Free Will, Determinism and Soul

[Endangered-EGO]

I am just contemplating a little bit, feel free to tell me your POVs.

The paradox of free Will. I got that there is no "decider" in the mind. The mind is not the primary thing that makes things happen. The mind can only fight itself, and it does so not because of free will, but because of circumstances outside of it's capacity to manipulate.
So then, who/what decides? Religious people would say "the soul".

With the realisation that the mind cannot do anything on it's own, not create anything but just react, it needs to be pointed in some general direction. But who/what points it? 

You guys point my mind into the direction of pointing the mind toward itself, because you realised that paradox, but if reality is not (pre)determined, and there is nothing "I" can do but to react in a way that my entire being didn't decide.

I kind of (want to) believe, that the soul, the source, "god" or whatever, that formless thing decides the reality it wants to experience. So the mind has no other choice but to follow/react to "IT". The mind also somehow also seems not to be able to manipulate IT. The ego wants to manipulate the reality while realising the nothingness, but it just doesn't seem to work like that.

So basically the mind either feels like a trapped slave, which desperately wants to have things go it's way, or realise the futility of trying to manipulate reality in a metaphysical way and just adapts as good as it can, because anything else would lead to suffering and nothing else.

Now how does that change anything? It doesn't that's the best part of the paradox, there is nothing the mind can do to get out of it. Consciously doing the opposite to experience free will, is also an illusion, because without the previous experience of the paradox of free will, it wouldn't have tried to do the opposite, which is a purely reactionary action it takes because of the circumstances.

The weird part is, while the mind ceases to try, there is a freedom that arises.

[Gesundheit]

Mind and soul are one.

You are creating an imaginary distinction for certain thoughts and label all the thoughts within that distinction "mind/ego/I". And then you contrast that thought complex with another thought complex, which you label "soul/God/whatever".

[Byun Sean]

2 hours ago, Endangered-EGO said:

So then, who/what decides?

This is yet to come into your experience.

[Moksha]

Free will, as a concept, is a trap.

For unawakened people, the idea of free will makes them think they can "pursue enlightenment", when the truth is that enlightenment pursues them.

For awakened people, the idea of free will is also a trap, because it ties them to the person. They are no more free to choose than unawakened people.

The only freedom is Consciousness itself, manifesting through its creations.

We can't take credit for anything. Whatever it is that makes us choose what we choose, it is because we were created to make that choice. How could it be otherwise?

[lmfao]

@Endangered-EGO There are a few different places people can come from in trying to understand free will. I've mostly moved on from just believing in the story (that my mind still believes in but I don't buy into) coming from my pseudo intellectual newtonian paradigm view of things. 

I went from muslim-->atheist, and when I first heard Sam Harris criticise free will, it sparked a realisation and I felt like my world of beliefs was being torn apart. A dark time, but an ultimately good and necessary time for expunging old belief systems about my sense of self.

But then I ended up becoming overly negative about it. I'm glad you made this thread, because it's brought to my awareness black holes of despair in my psyche that I pushed down but are still there. And I still haven't resolved it, the step forward being one of surrender I sense.


I haven't surrendered that negativity fully, but I sort of stopped caring about the question. I can think intellectually with all these things, but it doesn't bear a relation to what I care about. I'm in my first person experience, I can make the choice to move towards towards truth or away from truth. And I'm still egoic in wanting to force my will on the world. 

-----
The way I approached the question in the past was just one place, a lower place perhaps. Questions about free will can be addressed from a higher place, where you identify with awareness and clear vision rather than identifying with concepts like physics and determinism like I did. And if this thread of contemplation has gotten you passionate to explore, keep going with it. 

Edited November 28, 2020 by lmfao

[Someone here]

@Endangered-EGO all you have to do to answer this question of free will is to observe your experience. Go about your day doing what you normally do but just observe yourself carefully. Where do your thoughts and actions come from and how they come about. That's all you need to do and you will get a satisfying answer. For example I'm observing myself typing this Comment and I'm noticing that I'm not doing it. The words are being downloaded into my mind and my fingers are moving. What you think is "you" that is the doer is just a thought. Get rid of the "you" thought for a moment and notice that everything is being done by itself without any you doing anything. It's not that you don't have free will. It's  that you don't exist and free will is just a thought. Stuff just happen. Simple. 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Someone here

[snowyowl]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

It's not that you don't have free will. It's  that you don't exist and free will is just a thought. Stuff just happen. Simple. 

I get that "I don't exist" in the sense of having a little homunculus inside my mind who is the centre and controller, like the driver of a car. However, what's wrong with drawing an (imaginary) line round the edge of my skin, and calling what's inside "me", as a whole entity? I can move around, think and act independently of other "mes" after all.

Corollary. What do you think about the executive function?  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_functions  This could be a scientific theory for our sense of self, and it's possibly located in the frontal cortex, which is approximately where I feel like "I am". Maybe something in the brain needs to organise the other functions to keep the whole system working efficiently, like the CPU in a computer. 

[Forestluv]

3 minutes ago, snowyowl said:

However, what's wrong with drawing an (imaginary) line round the edge of my skin, and calling what's inside "me", as a whole entity? I can move around, think and act independently of other "mes" after all.

In some contexts, that has a lot of practical value, in other contexts it can be problematic.

[snowyowl]

@Forestluv yeah, it can lead to selfish competition in some situations, eg fear-driven survival mode. Also, as it's an imaginary line, it can be drawn wherever you like: my family, my community, my nation. But you're right that division easily leads to conflict. However, this body/mind exists and while I want it to continue, I need a self-identity don't I? 

[Forestluv]

@snowyowl I don’t subscribe to the “get rid of the self” narrative or “there is no self”.  I’m more into explorations of expanding self, introspecting self, increasing fluidity of self, observing self, playing a self etc. Similar to participating in movies. 

I think “no self” is an important awakening since it contrasts attachment/identification to self. And ime it’s beneficial to get direct experience of two opposites. Yet  “self vs no-self” can become it’s own duality.  My mind won’t stay in one place long enough to maintain a static “self vs no-self” construct - due to a combination of ADD, psychedelics and metacognition. 

[snowyowl]

@Forestluv yes open minded exploration free from fixed narratives and fixed dualities is the way to go As a provisional view, I see selves existing as temporary constructs of mind, tools of the mind, being born and dying moment by moment. 

[Forestluv]

20 minutes ago, snowyowl said:

@Forestluv I see selves existing as temporary constructs of mind, tools of the mind, being born and dying moment by moment. 

I like that imagery. 

[electroBeam]

IME the ego is totally different.

The ego literally doesn't exist, a unicorn is more real than an ego, at least a unicorn is a manifestation of thought, ego cant be said to be that because you have never seen it before, or felt it, or become conscious of it.

Its sort of like how astronomers know how black holes exist, they use the movements of planets and stars, and based on those movements determine that a black hole exists - yet no one has actually seen directly a black hole.

Thats what all of you guys are doing, you've never ever seen or felt an ego, yet using all these surrogate measures to determine it exists.

I also dont abscribe to the ego vs no ego duality, that would be a misunderstanding of what im saying. To abscribe to such a duality there would have to be a phenomena of "no ego" to prove that no ego is true. Im not even saying no ego is a thing or is true. To prove that there is no ego, you'd first have to prove that there was an ego, so that you knew what was missing in the no ego construct. Im not even saying that because we dont even know what an ego is in the first place. Its like saying do machine elves exist in the 3D world... well that doesnt make sense because machine elves are from higher dimensions.

Not only does an ego not exist, but you've never known what an ego truly is. You're just guessing like those astronomers. And how valuable are those guesses? Debatable.

An ego is a temporary construct? Lol has that actually been verified? When did you observe a false sense of self being a temporary construct?

Edited November 28, 2020 by electroBeam

[Forestluv]

@electroBeam I like your imagery as well. 

I don’t preface everything I express with “in one context. . . “ because it gets cumbersome and can be too groundless for exchanging ideas and insights.

Any ideas I express can be critiqued as being incorrect from another perspective, including what I’ve written in this post.

[electroBeam]

26 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

@electroBeam I like that imagery as well. 

I don’t preface everything I express with “in one context. . . “ because it gets cumbersome and can be too groundless for exchanging ideas and insights.

Any ideas I express can be critiqued as being incorrect from another perspective, including what I’ve written in this post.

I laughed at that first sentence . I wonder what a conversation with you and your grandparents are like "trump is the only one sticking up for freedom unlike that turncoat Biden!" "I like that imagery aswell".  

I bet you liked the imagery above too. 

 

I think relativism is very valuable on a cognitive level. When talking about political, environmental and sociological issues, a tamed amount of relativism mixed with an assertive direction based on intuition or "common sense" tends to be very valuable when solving problems, because you can get the best outcome that everyone is happy with.

Assuming that you recognise a difference between solving survival problems and seeking truth(recognise a difference between growing up and waking up) I'd say there are significant differences that seem to be missing.

With truth on the other hand, we are seeking the One here, its absolute rather than relative. Its not really a process of figuring out the most compensating perspective to help solve a survival problem, it's pointing to whats true regardless of how much it solves a problem or whether others like it or not. Adding in compensation hinders the waking up process because truth isnt about survival.

Everyone does come to different conclusions about what truth is. Some think its nothing, some think its love, some think its machine elves, some think its science.

However Truth is absolute, and because its absolute, there's got to be only 1 definite answer to what it is. If there wasn't, then truth would be relative and not absolute.

So im not saying everyone must come up with the same answer, but surely when talking about truth(as opposed to everything else under the sun such as relationships, politics, actualizing, etc) those that are sincere about it would all agree that the process and how truth seeking is conducted is done in a manner where truth isnt something were anything goes on a relative level, but where there's a definite answer to it, and while we all disagree, such disagreement is really just an indication that either one of us hasn't nailed down what the truth is, rather than because the truth is pluralistic and relativistic in nature.

So I'd say I dont really see the beauty or value or wisdom in taking a relativistic approach to truth seeking like saying "i like that imagery too" surely an acknowledgement of absolute/1 answer is much more appropriate. And a push to find blind spots is what should be done in a purely truth seeking context.

Although if you have a different take, I'd be interested in knowing.

[Moksha]

54 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

Not only does an ego not exist, but you've never known what an ego truly is.

The ego never exists. It is just a name we give for the state of unconsciousness, and the gravitational pull of our conditioning to staying in that state.

[electroBeam]

1 minute ago, Moksha said:

The ego never exists. It is just a name we give for the state of unconsciousness, and the gravitational pull of our conditioning to staying in that state.

Yeah i had a dream one night where i noticed truth always stayed the same but ehat changed was our energetic state, and all these expressions of no ego or ego or infinity or all that stuff was just a conceptual side effect of the change of the energetic state.

So trump knows as much about the truth as ramana, yet his low energetic state describes itself(or the side effects/smoke of his energetic state is) as ego, i am a person, etc.

Im not convinced that awakenings actually make you know more then you previously did.

[Arcangelo]

Oh man my take on free will has changed! First I was: -''OFC there's free will, look I can move my finger.''

Then I listened to Leo's video freewill vs determinism, and had a paradigm shift:

-''OFC there is NO free will, IDK what I am gonna think in the next 5 seconds''

 

Now I think that the more aware you are the more free will you can have.

 

 

 

Arc

 

 

[Moksha]

6 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

Yeah i had a dream one night where i noticed truth always stayed the same but ehat changed was our energetic state, and all these expressions of no ego or ego or infinity or all that stuff was just a conceptual side effect of the change of the energetic state.

So trump knows as much about the truth as ramana, yet his low energetic state describes itself(or the side effects/smoke of his energetic state is) as ego, i am a person, etc.

Im not convinced that awakenings actually make you know more then you previously did.

Exactly. Everything is a state of Consciousness, ranging from 0 to infinity. At each state of Consciousness, "we" are only free to operate within the range allowed by that state.

The trick to the Consciousness card game is the aha! that there is no "you" to know more than you previously did. Consciousness is everything, and nothing, experiencing itself in various states.

[Moksha]

10 minutes ago, Arcangelo said:

Now I think that the more aware you are the more free will you can have.

The higher your state of Consciousness, the more latitude there is in your expression, until you arrive at infinity.