Choice is a total delusion

[AlwaysBeNice]

If it's really free will, totally free, it has nothing of 'will' : )

[Joseph Maynor]

30 minutes ago, Mikael89 said:

It might seem like half to you. But in reality it got cut into millions of pieces because millions of atoms got stuck on the knife and on the cutting board

But yea.. I guess you are right.

Common sense is not so common. I still appreciate your answer though.  I will say this — you decide how to use words and their associated meanings.

Edited March 25, 2019 by Joseph Maynor

[Zetxil]

2 hours ago, LastThursday said:

This is an artificial situation. See, you have set up your options a priori, and then you make your choice after that fact. That is the delusion of choice. This is how we all justify having free will. In order to make a choice, you must have options, in order to have options, you must carve up the world into separate compartments. The carving up of the world, is the delusion.

If you truly believe in randomness, then choice is not compatible with it. Choice is deliberate, not random. Free will cannot be truly random.

@LastThursday

You don't seem to see my choice in setting up the situation to begin with and letting the cascade of events happen? It isn't a justification of free will, but more like a direct experience of it to the individual! The whole is set but the individual experiences it. So to say it doesn't exist is not a total encapsulation of the truth! 

Think of it this way: in order for a concept to have any meaning it must exist. Solely us conversing on the topic proves that both free will and no free will exist! To pick a side of a paradox proves no real understanding! 

True randomness doesn't exist, that is a fools jurisdiction. I used the word to describe the essense of it! In the example sited the idea of randomness comes in the end result of the choices made. Maybe uncalculable is a better term.

Do you not have options in your life? Moving forward through life you have choices you can make to persue different options. Do you not? Those options ahead of us aren't predefined just harder to achieve the more they differ from our current path!

@Joseph Maynor

32 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Common sense is not so common. I still appreciate your answer though.  I will say this — you decide how to use words and their associated meanings.

But isn't that the essense of what we are trying to discover in the persuit of truth? A commonality in the words and associated meanings between as many individuals as possible 

[Joseph Maynor]

2 minutes ago, Zetxil said:

 

@Joseph Maynor

But isn't that the essense of what we are trying to discover in the persuit of truth? A commonality in the words and associated meanings between as many individuals as possible 

What is truth?  Another word with associated meaning(s) that you decide to cling to or not?  

Edited March 25, 2019 by Joseph Maynor

[Zetxil]

@Joseph Maynor

Hmmmm it isn't really a clinging, more of a test, thrown to the wind to see what respose is received! In our case here, truth is the shared commonalities in experience between two or more individuals! 

Edited March 25, 2019 by Zetxil
No tag of other person

[Joseph Maynor]

11 minutes ago, Zetxil said:

@Joseph Maynor

Hmmmm it isn't really a clinging, more of a test, thrown to the wind to see what respose is received! In our case here, truth is the shared commonalities in experience between two or more individuals! 

Yes, but in many matters and in many contexts reasonable persons can arrive at different conclusions regarding the same issues.  The Mind likes to think of truth as this oversimplified thing, a quality that the Mind projects on a lot of concepts and scenarios.  The Mind likes to abstract this “truth” as an analogy to very specific empirically verifiable facts.  But there’s a hidden analogy being used by the Mind there.  It’s that abstraction and projection that the Mind does.

Edited March 25, 2019 by Joseph Maynor

[lmfao]

@Aeris If there's no past and no future, in what sense does free will exist on a level which implies moral culpability? 

[Zetxil]

1 hour ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Yes, but in many matters and in many contexts reasonable persons can arrive at different conclusions regarding the same issues.  The Mind likes to think of truth as this oversimplified thing, a quality that the Mind projects on a lot of concepts and scenarios.  The Mind likes to abstract this “truth” as an analogy to very specific empirically verifiable facts.  But there’s a hidden analogy being used by the Mind there.  It’s that abstraction and projection that the Mind does.

@Joseph Maynor

Of course! The following image may help illustrate the idea. person A says 6, person B says 9. The truth of the matter is that something is written at their feet. Truth applies to the situation. In our situation, truth is what we agree upon it to be! Seems like a simple enough concept to grasp. There are multiple truths to be discovered, one must simply look for commonalities of all perspectives. 

Why do you capitalize "mind"? You should find a different word, or string of words, to describe what you mean by "mind." "mind" has too many meanings: brain, head, awareness, perception, reasoning, processing. What I think you are getting at with mind is the faculty of consciousness and thought? correct me if that isn't what you mean! 

You see the "truth" that I spoke of was exactly what I said it meant when you asked I could see why you may have been confused with the word truth, so I corrected it. 

 

[Zetxil]

@lmfao @Aeris

49 minutes ago, lmfao said:

If there's no past and no future, in what sense does free will exist on a level which implies moral culpability? 

Are we denying the existence of past and future in our situation? 

[Joseph Maynor]

@Zetxil

I always capitalize Mind, Ego, Enlightenment, and Ego-Mind.  But for some reason I never capitalize being which is odd.  It's just how I roll.  

Edited March 26, 2019 by Joseph Maynor

[lmfao]

3 hours ago, Zetxil said:

@lmfao @Aeris

Are we denying the existence of past and future in our situation? 

Where do the past and future exist? 

[LastThursday]

14 hours ago, Zetxil said:

You don't seem to see my choice in setting up the situation to begin with and letting the cascade of events happen

Ok, so I just pushed back the point at which the choice is made. Let's see if I can explain what I'm getting at a different way.

It boils down to this: the world is analogue and continuous with no boundaries (a non-duality if you like), but a choice is finite and bounded. So how do you get from one to the other?

The main problem is that You are part of the analogue experience and so is the entity (You) that is doing the choosing.

By way on analogy. Imagine being a master mason with a large block of marble ready to be carved. That marble block could be carved into an infinite variety of forms, the block has infinite potential options open to it and there is as a consequence an infinity of choices that could be made. But. The mason is building a church. The number of forms (doorways, windows, buttresses etc.) is drastically reduced, to a finite number. The mason decides to build part of a window. 

You see the mason is not completely free to make any choice s/he likes because they are artificially constrained. Their 'Free Will' is not 'Free'. It is 'Constrained Will'. 

What about true 'Free Will', i.e. one that isn't constrained by anything? Say the mason takes the first blow out of the marble. And with each successive blow changes his/her mind about where to strike next. And in the end s/he has carved a beautiful statue. When was the choice made to make a statue? Was it one choice or a thousand choices? 

The reality is that no choice was made at all. From the marble block to the statue was one continuous happening without gaps - there was no room for choice, because there are no 'gaps' in the analogue world. The mason is just deluded into thinking choices were made.

 

[Jack River]

28 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Ok, so I just pushed back the point at which the choice is made. Let's see if I can explain what I'm getting at a different way.

It boils down to this: the world is analogue and continuous with no boundaries (a non-duality if you like), but a choice is finite and bounded. So how do you get from one to the other?

The main problem is that You are part of the analogue experience and so is the entity (You) that is doing the choosing.

By way on analogy. Imagine being a master mason with a large block of marble ready to be carved. That marble block could be carved into an infinite variety of forms, the block has infinite potential options open to it and there is as a consequence an infinity of choices that could be made. But. The mason is building a church. The number of forms (doorways, windows, buttresses etc.) is drastically reduced, to a finite number. The mason decides to build part of a window. 

You see the mason is not completely free to make any choice s/he likes because they are artificially constrained. Their 'Free Will' is not 'Free'. It is 'Constrained Will'. 

What about true 'Free Will', i.e. one that isn't constrained by anything? Say the mason takes the first blow out of the marble. And with each successive blow changes his/her mind about where to strike next. And in the end s/he has carved a beautiful statue. When was the choice made to make a statue? Was it one choice or a thousand choices? 

The reality is that no choice was made at all. From the marble block to the statue was one continuous happening without gaps - there was no room for choice, because there are no 'gaps' in the analogue world. The mason is just deluded into thinking choices were made.

 

Your a most excellent presence on here. Thanks buddy?

[tecladocasio]

32 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

The reality is that no choice was made at all. From the marble block to the statue was one continuous happening without gaps - there was no room for choice, because there are no 'gaps' in the analogue world. The mason is just deluded into thinking choices were made.

@LastThursday The problem with your thinking is that you are bringing the Absolute and trying to fit in to the question '' Do we have choice? '' . As I already said , absolutely speaking , yes, there is no choice , but nothing is happening either . But , relatively speaking , i'm still making a choice to right this answer , even is it is a ''illusion'' , is the illusion that make life the way we know possible .

Edited March 26, 2019 by tecladocasio

[Zetxil]

@LastThursday

46 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Ok, so I just pushed back the point at which the choice is made. Let's see if I can explain what I'm getting at a different way.

It boils down to this: the world is analogue and continuous with no boundaries (a non-duality if you like), but a choice is finite and bounded. So how do you get from one to the other?

The main problem is that You are part of the analogue experience and so is the entity (You) that is doing the choosing.

This concept seems to be the exact thing you are missing in your model of the world! The you/individual. You can say as much as you like that things are continuous (which they are)! But that doesn't quite encapsulate the whole model! To deny the concept of choice entirely is to deny the existance of an individual, and to deny the concept of an individual would mean that this conversation couldn't happen. You have to incorporate both sides to get a complete model. I don't disagree with anything you say! You just don't say it entirely! (To say it entirely seems to be unspeakable, but that seems to be what we are trying to do here on earth, one must try and figure it out instead of sit in complacency and ignorance of what it is!)

"So how do you get from one to the other?" - We experience both and incorporate into the spoken model! 

I may understand what is happening here! You (the individual/lastthursday) are fully accepting of the eastern model of the world without any integration of the western model of the world into your own model.

You are confusing the topic of this thread to be free will=choice. So we can look at it like this: The idea of choice is incorperated into "constrained will" and if the idea of choice can be incorperated it means it exists. 

@lmfao

Do past and future not exist in your experience? You have no memories or ideas? You can't envision what something will look like after the passage of time? Is time not a concept you have an understanding of? 

[FoxFoxFox]

@Aeris Become aware that there is not actually someone who chooses. That's liberation. That's why choice is a total illusion.

Your example is only a play with the concepts of probability and uncertainty, which themselves are inaccurate representations of the real thing.

[LastThursday]

4 hours ago, tecladocasio said:

The problem with your thinking is that you are bringing the Absolute and trying to fit in to the question '' Do we have choice? '' . As I already said , absolutely speaking , yes, there is no choice , but nothing is happening either . But , relatively speaking , i'm still making a choice to right this answer , even is it is a ''illusion'' , is the illusion that make life the way we know possible .

Yes, but you do realise we’re on a forum about breaking through illusions, and recovering the Truth of the Absolute? Is it heresy to introduce the Absolute? I’m just agreeing with @Aeris  ‘Choice is a Total Delusion’.

4 hours ago, Zetxil said:

You are confusing the topic of this thread to be free will=choice. So we can look at it like this: The idea of choice is incorperated into "constrained will" and if the idea of choice can be incorperated it means it exists. 

I don't feel as though there is confusion. If free will is not the application of choice, then what is it? If choice is not governed by free will then how can it be a choice? The two are one and the same.

Also, what do you mean by exist? Isn’t existence just a belief? For the 'idea of a choice' to exist, you must believe it exists. And a belief is just a choice.

4 hours ago, Zetxil said:

To deny the concept of choice entirely is to deny the existance of an individual, and to deny the concept of an individual would mean that this conversation couldn't happen.

@tecladocasio @Zetxil in my opinion you are still clinging for dear life onto a sense of self agency and individualism, and you may feel uncomfortable giving that up. But that's ok, reality continues even when you see through the veil.

[Zetxil]

23 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

I don't feel as though there is confusion. If free will is not the application of choice, then what is it? If choice is not governed by free will then how can it be a choice? The two are one and the same.

Well you can't feel confusion if there is no you in the first place ?

Choice is a decision based on the integration of all integrated parts.

We have already worked out that truly free will doesn't exist on the whole strucure because everything influences everything. Choice isn't governed by free will, It is governed by the integration of all previous integrated part into a sigularity that passes in the present. Let me reiterate this in a way you may be able to comprehend

Choice of the individual does not equal free will of the whole

23 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Also, what do you mean by exist? Isn’t existence just a belief? For the 'idea of a choice' to exist, you must believe it exists. And a belief is just a choice.

Is existance a belief or are you not currently existing?

23 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

@tecladocasio @Zetxil in my opinion you are still clinging for dear life onto a sense of self agency and individualism, and you may feel uncomfortable giving that up. But that's ok, reality continues even when you see through the veil.

I can't speak for @tecladocasio, but you opinion is wrong for me! There is no clinging, just tests thrown to the wind to understand the response! There is no self agency, but again you are trying to deny individualism when we are speaking to one another ?

Once all veils are seen through there is nothing left but to step back through and try to show others the way through them hand in hand, not speaking at them from the other side of the veil. Well I guess you can try to talk to them through it, but then they are just curious as to where the noise comes from.

Showing people the way seems to work better/faster than showing them the destination and having them try to figure it out on their own

Edited March 26, 2019 by Zetxil

[LastThursday]

22 minutes ago, Zetxil said:

Is existance a belief or are you not currently existing?

I believe I am existing. And so far, I've held on to that belief. But it may change.

24 minutes ago, Zetxil said:

you are trying to deny individualism when we are speaking to one another

But are we individuals? Are we really separate from each other? Do we not have to blend together in order to communicate? If this conversation had a name, it would be @LastThursday + @Zetxil.

26 minutes ago, Zetxil said:

Showing people the way seems to work better/faster than showing them the destination and having them try to figure it out on their own

Both are valid and equal.

[Zetxil]

7 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

I believe I am existing. And so far, I've held on to that belief. But it may change.

 

There it is! See who is clinging to belief now?

9 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

But are we individuals? Are we really separate from each other? Do we not have to blend together in order to communicate? If this conversation had a name, it would be @LastThursday + @Zetxil.

Oh man this seems like pretty basic english to me ? 

Let's reposiontion and start from the beginning:

I am @Zetxil and you are @LastThursday We are one in the same but distinct.

I am not @Zetxil + @LastThursday, but that is what our conversation is! 

13 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Both are valid and equal.

Valid yes, equal no. They aren't the exact same thing ?