Free Will

[Gabriel David Gomez]

Leo, I don't assume you would know the answer to this, but your feedback may interest me. I've been doing studies using myself as the labrat (and that wisely, with carefulness). These studies concern free will. I've boiled down a mass of information to something which may interest you. It reminds me of the "I think, therefore I am." principle.

"To endeavor to place focus on controlling the self, even to involve physical action in that pursuit, is to direct the mind and body and thereby demonstrate free will. You yourself, when in pursuit (even of something like controlling yourself), must at some point decide to continue. Free will is not just obvious because of perseverance, but by adaptation to a situation if it doesn't meet the expectation. Therefore free will is obviously existent.

-Gabriel David Gomez

Edited August 30, 2016 by Gabriel David Gomez

[Gabriel David Gomez]

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Edited August 30, 2016 by Gabriel David Gomez

[Juan Cruz Giusto]

basically, if you believe that you are a body-mind (not enlightened) you necessarily believe that you have free will.. Even Leo that claims that there is no free will still believes it, if not he would be enlightened.. To know things conceptually is not the same as experiencing them

[Gabriel David Gomez]

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Edited August 30, 2016 by Gabriel David Gomez

[Gabriel David Gomez]

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Edited August 30, 2016 by Gabriel David Gomez

[Gabriel David Gomez]

By the way I know this by experience. I have taken myself to the necessary and have ride myself of many former opinions, futile traditions, and concepts. it is of my methods to us thinking for action and tactic rather than concepts which place things on steady decline.

Here's an activity I constructed.

 

Most habitual actions are the result of addiction to action for the sake of action rather than usefulness and purpose. This is easily fixable if you keep track of every movement you make and discontinue the non-essential. The key is to do nothing that is of no use. Keep track of all your actions and to make sure that they are efficient responses and stimuluses which result in a beneficial response. Every response is a stimulus. Discontinue the non-essential. So, in essence, become very still and only move if it is for obvious purpose and reason. Subtract actions that are purposeless such as inducing pleasure for the sake of pleasure and habitual but purposeless stretching. You will find that most of the actions you thought were uselessly habitual are actually usefully habitual and that they were not sub conscious at all. This exercise is very precise, but begin when you are nearly motionless at first and graduate to more intense levels of action. Another method is to lay down and become as physically still as you are psychologically active. According to the amount of psychological activity you experience, become equally as physically still.

 

Because you must endeavor to continue or else decide to quit, every moment of perseverance is an act of free will. This is why perseverance is proof of free will. One must venture past animal instinct to make something like an expectation which comes through pain, a reality. 

[stevegan928]

On 8/30/2016 at 2:15 PM, Gabriel David Gomez said:

By the way I know this by experience. I have taken myself to the necessary and have ride myself of many former opinions, futile traditions, and concepts. it is of my methods to us thinking for action and tactic rather than concepts which place things on steady decline.

Here's an activity I constructed.

 

Most habitual actions are the result of addiction to action for the sake of action rather than usefulness and purpose. This is easily fixable if you keep track of every movement you make and discontinue the non-essential. The key is to do nothing that is of no use. Keep track of all your actions and to make sure that they are efficient responses and stimuluses which result in a beneficial response. Every response is a stimulus. Discontinue the non-essential. So, in essence, become very still and only move if it is for obvious purpose and reason. Subtract actions that are purposeless such as inducing pleasure for the sake of pleasure and habitual but purposeless stretching. You will find that most of the actions you thought were uselessly habitual are actually usefully habitual and that they were not sub conscious at all. This exercise is very precise, but begin when you are nearly motionless at first and graduate to more intense levels of action. Another method is to lay down and become as physically still as you are psychologically active. According to the amount of psychological activity you experience, become equally as physically still.

 

Because you must endeavor to continue or else decide to quit, every moment of perseverance is an act of free will. This is why perseverance is proof of free will. One must venture past animal instinct to make something like an expectation which comes through pain, a reality. 

did you choose to choose to stay still? do you know where your choices come from? 

[Gabriel David Gomez]

14 minutes ago, stevegan928 said:

did you choose to choose to stay still? do you know where your choices come from? 

the fact is that, though you create a suffering which only continues if you engage in it, you can both edit and carry out what you will. You need not have the slightest reason to change what you will. You need only choose to do it. Most people wait until they have an emotional charge before they do something. Like hearing a speech from a motivational speaker who gets their emotions hyped so that they do what they dream. But at the end of the speech, they are still losers. I'll tell you where your choices comes from. So when you see someone who smiles, your brain (of your own will) scans the information form your senses and you use remembrance almost instantly to find what that has been associated with in the past. The result is a happiness you can literally see. That hallucination of being able to see an emotion, a psychological subject, embodied... that is to further stress to you not what the situation is... but what it "may" be. So that is probability. not actuality. We know this because someone can smile and yet be almost emotionless or without expression and yet happy. But here's the kicker, this animal instinct blends in so deeply and harmoniously to our will that our animal instinct is indeed the same will as that which we use to go against it. It just isn't used. That is why we can't help but still "see" the happiness in a smile we study further to see if they are really happy. We even consider our own experiences and actions to get a feel on what others are feeling. Therefore the sound you swear you can feel the emotion from is the same as the smile. You can hear the joy or the sadness in it but that is a suggestion. Now, based on these experiences from our senses, the emotions and information we take in is only something we use to build our will; at which point we use more experience (for instance the knowledge of rebellion and the rush we felt from observing it) to choose to either act against it to form a new will which is against the latter. So our experiences present us new options. Like a children hearing cuss words from their parents and making use of their will by action according to what at first exists. Their animal instincts. So the point is that free will can definitely exist because one can choose to alter what they will even without excuse or sane reasoning. In order to see this, you must first resist the looming feeling of embarrassment. YOu need only be embarassed if you are ashamed, and that if it is something to be ashamed of. Pick something you truly love and attempt to hate it and envision it as stupid as best you can without any excuse or reasoning. You find that your next action need not be one done politely toward it but that you don't even need emotional motivation to spring into action. But because at some point you must take notice of free will due to the fact that you must choose to finish by perseverance or continuance and following through with it after you have started and may not have noticed the free will you used then, free will exists. So, with choices, first we are introduced to experiences and probabilities. Instinct finds that which is useful, non-essential, or a danger to survival, and every other reaction is a disobedience to it, a conformity toward it, etc. But the point of emotion is to give an even more direction signal of somethings use. So a smile, being a sign of an alliance or a safety, quite obviously arouses pleasure just as safety arouses death. Now, stress is like psychological pain, this is why it is used for danger which causes damage and pain. The idea is for you to equate the psychological experience with the external experience so that you react to the external efficiently. This is why, any emotion, is only a suggestion of what something external or internal is all about. You must examine further to further develop a perspective and experience. This is why you felt and could literally see "danger" when Leo showed you the picture of the spider at first. But with experience, your mind learns it is only 2d and harmless. So the brain builds experience about danger and safety first, and other experiences are added to form character. Being cool is useful in the survival of the fittest because it gains allies and that is to outnumber your foes. Losing a loved one and feeling a sadness is actually due to a looming feeling that you have lost the pleasure they provide and it may sound selfish. However, to overcome that feeling just arouse a different emotion, such as saying to yourself that being sad for them does not mean that you love them because they would not want you to be sad. Thus you are pleased by the knowledge that you have pleased the dominant dog because fulfilling the will of something that brings you pleasure is a sure sign of safety and luxury in the survival of the fittest.

 

So with choices, you either pay attention to the crowd (which leads most to follow holidays and build allies with those type of people, at which point you place a value on those things)

or you build your own kingdom (going against the grain by abiding by what brings actual safety and prevents actual danger, such as teaching people to stop being dupes and believing everything an emotion makes them feel; this will cause some to break free from blindness and making choices according to what doesn't make them feel ashamed etc.)

Of course their are other things also. But animal instinct is formed rather rapidly because pain or pleasure is of the first things a newborn develops. The brain is already thinking at that point whether it is profitable because the idea of profit had been introduced when learning to breathe etc. By breathing one could avoid pain which was indeed unprofitable. However, a person can please a crowd and make allies by going against that instinct and holding their breathe (which is pleasing if you can sit through a chokehold from the "dominant dog")

 

But because you can choose to alter your will (which thus shapes your will; shaping which involves chopping of what is deemed non-essential which leaves what is non-essential) that alone is exercising the free will. All of this information is what I have learned on my own studies and it can be proven by actual practice and common sense. I recommend beginning by not immediately trusting and believing your emotions or assuming that strong emotion is as useful as a convincing fact. I recommend investigating many things (kind of like batman did) and gaining new experiences which will build your character and help you sharpen the accuracy of your emotions.

[Gabriel David Gomez]

Yes, I chose to stay still. I acted against my instinct to keep moving without seeking to justify it. I simply became the dominant dog I experienced as a child toward my will. Just as I had once been given no explanation, I chose to stay still. Thus my experiences taught me probabilities which gave me an array of choices out of which I chose. I had to learn as a baby almost immediately that no one would ease the pain of not breathing when I came out of the womb, and I learned that pain was not profitable because of agony which was also not profitable. Thus I learned about profit and non-profit and loss almost as soon as I came out of the womb. By exercising and writhing about squirming and exercising my muscles, I learned to breathe which felt profitable. Thus I practiced this method of breathing. Recently, with myself I learned that people learn it one of two ways, to avoid danger thereby being at safety; or to seek safety thereby avoiding danger. Which is better? You decide. If you avoid danger you must have it in your sights, therefore you will not have time for long in safety. But if you seek safety you know what is not danger and therefore can be at safety longer. But perhaps even that isn't fully explored and they are indeed equal in effect. Nonetheless, experience reveals options, options are used according to preference, preference needs no explanation to be formed but explanations can be preferred. Now, the most deceptive concept I have ever heard is that someone can get to know someone's personality. People are always changing. The explanation of the baby is an example of that. This is why bruce lee said something along the lines of knowledge being a continuous thing in his book "The tao of jeet kune do"

[J. M. Wigglesworth]

@Gabriel David Gomez

Dude. You know he's already made an entire video dedicated to this subject.

Also...

 

On 8/30/2016 at 3:25 PM, Gabriel David Gomez said:

"I think, therefore I am."

Do you really think? Are you on an existential level, 'the thinker'?  Because that's the presupposition of Descarte. If the presupposition is wrong... well... draw you own conclusions.

 

Finally,

"Don't quote yourself and then put your name after it. It's tacky."

-J.M Wigglesworth

[Gabriel David Gomez]

58 minutes ago, J. M. Wigglesworth said:

@Gabriel David Gomez

Dude. You know he's already made an entire video dedicated to this subject.

Also...

 

Do you really think? Are you on an existential level, 'the thinker'?  Because that's the presupposition of Descarte. If the presupposition is wrong... well... draw you own conclusions.

 

Finally,

"Don't quote yourself and then put your name after it. It's tacky."

-J.M Wigglesworth

Should you insist on stating that Leo already made videos about the topic and yet not quote me and why i'm wrong? Of course you can. Of your own free will. But my statement stands by common sense and logic. Not by the laws of Leo and an unproven powerful accuracy, but by the laws of existence.

[Gabriel David Gomez]

You can cover your ears and act like it's bad because you don't understand it and you can act like its bad just because you don't like it. But just because you like something doesn't make it right. Strong emotion doesn't equate to convincing truth. I hardly understood a word you wrote until I considered what it meant based off of what i know. You don't need to communicate more directly but you maybe could.

[jjer94]

2 hours ago, J. M. Wigglesworth said:

"Don't quote yourself and then put your name after it. It's tacky."

-J.M Wigglesworth

"That is one wise pussy."

-jjer94

[J. M. Wigglesworth]

14 hours ago, Gabriel David Gomez said:

Should you insist on stating that Leo already made videos about the topic and yet not quote me and why i'm wrong? Of course you can. Of your own free will. But my statement stands by common sense and logic. Not by the laws of Leo and an unproven powerful accuracy, but by the laws of existence

Well, I mean literally the first thing you asked for...

 

On 8/30/2016 at 3:25 PM, Gabriel David Gomez said:

Leo, I don't assume you would know the answer to this, but your feedback may interest me.

Was Leo's feedback. I thought you would be happy to watch an hour long video about his stance. Anyways, you say that your statement stands by 'common sense and logic'. That's fine. Will is certainly present within the structure of the mind and it can move the body. I don't disagree with that. I'm going to argue Leo's premise which is that 'Free Will' is incorrect because philosophical underpinnings are incorrect. 

For you to have free will, you must be the thinker on an existential level. I'm saying I disagree with that presupposition since I realize that I am, in fact, not just a mind-body structure. I may still be identified with my ego on a deep level but that doesn't make me correct. Self-evidence isn't reality. It is merely what appears to be reasonable and we do not live in world governed by the principles of human reasoning. Instead we try to make it conform to human reasoning, in an attempt to understand things. That is is what you are doing, @Gabriel David Gomez . In fact, that is what all of philosophy does.

In short, Free will is based off of a fundamental misunderstanding of our existential nature.

A lot of people here are decently familiar and accepting of the ramifications of enlightenment/non-duality/self-realization but I understand that you aren't there quite yet. It's no biggie but you should definitely at least look at the stuff. Watch Leo's enlightenment playlist, some Shinzen Young maybe a little bit of Moojiji just for fun. See if you can get an experience with no-self, or at least feel your ego dissolve a little. 

[Gabriel David Gomez]

Want to find out how to be a thinker?

First ignore everything you are currently thinking about though it looms it the back of your mind almost succeeding in flooding to the front and do not personally engage in any particular and detailed thought. Next simply attempt to conjure, not any specific brand of thought, but the very thing which is thought itself. Focus and meditate on that which thought is, even the word thought. Also, even attempt to conjure a memory, any memory. The value of your attempt combined with actual results regardless of the targeted memory proves that I am a thinker because I succeeded both in the attempt, willing continuance and perseverance having applied the act to continue, and in actually conjuring a memory.

 

Another exercise is quite simple. I obtained this from Miyamoto Musashi after translating it further. The idea is to engage only in low physical action during high psychological activity and to engage in fairly high physical activity during low psychological activity. You must first attempt to discontinue any unnecessary actions and, for every task you assess, assess it in the fewest yet most useful and effective number of movements. This entire exercise is best done while first being still and slowly graduating to higher levels of movement. Also, the secret to quitting a habit (this said because unnecessary actions are the habit of many) is not action. It is non-action and replacement of unnecessary action with useful actions or no action at all. Byt practicing this in completion you will have utilized both awareness of your mind, your body, as well as regulation of the body, intentional discontinuance of habitual behavior, and other things which you must press past suffering using free will so as to accomplish. Suffering is only necessary until you realize it's not.

Edited September 3, 2016 by Gabriel David Gomez

[Gabriel David Gomez]

as you focus on the word "thought" watch you can stifle and quench any evolution it may take. Also, note that it is very fast conscious movements and not a single subconscious movement that forms your thoughts. It is necessary to maintain that thought of the word thought as it is and allow no less and no more than it. This also helps relieve stress. In doing this exercise you will have regulated thought. Also, though you may not remember having conjured it, you will have conjured it. Oftentimes, people begin something consciously and they forget. People then become protective and say that it was subconscious. It is their way of regulating fear because animal instinct says that it is only wise to keep track of the not so far ago past so as to know what may come. Sometimes it is just plain futile.

[J. M. Wigglesworth]

10 hours ago, Gabriel David Gomez said:

Want to find out how to be a thinker?

No thank you. I'd prefer to realize I'm one and the same as the universe around me. 

 

That aside... identifying with your thoughts and your mind is fine, believing they are you is fine. That doesn't make it correct. I could, as the stereotype goes, 'be one with the tree' - and identify with the tree. However, if I told I did so, you would say I'm crazy. "Obviously you aren't the tree," You might say.

It seems incredibly obvious I am not the tree but reality is under no compulsion to be how we believe or expect it to be. The point is, just because you identify with it, doesn't mean you are it. The ego is just another bit of the world just like the tree and I'm afraid that seriously identifying as the tree and identifying as the mind-body structure are both delusions of the same caliber. You are coming into this believing- as we all did before we knew otherwise- that you are the ego. You are using this as an axiom to uphold your argument. I'm telling you that the 'axiom' is not an axiom which voids your argument. 

 

In short... what you identify as is not what you are, even if it makes a lot of nice noises and can do a few neat tricks.

 

[Gabriel David Gomez]

That question is rhetorical. I don't need your answer. It is not that I fully say it is me but that the mind is not the actual self. That is the basis of the realization. The mind is only a tool of the self, and not one that the self is obligated to use (just like the body). If I didn't say it earlier or explain it enough, I haven't directly discovered myself... I have rathered indirectly discovered it because I have found free will. By the awareness of the ability to control, I can infer that something must operate it. But then I myself, being able to control, must have something controlling me. The conclusion is that my actual will blends in so neatly with nature that my responses and actions I general work much the same as and are like a chemical reaction. I am like many elements combined which, under certain circumstances, react in certain ways. Now, nature operates according to a specific guideline called logic. This is why nothing impossible has ever happened. But because only the logical can happen, what exactly do all reactions boil down to? It is the fact that every human is not composed of the same amount of or types of elements. Thus we literally act as we naturally should according to natural reactions. The reason why the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result is because its like mixing water and fire together to make metal. It is not the goal that is wrong, it is the process and the reactions which are not logical. Thus, every person must abide by what everything in the universe operates along the guidelines of: logic.  This is why Thomas Aquinas said, "A man has free will just as long as he is logical." and also why the Bible says, "By wisdom the LORD laid the earth's foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place" (because wisdom is logic and a thing must abide by its foundation: wisdom/logic/truth)... and also why predestination is possible (because, if you could track all of the reactions in the universe, you would find every reaction which will ever take place within creation). Now, I'm sure you're wondering how I came up with this information, but if you were to dare ask and become subject to knowing the truth about creation... you would be astonished. Maybe you would copy and paste it into a book to get it published and receive an award, going down in history for something I found. But this is why I am a newly published author expecting major results in the world of philosophy, sociology, agriculture, psychology, elite warfare, body-language, metaphysics, and others just to prove that a 21 year old without fancy equipment is relevant enough to solve age old questions such as "Do we live in the best of all possible worlds?" (to which the answer is yes, because nothing impossible has ever happened and this platform has never failed) and others. Now, the self is deeper than the mind because it can conjure memory, this is common sense. But a deeper awareness is found using an exercise I will reveal that has potential to (if used correctly) show you a more detailed awareness that you are actually doing. A leg can be amputated, but the self remains. Knowledge can be forgotten (severed/thus amputated) but the self remains. The self is the mover which succeeds all tools of itself and is only moved by things conceptually considered external outside of it. Everyone operates with the universe as the universe. Therefore, individuality is to say that a specific group of chemicals represents the self. But, know this, that that specified group of chemicals can be expanded upon (if you track every reaction and stimulus, or to be more simple... every action) until you have identified the smallest and biggest but pretty much all of the matter in the universe. Therefore to do things according to wisdom is the way of peace and to resist nature expecting an illogical result is the definition of insanity. Free will exists within and not outside of logic.

The following exercise is for people who want to discontinue "subconscious movement", make less unnecessary actions of the mind and body, and reduce stress massively:

Do not seek to better control the mind by relaxing the body.

Do not seek to better control the body by relaxing the mind.

Do not seek to better control the body by exerting the mind.

Do not seek to better control the mind by exerting the body.

This will show you reveal which actions are among those that are useful and which are among those that are unnecessary.

This can be used in meditation and it is meant to be practiced while deeply observing your mind and body and how you go about adjusting them.

[Gabriel David Gomez]

The idea is to lower the amount of unnecessary actions yet act only as necessary. 

The problem with the first one I assembled is that I did not perform necessary tasks simply by not performing the unnecessary ones. However i did identify the unnecessary one's, and by having knowledge of the basics tasks which were necessary I could identify the nature of them to organize a technique which is a map for all useful actions. It boiled down to abiding by logic and not expecting an illogical result, though an illogical result be the aim. It is the illogical result which does not happen during a logical action which is desired, but because the illogical result does not become a reality (nature favoring logic since nothing impossible has ever happened) suffering occurs. Thus it is desire which is the cause of most suffering, and not pain. This is why I found that my senses should be managed more efficiently. So I found that it is logical and beneficial to allow pain (a danger indicator) and resist what causes it. After all, to resist the senses is to be unaware of danger. The same goes with stress, which should not be resisted. Now, the reason why the following method is useful is because it shows people how to manage their body and mind, which they often try to influence in ways which only cause suffering due to their technique. This is why the technique is as follows.

Do not seek to better control the mind by relaxing the body.

Do not seek to better control the body by relaxing the mind.

Do not seek to better control the body by exerting the mind.

Do not seek to better control the mind by exerting the body.

Do not attempt to influence the mind using the body. Use the mind to influence the mind.

Do not attempt to influence the body using the mind. Use the body to influence the body.

[Gabriel David Gomez]

It is the explanation before the last which details why Rene Descartes could say, "Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems." Because everything in existence abides by logic. In fact, you could say that logic is a sort of string which you can find by comparisons between the things of existence to find facts about one portion of it with another. For instance, reproduction can be used to summarize reproduction and find details of etymology. By combining the likenesses between the two, it is made obvious. A man plants his seed into the womb which is the earth (mother earth) and after laboring hard, the result is the fruit of the womb. Perhaps this is why Miyamoto musashi said, "From one thing, know ten thousand things.", because other riches can be found. In fact, Thomas Aquinas once said, ""All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly." and this reveals the wealth of existence which is available to find the rest.