Free will

[At awe]

@1liamo78 Did You try to find an answer to Mokshas question? Isn’t it most important to understand first , who is doing the searching/trying to find answers? 

[neovox]

Could it be that both are true..? There is free will, but only in relation to our perspective and experience. In Absolute sense it is all already there. In an Absolute since the "free will" that we experience from an individual perspective is connected to every other thought, action, vibration, appearance of separation that has ever existed and ever will exist that we're not conscious of. The "time" that we experience "free will" within only exist within our POV. So, yes there is free will in our experience, but no there is no free will in the timeless Absolute.

[freejoy]

24 minutes ago, 1liamo78 said:

@Jodistrict at last someone who understands my post, if we have free will then we are the only known thing in the universe that doesn’t follow cause and effect, but the determinists are assuming that consciousness comes from a material brain, but consciousness could be separate from space time and material and not be subject to the laws of cause and effect, but there are experiments that show brain activity in the right area of the brain happens about 1.5 seconds before we make a decision, but I’m not completely convinced that means proof of determinism 

You know there isn't a cause and effect.

You can plant a seed but can't "cause" it to grow.

If you knock off a glass cup you didn't cause it to break.

It appears we can help create conditions that can create more quantum probabilities a thing might happen.

[freejoy]

7 minutes ago, neovox said:

Could it be that both are true..? There is free will, but only in relation to our perspective and experience. In Absolute sense it is all already there. In an Absolute since the "free will" that we experience from an individual perspective is connected to every other thought, action, vibration, appearance of separation that has ever existed and ever will exist that we're not conscious of. The "time" that we experience "free will" within only exist within our POV. So, yes there is free will in our experience, but no there is no free will in the timeless Absolute.

Yes! That's very close to how I see it.

[1liamo78]

@At awe no, that is a discussion about spirituality and consciousness and a wider discussion on these matters, I’m talking about the specific subject of free will, Leo made a whole video about it if you want to understand more about the subject, and it is a video specifically about free will and not all the other spiritual stuff 

[1liamo78]

@neovox if I understand your reply,  that would suggest that free will is an illusion but we completely feel that we are free to choose,  

Well that seems to be the case 

But I might have misunderstood your point,  I am getting to tired, its 5.36am in the UK,  and I need to get my skinny ass to bed ?✌?

[freejoy]

1 minute ago, 1liamo78 said:

@neovox if I understand your reply,  that would suggest that free will is an illusion but we completely feel that we are free to choose,  

Well that seems to be the case 

I would like to comment.

Is the body an illusion? I see really real looking bodies out there. I experience pain in my body if I hit my finger with a hammer.

That's pretty real.

Same with free will.

Same with ego.

"Those without ego cast the first stone"

: )

[1liamo78]

The subject of free will has many ramifications if determinism is how it is,  ramifications like crime and punishment,  there are many philosophical talks questioning whether people should or should not be punished for crimes when they were not free to choose and many more ramifications,  obviously these side matters are to complicated and massive in agendas to discuss 

[1liamo78]

@freejoy sorry bud,I don't understand what you mean 

Cast the first stone to who and for what?

[freejoy]

1 minute ago, 1liamo78 said:

@freejoy sorry bud,I don't understand what you mean 

Cast the first stone to who and for what?

The ego is sometimes demonize, kind of like sin.

Just playing around.

[1liamo78]

@freejoy my ego seems to enjoy getting me into trouble ?

[At awe]

@1liamo78 Why Do You think Moksha asked You that question? Can the answer to how we identify ourselves influence the answer of Your question?

[1liamo78]

@DefinitelyNotARobot we can only go into flow after we have gained experience of a certain activity,  for example playing the keyboard first you learn the chords and scales and get finger muscle memory and through practice you can start going into the flow, with art you first learn about perspective and colour etc , someone with no painting experience can paint in the flow but it would be crap compared to someone in the flow who has had experience and practice 

[SamueLSD]

@1liamo78  No free will seems like a bad thing from a finite perspective. You need to see it in context with the bigger picture.

Let it be.

[1liamo78]

@At awe yes for sure it influences the answer,  but we can ask that question about every single thing we do or say or ask , and sometimes we just want to talk about a simple subject without having to consider everything about the nature of our existence etc, I could say does the nature of your existence influence your reply to me and we could go on asking that question forever and it will have as much influence as anything else,  so I'm just asking a specific question for a specific discussion 

[freejoy]

14 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

Not necessarily. For me it's about the fact that nothing is separate. Everything is connected to everything else. One can't exist without the other. No light without any darkness. Free will requires you to be able to make decisions in a self-contained bubble, independently of your environment. That means your culture, the society you live in, your family, your friends, the laws of nature, the will of other people and so on.

Also how free is your will exactly? Can you manifest an apple right now? Can you speak every language? Can you dance on the moon? Can you even choose what you want? Like did you choose your favorite color? Did you even choose to be born with a working pair of eyes so that you could perceive color in the first place?

You have a will, but your will isn't separate from my will. Like what if you want me to give you 10 bucks, but I don't want to? What if I want to live, but you shoot me with a pistol? 

Perhaps there is free will at the ultimate level, which would mean that you are an expression of free will, rather than an entity possessing free will. But you, as an ego, are rather limited in what you can do. You can't for example fly. If you want to fly you have to do that within the boundaries of physics (in the form of air planes for example)

Also I as an artist have to say that free will isn't needed for creativity to happen. The best art happens when you are in a state of flow. A state of complete detachment. A state where there is nobody doing anything. Nobody creating anything. It's just art expressing itself. Creativity in it's purest form. Almost as if the art was creating itself. Flow means that you are like water in a river. You just flow. The water doesn't decide whether it flows left or right. It automatically goes with the path of least resistance. When I play a melody on my keyboard I'm not really creating anything. I didn't create sound. I didn't create notes. I didn't create the keyboard I am playing on. I can't even choose what sounds good and what sounds bad. It just sounds as it does. I just go with the flow, channeling the creative energy at the core of everything. So the creating is kind of happening all by itself. Reality creating itself for itself.

We don't have complete free will.

We are mostly programmed. It seems we first have a learn things.

Like how to paint. One can say painting took over but not if you don't know what a paint brush is.

Say in a few minutes a hundred thoughts come to mind. Where did those thoughts come from? Most likely quantum probabilities between the synapses in the tublicales.

One has free choice to focus on any particular thought by intention. Maybe?

[1liamo78]

@DefinitelyNotARobot exactly 

[1liamo78]

@DefinitelyNotARobot I'm a musician myself,  and for sure,  the more I practice a piece the more my "in flow" recordings sound better 

[neovox]

The sense of "free will" is essential in the conscious experience. You experience dualistically in order to "choose" and become fully conscious of your experience/ choice. You are free  to experience whatever you "choose", but with a constant gravity towards Absolute/ Love. The experience of free will is what internalizes Love. It has to be earned so to speak to be fully appreciated and made conscious. 

Your body feels real because your experience is oriented from identification with it. This is the point from which you perceive. 

When consciousness and identification expands beyond body and form, perception is no longer "my body, thoughts, emotions, free will". God is willing, you are a point of experience.

 

[freejoy]

1 hour ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

Hmm perhaps. But what makes you choose one thought over another thought? What makes one thought comfortable and another one uncomfortable? Do we decide which thought we like or do we just like whatever thought we like, because that's just how it is? The only thing that comes to my mind is meditation. Sometimes I sit there, trying to focus on my breath, when I get lost in monkey mind. I want to focus on my breath, but monkey mind just takes over. It doesn't feel like I am free to focus on my breath. I focus on whatever I focus on. Or maybe I just THINK that I want to be focusing on my breath, but I am lost in my monkey mind because that is what I secretly want to do? I honestly don't know...

Thanks to you I'm having a mind fuck right now!  

When we were babies we didn't know anything. We had to learn to move our fingers.

We had to learn a billion things.

All this gets recorded in our subconscious mind so with only an intention we can move our fingers. No thought required.

Unless one learns to move ones fingers playing a piano becomes something that is not a probability.

All this is built up and choice seems to dictate quantum probabilities for certain thoughts to arise.

Here's a quote from the Tao:

Every being in the universe
is an expression of the Tao.
It springs into existence,
unconscious, perfect, free,
takes on a physical body,
lets circumstances complete it.
That is why every being
spontaneously honors the Tao.

The Tao gives birth to all beings,
nourishes them, maintains them,
cares for them, comforts them, protects them,
takes them back to itself,
creating without possessing,
acting without expecting,
guiding without interfering.
That is why love of the Tao
is in the very nature of things.

Tao Te Ching
by Lao Tzu

So through karma (the "circumstances" or context of ones birth) certain things can happen and some can't.

By picking one thought gives rise to a different set of quantum probabilities for next thoughts.

 

Edited March 25, 2021 by freejoy