Free Will is the proof that YOU ARE. That there is a Self.

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

4 minutes ago, Arthogaan said:

Choose to choose doesn't make sense without the notion of linear time. There is only NOW, and I CAN CHOOSE to meditate NOW.

Lol, that is a non sequitur if I ever heard one.

[Arthogaan]

2 minutes ago, Bazooka Jesus said:

And who is choosing the monkey mind thinking?

If your answer is "nothing/nobody", then your answer is correct.

I can choose to quit my meditation and be swayed into monkey mind. 

[Arthogaan]

1 minute ago, Bazooka Jesus said:

non sequitur

Had too google that one. I am not that smart. Care to elaborate?

[Arthogaan]

15 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

Basically I don't have a choice whether to post this answer or not, if you think about it 

You have the choice in this very moment, but later after the choice is made, as you said "you think about it" and you can delude yourself that you had no choice. Which just prove your free will. You have so much free will that you can even choose to believe that you have no free will.

[Someone here]

16 minutes ago, Arthogaan said:

Yes! And notice the word "can" in your sentence! This "can" is the proof of your Free Will. You CAN choose to observe and meditate.

Well..I would say I'm awareness itself rather than a thing which has awareness. 

So in relation to my point about thoughts ..they don't seem like they are being willed by awareness .they just arise .I mean you can try it ..close your eyes ..get into meditation and try to think of nothing ..Notice that you can't. Why Is that? 

[Arthogaan]

1 minute ago, Someone here said:

Well..I would say I'm awareness itself rather than a thing which has awareness. 

So in relation to my point about thoughts ..they don't seem like they are being willed by awareness .they just arise .I mean you can try it ..close your eyes ..get into meditation and try to think of nothing ..Notice that you can't. Why Is that? 

Sorry, I am not sure if I understand your question. Because I can think of nothing, that's what meditation is.

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

13 minutes ago, Arthogaan said:

I can choose to quit my meditation and be swayed into monkey mind. 

That's what you believe... without choosing to believe it, of course.

13 minutes ago, Arthogaan said:

Had too google that one. I am not that smart. Care to elaborate?

It means that one doesn't follow from the other.

[Arthogaan]

1 minute ago, Bazooka Jesus said:

That's what you believe... without choosing to believe it, of course.

Haha. Yeah, and you believe that you have no choice, and that is your choice, of course. 

 

 

2 minutes ago, Bazooka Jesus said:

It means that one doesn't follow from the other.

I will try to explain it better. Choose to choose only makes sense if I want to choose something in the future. Let's say I want to choose to meditate in 5 minutes. But I can't choose it now because future is a projection, this "in 5 minutes" has to come into NOW and only then I can choose to meditate. Because along the way of those 5 minutes I could make other choices in the NOW, which would render the previous choice false. So it only makes sense to choose now. 

It's like a lazy person would say "I am trying to try to clean my room" to which his enlightened mom says "dude, what do you mean trying to try? Either you try now or you are not trying. You cant try to try". 

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

55 minutes ago, Arthogaan said:

I will try to explain it better. Choose to choose only makes sense if I want to choose something in the future. Let's say I want to choose to meditate in 5 minutes. But I can't choose it now because future is a projection, this "in 5 minutes" has to come into NOW and only then I can choose to meditate. Because along the way of those 5 minutes I could make other choices in the NOW, which would render the previous choice false. So it only makes sense to choose now.

Sorry, but that makes absolutely zero sense.

Either it takes time for you to put your choice into action, or it doesn't. And whichever way it might be, there is no difference in that regard between choosing to do X or choosing to choose it. Why should it be the case that one takes time and the other doesn't?

 

[Arthogaan]

25 minutes ago, Bazooka Jesus said:

Sorry, but that makes absolutely zero sense.

Either it takes time for you to put your choice into action, or it doesn't. And whichever way it might be, there is no difference in that regard between choosing to do X or choosing to choose it. Why should it be the case that one takes time and the other doesn't?

 

What I am saying is that it does not take time, and therefore you can only choose. You cannot choose to choose, because that doesn't make sense just like trying to try doesn't make sense.

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

5 minutes ago, Arthogaan said:

What I am saying is that it does not take time, and therefore you can only choose. You cannot choose to choose, because that doesn't make sense just like trying to try doesn't make sense.

"Choose to choose" is (like basically everything we're doing here) a word game. Don't get hung up on it.

What I am referring to is choosing your preferences. Whenever you (think you) make a choice, it may outwardly appear like you can freely choose between A and B; but the fact of the matter is that you don't ever freely choose which one of the two you actually prefer.

If you ask me what my favorite color is, I will pick the color red. But have I ever sat down in order to weight the pros and cons of every single color in the spectrum and then freely decided that choosing red would onjectively make the most sense? No, of course not!

In other words: You don't choose your biases, and these biases dictate every single choice that you ever make in your life.

The best and most obvious example is your bias towards staying alive. If you ever really want to put the so-called freedom of your will to the test, then how about the following experiment: Try to choose not to eat any food and drink any water for a month. Let me know how that works out for you... I am dying to know, lol.

[Arthogaan]

26 minutes ago, Bazooka Jesus said:

"Choose to choose" is (like basically everything we're doing here) a word game. Don't get hung up on it.

What I am referring to is choosing your preferences. Whenever you (think you) make a choice, it may outwardly appear like you can freely choose between A and B; but the fact of the matter is that you don't ever freely choose which one of the two you actually prefer.

If you ask me what my favorite color is, I will pick the color red. But have I ever sat down in order to weight the pros and cons of every single color in the spectrum and then freely decided that choosing red would onjectively make the most sense? No, of course not!

In other words: You don't choose your biases, and these biases dictate every single choice that you ever make in your life.

The best and most obvious example is your bias towards staying alive. If you ever really want to put the so-called freedom of your will to the test, then how about the following experiment: Try to choose not to eat any food and drink any water for a month. Let me know how that works out for you... I am dying to know, lol.

I am speaking from more absolute point of view. You as consciousness also chose to imagine those biases into yourself. And I agree that there are thoughts/choices that we do not have much agency over. But still even when we did not sleep for 2 days, are extremely hungry and cold, we still have the option to be focus on beingness itself. Isn't it magical? That there always is this choice. Doesn't it show that there is a free will at the core of it all?

And after we focus on that we immediatelly gain more control over our vibration and our thoughts. After some time we can even choose our thoughts and start to transform preferences.

I don't know if that counts but I did not eat anything for 7 day once hihi 

[ivankiss]

No self cuz self is all there is

No will cuz will is all there is

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

1 hour ago, Arthogaan said:

You as consciousness also chose to imagine those biases into yourself.

Says who? Don't you see that this is one hundred percent conjecture?

Look, let's just cut all the crap and get straight to the point, shall we:

Everything, and I mean absolutely everything that you can put into words is just a story about reality, not reality itself. Granted, some of these stories are definitely more useful for pointing you towards the absolute truth than others, but they are NEVER the truth itself, not even approximately. So when I say "there is no free will", I am ultimately just telling you the opposite of what you believe right now in order to shake you out of your current belief system. And that is really all that any spiritual teacher who is worth her or his salt is ever doing! The truth cannot be expressed! It can just be realized directly! And as long as you hold on to some grand fairytale about how you are the creator of the universe or whatever else you may be telling yourself, you won't ever realize that nameless thing which "passes all understanding", as a certain old story book puts it.

[tuku747]

It's not so much that we "have" free will...

Rather, We Are Free Will.

The concept of ownership is just more mind games. We are what's Free, Infinite, and unbounded. Existence is Free from anything else.

 

Edited September 19, 2023 by tuku747

[LastThursday]

There is no free will and there is free will. Both are true at the same time.

You all know that free will isn't completely free right? And even then what is being willed exactly? If it's just decision making, isn't that constrained by what is being decided upon and what can be done? If it's ownership of "things that happen" then isn't that always done restropectively? How do you know you're not deluding yourself? Is succumbing to advertising, free will?

It's a mess.

[Hojo]

all this proves is that you can choose to surrender, maybe thats all the universe can do. it can either go or stop

Edited September 19, 2023 by Hojo

[r0ckyreed]

Free will isn’t an illusion but rather a paradox. The illusion is you thinking that free will is an illusion. You are responsible for your actions. You are God so of course you have free will. 

[SOUL]

I always find it humorous how people 'choose' to tell others they have no choice and I guess they have no choice but to do it yet the only question I have about it is....Why do people 'choose' to argue with NPCs about free will?

[r0ckyreed]

3 minutes ago, SOUL said:

I always find it humorous how people 'choose' to tell others they have no choice and I guess they have no choice but to do it yet the only question I have about it is....Why do people 'choose' to argue with NPCs about free will?

Well technically, if solipsism is true, that means you are the only one with free will and they have no choice but to behave as they do. 

But at a deeper level, you are creating these NPCs to have these discussions. So, you are unconsciously willing people on this forum to disagree with you.

Thats why I say free will is a paradox because your will is both done consciously and unconsciously.

Edited September 20, 2023 by r0ckyreed