Free Will Exists - Alex O'Connor is wrong about free will

[thenondualtankie]

 

Here's an interesting discussion between Alex O'Connor and Sam Harris. They briefly discuss free will in this clip at the start.

To Alex, free will doesn't exist because: where are his actions coming from? Actions and intentions seem to just pop up in your head out of nowhere. Which seems to discount free will.

In a different video, Alex posits that if the universe is deterministic, then we clearly don't have free will. And if the universe is random as implied by quantum mechanics, we don't have free will even still - there is only randomness, not choice.

But what he forgets to mention is a third option for where our intentions come from. INTENTION COMES FROM INTENTION ITSELF! Free will is completely circular and not explicable in terms of other concepts. Your intention literally uses intention itself to make itself arise. And that intention is you.

Does your direct experience not agree with this?

[Razard86]

Depends on how you look at it. Humans do not have free will, they have an interconnected will that is exerted through influence. But God has free will, but then God's will is also bound, it is bound to be Good and Loving. God's nature is good and love so all of creation's nature is good and love. So you have no free will outside of goodness and love, and as a human you have no free will at all. 

Humans have a will of relationship, or you can say a dual will, the will of their individual identity, and then then will of the collective will all around them. 

Examples of lack of human will

1. You literally as a human cannot move your hand with your own will. You do not consciously control your neurological system, it functions on it own. That is why if it messes up you can't consciously go inside and fix it, (another human can attempt to repair it but if you know anything about medicine, medicine is the facilitation of healing of the body. The body is what heals you NOT the medicine. The medicine is supposed to HELP the body heal itself. So again, medicine is INFLUENCE and that means its ability to exert control is in RELATIONSHIP to something. But notice, the BODY determines if you heal or not, NOT THE MEDICINE. So again...the human doesn't actually have control.

2. So what heals the body? GOD. What gives the human the inspiration to make a medicine. GOD. 

3. So upon investigation you discover, you don't have direct control over anything as a human. You might say but what about my decisions, I make decisions!!! You make decisions based on your level of intelligence which is based on the collective intelligence of your body, which you did not consciously choose as a human. Your culture, which you did not choose. Your life experiences and how you interpret them which you do not choose because interpretation ability is based on what you were given from birth. 

4. So again... you see, your life is based on influence!!! Everything that has ever influenced you, YOU NEVER CHOSE!!! All you can do as a human is make the best of the cards you were dealt, and your ability to do that is based upon how honest you are because honesty is SELF-CLARITY and allows you to see clearly.

5. The only control a human has, is the ability to be honest. So your superpower, is TRUTH!!! Truth and alignment with truth, maximizes the cards you were dealt with and anything less is suboptimal. 

And that is all that is going on here.

 

[thenondualtankie]

Razard, I imagine that you might say that we as humans have access to a sliver of God's intelligence and a sliver of God's love. And many other facets of consciousness for which we have a sliver of God's.

So don't we have a sliver of God's free will?

Your points suggest its a rather tiny amount. But non-zero.

[Razard86]

36 minutes ago, thenondualtankie said:

Razard, I imagine that you might say that we as humans have access to a sliver of God's intelligence and a sliver of God's love. And many other facets of consciousness for which we have a sliver of God's.

So don't we have a sliver of God's free will?

Your points suggest its a rather tiny amount. But non-zero.

You don't control how much of it you have, and to reach God Consciousness is the equivalent of powerlessness. To gain all the power is to give up all power.

But no the truth is you don't have any power outside of influence. Your two main powers are love and truth. Notice you can't control what you are passionate about, and notice honesty has to be developed. 

And again your intelligence and environmental influences are all out of your control. Because you cannot perfectly predict what is going on, and you cannot directly control anything. Even worse you age, so you will even lose your physical strength and intelligence over time. 

Life moves from a low amount, to a peak, and then a crash from peak to baseline then eventually to pure annihilation. That is duality. Human will interdependent. Only God's will is singular because humans are always constructed in relation to something. 

This is why a human has to deal with survival.

I can flip this around and explain how you gain control. You gain control by removing all bias, and working in alignment with what is. 

So if you want to make more friends and life teaches you through example that true friends are born out of long term commitment and the ascertaining of their values and yours being in lock step then you do it instead of trying to find a shortcut.

If life says a reputation is built off years of consistency and hard work, then you do it without trying to find a short cut.

 

Edited April 18 by Razard86

[gettoefl]

we have free will but most of us will rather be mindless and do what the others do

thinking is work and who even has time!

[Razard86]

2 hours ago, gettoefl said:

we have free will but most of us will rather be mindless and do what the others do

thinking is work and who even has time!

If you had free will you could choose every moment and how it unfolds. You don't you have a will that is given to you ( and can be taken from you). 

Even God's will has a limit, that limit is it must be good and loving.

[gettoefl]

21 minutes ago, Razard86 said:

If you had free will you could choose every moment and how it unfolds. You don't you have a will that is given to you ( and can be taken from you). 

Even God's will has a limit, that limit is it must be good and loving.

you have a choice every moment, ego or god ... ego means i do nothing and ego uses its deep programming to maximise my wellbeing, i sit back and enjoy having abdicated any desire to exert any will; god means i exit this false illusory realm, say good morning heaven and then god's will alone is

[LastThursday]

I don't know. Every time I think about it there's a hundred different angles you could take and each one could come out either way, yes and no.

But you're right @gettoefl it really is about "choice". For free will you need choices and a chooser. But there's also the carrying out of a choice. Is making a choice without actioning it, really free will? So you need all three ingredients - if you remove any one of those ingredients you no longer have free will.

[Carl-Richard]

You experience being the author of your actions, but you also experience things being outside of your control, and these things influence your actions, and your actions influence these things. Hence compatibilism: determinism and a certain type of free will are compatible.

Edited April 18 by Carl-Richard

[James123]

19 hours ago, thenondualtankie said:

 

Here's an interesting discussion between Alex O'Connor and Sam Harris. They briefly discuss free will in this clip at the start.

To Alex, free will doesn't exist because: where are his actions coming from? Actions and intentions seem to just pop up in your head out of nowhere. Which seems to discount free will.

In a different video, Alex posits that if the universe is deterministic, then we clearly don't have free will. And if the universe is random as implied by quantum mechanics, we don't have free will even still - there is only randomness, not choice.

But what he forgets to mention is a third option for where our intentions come from. INTENTION COMES FROM INTENTION ITSELF! Free will is completely circular and not explicable in terms of other concepts. Your intention literally uses intention itself to make itself arise. And that intention is you.

Does your direct experience not agree with this?

There is no free will because there is no you in first place. 

[thenondualtankie]

Yet here I am.

[abrakamowse]

I think the idea that we have free will is illusory. 
 

We feel like we choose. But suppose you were born in the same situation, parents, family, influences everything the same as hitler.

Do you think you would act differently?

[abrakamowse]

On 4/17/2024 at 8:50 PM, Razard86 said:

Depends on how you look at it. Humans do not have free will, they have an interconnected will that is exerted through influence. But God has free will, but then God's will is also bound, it is bound to be Good and Loving. God's nature is good and love so all of creation's nature is good and love. So you have no free will outside of goodness and love, and as a human you have no free will at all. 

Humans have a will of relationship, or you can say a dual will, the will of their individual identity, and then then will of the collective will all around them. 

Examples of lack of human will

1. You literally as a human cannot move your hand with your own will. You do not consciously control your neurological system, it functions on it own. That is why if it messes up you can't consciously go inside and fix it, (another human can attempt to repair it but if you know anything about medicine, medicine is the facilitation of healing of the body. The body is what heals you NOT the medicine. The medicine is supposed to HELP the body heal itself. So again, medicine is INFLUENCE and that means its ability to exert control is in RELATIONSHIP to something. But notice, the BODY determines if you heal or not, NOT THE MEDICINE. So again...the human doesn't actually have control.

2. So what heals the body? GOD. What gives the human the inspiration to make a medicine. GOD. 

3. So upon investigation you discover, you don't have direct control over anything as a human. You might say but what about my decisions, I make decisions!!! You make decisions based on your level of intelligence which is based on the collective intelligence of your body, which you did not consciously choose as a human. Your culture, which you did not choose. Your life experiences and how you interpret them which you do not choose because interpretation ability is based on what you were given from birth. 

4. So again... you see, your life is based on influence!!! Everything that has ever influenced you, YOU NEVER CHOSE!!! All you can do as a human is make the best of the cards you were dealt, and your ability to do that is based upon how honest you are because honesty is SELF-CLARITY and allows you to see clearly.

5. The only control a human has, is the ability to be honest. So your superpower, is TRUTH!!! Truth and alignment with truth, maximizes the cards you were dealt with and anything less is suboptimal. 

And that is all that is going on here.

 

Thanks for this Razard. 

[James123]

11 hours ago, thenondualtankie said:

Yet here I am.

That's the point. You are the biggest illusion. 

[Dodo]

On 18/04/2024 at 1:06 AM, thenondualtankie said:

 

Here's an interesting discussion between Alex O'Connor and Sam Harris. They briefly discuss free will in this clip at the start.

To Alex, free will doesn't exist because: where are his actions coming from? Actions and intentions seem to just pop up in your head out of nowhere. Which seems to discount free will.

In a different video, Alex posits that if the universe is deterministic, then we clearly don't have free will. And if the universe is random as implied by quantum mechanics, we don't have free will even still - there is only randomness, not choice.

But what he forgets to mention is a third option for where our intentions come from. INTENTION COMES FROM INTENTION ITSELF! Free will is completely circular and not explicable in terms of other concepts. Your intention literally uses intention itself to make itself arise. And that intention is you.

Does your direct experience not agree with this?

Alex needs to look up Chaos Theory. Now think of a system where the original input slightly changes, the entire system changes drastically. Now think of a system where there are constantly new inputs coming in from the depths of the Void/Consciousness, out of thin air, at "every moment".

Basically i think he assumes that he lives in a world where the big bang happened long time ago and he lives in the aftermath, while in truth, the big bang is happening even now as we speak. There is no place for determinism here. There is always fresh input possible, seemingly out of nowhere that changes the system and its course. The power of consciousness / present moment (shoutout to Eckhart Tolle btw).

Idk how much sense that makes to you, but it does to me. 

Edited April 19 by Dodo

[Dodo]

20 hours ago, Razard86 said:

If you had free will you could choose every moment and how it unfolds. You don't you have a will that is given to you ( and can be taken from you). 

Even God's will has a limit, that limit is it must be good and loving.

Come on, brother. We didn't arrive that there are not many moments? There is only This moment, ever. Time to wake up from your dream of many moments.

I thought we have both arrived at the understanding that what happens in the now is not the now? 

You dont have absolute free will, as in to shape and mould every content the way you want etc, but you have the free will to choose how to respond in any situation. The situation is out of your conscious control, the way you approach it is not. 

We both know this. Only overthinking and generalising is keeping you from agreeing. I know in your heart of hearts you know you have a choice, always. 

Ps: about God, I would prefer not to talk about God, unless you are God. Cause I believe certain aspects of God can be quite disciplinary, like a strong father figure who might whoop your *ss for your own higher good.

Psps: I acknowledge I sound like a knowitall, I simply believe its a directly verifiable fact. I am talking to you with no nonsense and sugar coating, and I'm not even your enemy btw.

 

 

Edited April 19 by Dodo

[gettoefl]

ego cannot be free, it thinks one way and cannot deviate, it maximises happiness, always has always will, even the spiritual people who renounce happiness are doing it for the greater karmic/afterlife rewards, which is but a promised happiness

contemplate that you have never not done what you want to do

what you want is happiness and you will seek this based on your ego's programming

everyone is doing the same thing

everyone acts per their level of consciousness

everyone is doing the best they can

and could not do otherwise even if they tried

the god of the bible lied when he told you have free will and he had his reasons for doing so which i explained elsewhere

to have free will makes you feel good, you are a somebody and you can do something important today

you are following a script nothing more

there is an escape clause however

undo ego and get back with god

this is the one true religion

it is completely binary, it's all ego or it's all god

the reason for this is that only this moment exists

Edited April 19 by gettoefl

[Razard86]

20 hours ago, gettoefl said:

you have a choice every moment, ego or god ... ego means i do nothing and ego uses its deep programming to maximise my wellbeing, i sit back and enjoy having abdicated any desire to exert any will; god means i exit this false illusory realm, say good morning heaven and then god's will alone is

You don't have a choice every moment, if you did every human would choose God. All ability to choose is based on your awareness level and you didn't choose that. Notice how dishonest you have to be to maintain your perspective. 

You don't control the movement of your fingers as a human, that is controlled by processes in the body, and all those processes run on their own which produce the movement of the finger. As God you WILL the movement of your finger, but you lock your will to your human vessel. 

You see you all don't understand how control works. Everything in reality works autonomously without a controller. The only reason it feels like you move your finger is because you can predict the movement of where your finger moves. As such you feel in control. So control is predictive power. If you knew everything that was happening in every moment as it happens then you would have control, and that is what God Consciousness is.

When knowledge and being collapse as one all is known as it is being/expressing just like how you know where your finger is going to go.

But you created rules in this life. If I sever the nerves in your finger it will not move. Why? Because the autonomous functions that happen without your conscious will/knowledge of cannot happen now to move your finger. So what it proves is the HUMAN never had control.

Humans gain control by raising their awareness to God level and thus can INFLUENCE more of their daily actions towards a purpose that they desire. But notice this takes PRACTICE!!! You cannot just give yourself absolute control. When it gets cold you shiver, you don't control that, look I am tired of listing all the things you cannot control.

You don't have control, you have INFLUENCE. Influence means you can RESPOND to something to spark/create a change. But you also do not control the rate or the degree of change either. Also your ability to respond is based on intelligence, physical strength, reaction time, your awareness level, your level of knowledge, (knowledge is different than intelligence as knowledge is stored memory and intelligence is your ability to interpret a patterned expression and understand accurately what is happening), energy level (how much energy you currently have in your body from rest and eating), what emotional mood you are in (its harder to motivated yourself when you are feeling down), and this is trusting that everything in your body functions properly because your body could produce a neurological error which causes a twitch in movement which produces what we call a "mistake." 

^^^ Many of you on here have no idea how many forces are at play that produce the actions you take everyday. You don't have free will, you never had it. All you have is influence and that is why when certain factors are at play, such as lack of sleep and fatigue you cannot perform optimally no matter how much mental and physical exertion you put out. That is what we call constraints. To be free is to HAVE NO CONSTRAINTS. You as God bound/made yourself a slave to this human vessel, and this is what runs your life. Your duty is to become aware of how it functions and how everything else around you functions and align with it, instead of fighting against it.

Edited April 19 by Razard86

[Dodo]

21 minutes ago, gettoefl said:

ego cannot be free, it thinks one way and cannot deviate, it maximises happiness, always has always will, even the spiritual people who renounce happiness are doing it for the greater karmic/afterlife rewards, which is but a promised happiness

contemplate that you have never not done what you want to do

what you want is happiness and you will seek this based on your ego's programming

everyone is doing the same thing

everyone acts per their level of consciousness

everyone is doing the best they can

and could not do otherwise even if they tried

the god of the bible lied when he told you have free will and he had his reasons for doing so which i explained elsewhere

to have free will makes you feel good, you are a somebody and you can do something important today

you are following a script nothing more

there is an escape clause however

undo ego and get back with god

this is the one true religion

have to go within to find it

I wanted to post a thread like a week ago on the bolded statement, absolutely agree. I went against my impulse and did not post about it. 

To post or not to post, that is the question. I am the same me either way. I have the free will to choose whether to post or not post. I don't think the God of the bible lied about free will.

What if next time you have an important decision to make (not the trivial example I gave perhaps, but it could be that also), you realise you also have the option to sit down, meditate on it, try to focus and clear distractions and make a choice from that state? I'm sure if you perform even a 5 minute meditation before you make the decision (which is your choice, btw), the outcome might be way different. Even if you choose to do the same as you "would have" without taking the silent space.

As humans, we do not have Absolute free will, that I agree. We are being too radical always here on the forum, you either have 100% freedom of will or 0% freedom of will. What was that saying, "only a Sith deals in absolutes". Holds true.  

To me it is mainly about knowing you have a choice. Knowing what choices you have, and knowing what is out of your control. We need to be able to accept the things we have no control over, and we also need to acknowledge the things we do have control over. 

Start moving your hands spontaneously right now. What is stopping you? Tell me you are not free to spontaneously move your hands right now any way you like? Yes you can't move your hands like a superhero or transform them into something else, but within the Human framework, you have full control of your hands (unless they are damaged somehow) and you have the choice what spontaneous movements to make, no one ever can convince me that there is no free will in that, in dancing, in laughter, in love, in play .

You can choose to show a middle finger too, you can choose to clap, you can choose to slap. you can choose many things, you might even choose not to think about it and be completely spontaneous, or you can choose to think about it. There is choice available at every level.  If it never crossed your mind that you can clap for example, you don't have the freedom to choose that option, but after knowing the option exists, it is now part of one of your many choices.

Its simple and obvious stuff, why is it being overlooked? 

Edited April 19 by Dodo

[gettoefl]

12 minutes ago, Razard86 said:

You don't have a choice every moment, if you did every human would choose God. All ability to choose is based on your awareness level and you didn't choose that. Notice how dishonest you have to be to maintain your perspective. 

ego says go ahead you can choose god but it's the bible's god and the ego loves and encourages this

you will then be living according to the egoic religion of sin separation suffering sorrow sickness specialness and specifics ... all of which are false and keep you dreaming and keep you from going within to find the truth

ego is smart and religious people think they have figured it out, this is nonsense