Free Will

[abrakamowse]

I just wanted to quote Metzinger about this:

 

"This experience is a naive realism.  If mobile organisms were privy to all of the countless neural and other “internal and external” interactive processes that occurred with the act of walking for instance, they could never function.  Immeasurably complex events had to be reduced to representational images in order to make sense to the mobile organism. These representational images would of necessity, include a unified and independent subject perceiving a world separate from and external to itself.  The feeling of looking directly into the world from the vantage point of a perceiving and cognizant me or self, is a neural-representational process that is most convincing.  We are not aware of this duality as an adaptive function, but view it as reality.  Because we are unaware of the immeasurable neuronal activity involved in the production of an image-based reality, Metzinger refers to this opacity as a tunnel."

 

More here:

https://emptinessteachings.com/2013/04/14/the-myth-of-the-self-neurology-weighs-in/

Edited September 6, 2016 by abrakamowse

[abrakamowse]

So, if there's no self... how can there be "free will"?

Whe "think" we choose, but there's no chooser. Because the fact that we think we choose doesn't change that when we choose we have no options. There's just a thought that we have options, but once we think we have decided to do something we just do it. Our thought make us appear that is "us" who choose, but there's no "us" to be found.

 

The idea of self is an illusion, there's not a separated entity out there choosing anything.

Edited September 6, 2016 by abrakamowse

[Gabriel David Gomez]

What are you talking about? Of course there is a self. Basically, your choices are as explainable as the manner chemical reactions take place. You are part of the universe. Not that you are one with the universe, but that the elements and existence which compose you serve a purpose and react with other things just like the universe reacts with itself. Just as the universe, what you combine and react will affect your condition. The point is that the elements you are composed of are so complexly combined that your choices seem to be free of the laws of nature (which operate within the boundaries of logic). The fact is that your will is carried out by yourself, and since it is based on chemical reactions, your will blends in with the nature of your elements. This means that your will is in fact in agreeance with the qualities of the elements you are composed of. An "unconscious movement" is when one of your tools (like the body) become detached from the grasp of the self (such as by blood flow or other factors which deem an instrument unusable). The body is only a tool and therefore the detachment of it does not destroy the self. This is why amputation does not kill you if you can preserve the vital members. Knowledge and mind is also a tool, because it can be forgotten (which is like psychological amputation by lack of use and deterioration, this can happen with the body as well considering The superman actor died from sleeping in the same position too long without movement).

So, basically, the common idea of free will is that our will can extend beyond the boundaries of nature and logic, but not that we can carry it out if it is impossible to achieve. But the correct information is that our free will can only be exercised within the boundaries of nature. Imaginations and concepts like unicorns are constructed by taking tiny bits of the universe and combining them to form a very existent image. Even the idea of something's reality is copied and pasted and fit to the unicorn's image.

But free will is in agreeance and alliance with the elements you are composed of so that your will is like unto as if two chemicals had a consciousness and their only free will was to carry out the logical action. At least, that is the smart manner of going about it. The truth about a lot is that, as infants even, people become familiar with the option of rebellion. They tend to classify the rush they get from it as profitable and safe. It is by copying and pasting the option of rebellion to a natural process that a person can expect a different result than the natural. That is why the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. So basically, its like two chemicals with consciouses who mix with the intention of making what obviously (by logical terms) will not be the result, this being possible by engraining a mindset of rebellion, the attribute learned from parents etc.

So the fact is that the things you experience and partake in affect your choices because your character is formed much like how elements mix. If you mix something just right, the idea to commit a specific action may never cross your mind. This is why people search for a sort of "formula" to fix the mind, because it is common sense that they must have a reaction to something in order to be fixed.

I know more about the universe than plenty of people. I learned it all based on my method of observing the bible and applying it to other things. 

[Gabriel David Gomez]

So the self exists as a combinations of elements which react similarly to those of the universe. Therefore, because the universe is only a name for a body of elements which react in different ways, the universe is not in synchronicity; this explains why someone whose actions are determined by the the reactions of the elements they are moved by can be part of the universe. It also explains why the bible states that there is such a thing as predestination. Every reaction can be tracked to find what will later react to its stimulus to find what lies in the future. Time is a concept. Cause and effect are more complex. Time is simply a matter of identifying the periods during which a cause and effect happen. If you could reverse the cycle of cause and effect, that would be to "go back in time". The Bible explains that the universe operates within the boundaries of logic, "By wisdom the LORD laid the earth's foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place." Therefore, the question, "Do we live in the best of all possible worlds," is answered by, "Yes." Because the wicked are perishing not by an unjust God, but because the laws of nature do not agree with them so that the elements they are composed of separate and they die. This is why the messiah said, "They will be chopped into pieces and thrown in the fire." Perhaps the fire is to represent an oven with which a new element is born and that is why another area says that the wicked will be ashes under the feet of the righteous. The righteous will prevail because they did not "Rebel against the laws of God." One theologian said, "Nature is grace."

Therefore, the stories of the bible make sense. Even Thomas Aquinas mentioned that catholics are wrong to reject the proper explanations given by science. This is because the "fake church" lacks true faith. Now, there is much more proof.

But on your question of the self, your notion that you do not choose to react or respond or act is wrong. You are compelled to act due to what you are composed of, and since it is in fact you which is composed of it, you do not disagree. In some aspects, things like the body may act apart from yourself. This is because it is not in fact controlled by yourself. Just like a numb arm that you can barely move, the self only carries out the actions it can do with it. But there are other forces which are at play.

[Gabriel David Gomez]

If you try to control what you cannot, that is the definition of insanity. You would be trying to move a numb arm expecting something, but that is the definition of insanity. Unless there is another force involved. Thomas Aquinas also explained this in the Summa Theologica when he spoke about how to make something levitate. He said that there must be an additive force. Therefore, miracles are only logical events in nature. To summon them in an attempt to boost your confidence or ego is not the additive force your require. In fact, perhaps some of the witches burned at the stake in england were not witches at all. Perhaps some had wisdom and love.

[abrakamowse]

I wasn't talking about that kind of "Free Will" if a person is not enlightened he's not aware of it...

 

I thought you were talking about us as a "separated self" thinking that we have free will.

 

I agree with what you just said.
Basically...

Edited September 9, 2016 by abrakamowse

[abrakamowse]

But I was asking me also about the existence of a higher self.

The Non-self teaching is in Buddhism and it differs from Hinduism in that point.

Quote

"Anatta, ( Pali: “non-self” or “substanceless”) Sanskrit anatman , in Buddhism, the doctrine that there is in humans no permanent, underlying substance that can be called the soul. Instead, the individual is compounded of five factors (Pali khandha; Sanskrit skandha) that are constantly changing. The concept of anatta, or anatman, is a departure from the Hindu belief in atman (“the self”). The absence of a self, anicca (the impermanence of all being), and dukkha (“suffering”) are the three characteristics of all existence (ti-lakkhana). Recognition of these three doctrines—anatta, anicca, and dukkha—constitutes “right understanding.”

From The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica

[Gabriel David Gomez]

if the self were separated, it would be like a numb arm. The example of a numb arm is that the arm is actually separate from the strings pulled by the self. It is the movement you can enforce with the numb arm that is caused by you using the strings so that the arm becomes your tool. Similarly, to have another self you must be in unity with it, so that would be like two or so working non-contrarily to each other. What "seems" to be the object of this conversation may either be a question posed indirectly by forces you are familiar or unfamiliar with. Soul exists. Spirit exists. Yes.