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

[SOUL]

Just now, r0ckyreed said:

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.

Well, if solipsism is true, then why did I create NPCs that have no choice but to tell me I don't have any free will...

[Leo Gura]

YOU ARE regardless of what you are or what you can or can't do.

Being/existence are fundmental. The free will question adds needless complexity to the matter.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Princess Arabia]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

YOU ARE regardless of what you are or what you can or can't do.

This sounds like a riddle. I read it like 5x, and I'm like...huh

[Arthogaan]

4 hours ago, Bazooka Jesus said:

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

That is a direct experience when you are conscious enough on high doses of psychedelics. 

 

4 hours ago, Bazooka Jesus said:

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.

 Yes, I agree that it cannot be put into words, but what I claim is that my pointers are "definitely more useful for pointing you towards the absolute truth" than yours. So when I say "there is 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. 

 

4 hours ago, Bazooka Jesus said:

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.

The thing is that direct realization, direct awakening leaves you with the fact THAT YOU ARE THE CREATOR. What is a fairytaile is believing in nameless thing or reality just being reality and that there is no Self. That's just stories in your Mind.

[Arthogaan]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

YOU ARE regardless of what you are or what you can or can't do.

Being/existence are fundmental. The free will question adds needless complexity to the matter.

But isn't it fundamentally connected? Because I AM, always for eternity, It means thate there ALWAYS is a possibility to focus on this AM-NESS.

[Arthogaan]

5 hours ago, ivankiss said:

No self cuz self is all there is

No will cuz will is all there is

In that context I agree 

[Arthogaan]

4 hours ago, tuku747 said:

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.

Totally agreed brother.


 

 

3 hours ago, LastThursday said:

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?

It's more like a property of Consciousness that is always Now. Never retrospectively, but You as Consciousness can realize this free agency in each moment. It's kind of like a feeling.

[Arthogaan]

7 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

This sounds like a riddle. I read it like 5x, and I'm like...huh

He meant that it doesn't really matter if we have free will or not because either case does not change the fact that YOU ARE. So needless argumentation using free will vs no free will.

[Princess Arabia]

Just now, Arthogaan said:

He meant that it doesn't really matter if we have free will or not because either case does not change the fact that YOU ARE. So needless argumentation using free will vs no free will.

Ok thanks 

[Arthogaan]

10 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

YOU ARE regardless of what you are or what you can or can't do.

Being/existence are fundmental. The free will question adds needless complexity to the matter.

@Leo Gura

Could you say metaphorically that the ARE in "YOU ARE" has two sides, and one is free will and other is no free will?

Just like in a dance, in a flow state, the dance has two sides to itself, both free will and no free will.

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, Arthogaan said:

Could you say metaphorically that the ARE in "YOU ARE" has two sides, and one is free will and other is no free will?

I don't see it.

Remember, you are imagining reality, so if you concoct some kind of twisted scheme in your mind, that will in a sense become your reality, until you snap out of it.

You could imagine three sides, one of which is a kangaroo, the other a donkey, and the other a giraffe, and if you believe it hard enough it will feel true.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Razard86]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

I don't see it.

Remember, you are imagining reality, so if you concoct some kind of twisted scheme in your mind, that will in a sense become your reality, until you snap out of it.

You could imagine three sides, one of which is a kangaroo, the other a donkey, and the other a giraffe, and if you believe it hard enough it will feel true.

I'll just drop this old post by you here.

https://www.actualized.org/insights?p=85

does a good job of answering all anyone's questions.

 

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Razard86

[Yimpa]

Just be careful when and where you snap out of your current sense of reality. I was at a social gathering earlier, and someone started talking about something “serious” all of a sudden. I really wanted to burst out laughing at how profoundly ridiculously the whole conversation was. 

I also didn’t want to scare the shit out of everyone if I just started bursting in laughter, out of nowhere, like a madman.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Yimpa

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

3 hours ago, Arthogaan said:

So when I say "there is 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. 

Great! One hundred points for the candidate! So you do realize that nothing you say on here is the actual truth, including the following?

3 hours ago, Arthogaan said:

The thing is that direct realization, direct awakening leaves you with the fact THAT YOU ARE THE CREATOR. What is a fairytaile is believing in nameless thing or reality just being reality and that there is no Self. That's just stories in your Mind.

 

[tuku747]

[Arthogaan]

1 hour ago, Bazooka Jesus said:

Great! One hundred points for the candidate! So you do realize that nothing you say on here is the actual truth, including the following?

Yes, obviously anything put into words is not IT. But unfortunately we are not able to communicate truth directly via some kind of god-like telepathy and we have to use pointers. And I just say that "reality just is" is a shitty un-useful pointer, and that "YOU ARE" is much better pointer. Ultimately obviously both are wrong the moment they are put into words. But I just felt the need to balance the no-self voices. 

[LastThursday]

9 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

You are God so of course you have free will. 

Isn't that just moving the goalposts? The OP is about the self: "there is free will" therefore "I am a self". A implies B.

 

6 hours ago, Arthogaan said:

9 hours ago, LastThursday said:

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?

It's more like a property of Consciousness that is always Now. Never retrospectively, but You as Consciousness can realize this free agency in each moment. It's kind of like a feeling.

I suspect that's what all this free will stuff reduces to: a feeling.

The free will pattern, if you like, is this: you decide before, act now, take ownership afterwards. I suspect you could program an AI to run exactly this pattern and then have a "feeling" about it.

[gettoefl]

body mind hasn't free will, is slaves to the thought onslaught

you're not a body mind

meditation is shifting from the mechanistic you

to the real you

[vibv]

Haha... the good old question of free will.

In my direct experience there's CLEARLY a freedom. The totality aka GOD is totally free, that's for sure. And we as humans have got a tiny sliver of that freedom, too. All our freedoms combined are a greater part of the Will of GOD.

GOD Wills for us what we choose out of Love. We're god with a lower-case g in the process of Becoming GOD. If we hadn't any freedom that would be boring as hell.

[gettoefl]

the chat-gpt answer:

Quote

In certain contemplative traditions, the idea is that the conventional sense of free will, tied to a dualistic perception of self, is limited by conditioned patterns and habits. These patterns constrain choices and actions because they are rooted in egoic attachment and reactivity. True free will, as understood in these traditions, emerges when one shifts their identity from the dualistic and conditioned self to the realization of their true nature. In this shift, there is a recognition of the inherent freedom and non-dual nature of the mind, which transcends limitations and allows for more profound choices and actions based on wisdom and clarity.