On Free Will

[Guest Annetta]

I couldn't read through this whole thread, so I hope it is ok and still relevant to answer the OP.

From my experience, we have the illusion of free will.  Everything that you are going to do has been decided for you in advance, but you still have the option to do whatever you want with your life.  Assuming you are lucky enough.  But with a mystical experience comes the knowledge that everything in your life lead up to this moment and that it was no accident.

Take for instance my cats.  I raised them from birth,

and they were raised with a specific way of caring for an animal.  The way you tame an animal is by giving it the illusion of freedom.  Every time the cat wants down, or is frightened of you - you either let it down with a big show, "Do you want down?  What a good boy! Ok, there you go!"  If the cat is afraid, you step backwards right before the moment of it running away, blink slowly, and walk away.  They use this when training big cats as well.  You can also praise them right before they do something, such as eating, scratching on something or whatever, and then your praise is associated with the freedom to do natural things.  This makes it easier to move the behaviour around, you see?  You can train them this way, praising a false sense of freedom.  And they love you very much for it.  But ultimately they live in an existence where the course of their lives are determined by me. 

We are God's pets.

 

Hallelujah praise the lord.

[Pointer]

@Angelo John Gage @Cepzeu

 

I understand what you are saying now Angelo and you are correct Cepzeu it is a matter of how we define “conciousness”. Free will is found in conciousness, but it is not conciousness. To understand, we have to take  enlightenment as the place where free will is found. Then we can see that “free will” is enlightenment and it no longer becomes relevant to talk about free will in conciousness in those terms.

However, the “description of free will” in conciousness is very theory heavy and difficult once we go back to depend on our understanding. A very short version is that what happens (in the modern paradigm) is that we don’t take enlightenment into account when we describe free will. This leads to a paradox because we divide conciousness into two parts and place free will in one part of conciousness. Thus the hard problem and 50/50 free will.

The solution has already been given and can be found for example in the Abhidhamma. Short of reading enough of that to get the understanding, understand that “free will” is enlightenment but enlightenment is not how you “understand free will to be”.

[sgn]

@Annetta So cute little creatures! 

[Guest Annetta]

@sgn Thank you!  They are my little loves. ❤

[Pointer]

@Annetta it is amazing, so much love that we so easily forget about!