we'll also have to examine why it's been kept a a secret from us. Ok, now for what I think it the reason. I think the reason for "him" having "created" all of reality (including "all of us") was in order to give us "humans" pleasure. Think about it. Look around the world. There's this thing called food. Theres lots of different types of food. Hundreds of different species of fruits and veggies and tins of different flavors and spices and meats and fish and chicken and duck and thousands of ways of preparing all of them. Isn't it awesome? Don't we all really enjoy eating good things? Now image that the world as we know it had no food. No apples, no oranges, no fruit smoothies in the morning, no veggies, no meat, chicken fish or any spices....nothing! And in order to stay alive, all we had to do was eat this weird type of rock which tasted like dirt, but gave us ALL the nutrients we needed to be healthy and function great. That means three times a day (or once a day...whatever) every person would just eat this rock and that would be all he would need to ingest for the day to be completely 200% healthy. If you've imagined this, now snap back into reality. Realize that reality could have easily been like that. If we're taking it as absolute truth that this nothingness is the source of all reality. Then that includes food and all of their delicious flavors. Ok back to the point. Why did "He" (this nothingness) "create" all of reality. So it makes sense to me to suggest that he did it in order to give us "humans" pleasure. We can see this from the very fact that in our reality exists this thing called food with its many flavors and "He" could have just have easily created reality with thos little rocks. The same ideas holds for SEX. Obviously ONE of the purposes of sex is the continuation of our species. If no one had sex for 100 years...bye bye humans. But we can again go ahead and imagine that sex wasn't pleasureful (or much less pleasureful). This "nothingness" obviously "has some desire" to give us pleasure from the fact that he "created" this reality with so many ways for us to achieve high levels of pleasure. Now, first of all i apologize for the long post. Thank you, if you've read this far. Ok for all of you who do meditation and all that good stuff. Maybe try this: The next time you eat something. Right before you put it in your mouth, just think for a second or two that the pleasure your'e about to experience is a direct result of the fact that this "nothingness" "decided" to create a reality where you should constantly achieve high levels of pleasure throughout the day. Also try during the actual chewing to continue to "meditate" this fact. This should bring all of our minds very close to "becoming one" with this nothingness. I think that doing this is a good way to achieve enlightenment. Again this is all based upon this absolute truth that this "nothingness" is the source of EVERYTHING and ALL OF REALITY....everything. Thank you for reading!

This is a quote from leo: Seems that this state of enlightenment can be achieved (after lots of hard work) even in our normal day to day life. Meaning when your hanging out with a friend you can realize that you and him/her are really one. You are both nothingness you are both one with reality etc etc. I think the goal its to achieve these really high states of awareness and then live with that awareness in our everyday lives...when we eat, talk with friends, have sex, write on the leo forum, when we crack our knuckles...we can all strive to live with this higher state of awareness even when we are doing every day normal things. BAM!

Should someone who is serious about self actualization and self improvement work on not cursing? My gut instinct is that cursing is a trait of a person who is unrefined? (btw if you're a person who normally curses using words like F*** S*** B**** etc etc so obviously you're first reaction to this question will be biased and you will think there is nothing wrong with it because we need to protect our egos...That being said I am asking of you to step outside of yourself for few moments and think objectively about this question...who knows maybe my gut instinct is wrong and maybe theres nothing wrong with cursing and even very actualized people curse and its no contradiction...I just cant imagine Gandi saying "F****** A*******")

I didn't read all the previous comments but I think I have a unique approach. Self development is hard and takes a lot of really hard work. Sometimes a person needs incentives to help get him to certain places and achieve certain things. Sort of like a guy promising himself to buy a tub of ben and jerrys if he gets over a 90 on his exam or something like that. Obviously the goal isnt the ice cream and obviously the goal would be to one day have a deep appreciation for studying that you dont need the ice cream to study. BUT until that day comes I think its ok to use the ice cream to encourage yourself to study because this person obviously sees that studying and good grades have a certain value (my point isnt that school grades have value its just an example) but its just difficult for him and needs to ice cream to work at it. So too in your case, I think this competitiveness or maybe some would call it jealousy is good in terms of your growth as sort of an incentive to get you by and obviously one day it would be ideal to try to wean your self off and realize the inherent value of self development and enlightenment but for now its ok to use the competition to help you grow because you obviously see value now in self actualization its just you sort of need competitiveness as a crutch to help you work hard at it. Like in the example of the ice cream. If this guy gives himself enough ice cream incentives to study hard and get good grades....he might one day study a lot and realize how fun and interesting it actually really is and become inspired to study even without the ice cream. Maybe I'm completely off the ball...but its still an interesting thought!

I see your point but I had the following thought. I always thought that when a lot of things are bothering you it helps to complain and vent off how things are so bad and everytime I complained and got it off my chest It felt so good (At least I thought it did). BUT, I read recently (I wont say where for personal reasons) that actually complaing does just the opposite. Complaining actually focusses your mind on the negative. What a person really has to do when a lot of things are bothering him and making him upset is focus on all the good things a person has in his life. A person can choose to focus his mind on the positive and make that his world view. Why am I saying all this? Good question. I'm bringing that Idea as a "proof" that just because something is a "great emotional release" doesn't make it a "good" thing to do or something that is in a persons best interest to do. There are MANY things that are a great emotional release and they are antithetical to self development and actualization I have a challenge for anyone who is interested. A big part of self actualization is self control. Even for those who are convinced that cursing is a good thing and beneficial...try not cursing for 1 day or 2 , 3, 4 (you choose). Its a good way to practice self control (which is a muscle). Tell me how your experience went...was it hard...did you succeed? I will try the same.

How do you know?