Is there a chance we have free choice?

[UnbornTao]

14 hours ago, Yimpa said:

There are simply things you would not be able to personally validate for yourself, at least if you are human.

We're talking about "existential" things and the human condition - perception, emotions, mind, experience, life, you, communication, another. We can perhaps trust that it is possible based on what others have said.

 

Quote

For example, if one person is cisgender + heterosexual and another is transgender/LGBT. The cisgender could not possibly fathom changing their gender, nor would they ever want to. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s inauthentic and a pretense to be transgender. But to the cisgender their bias would certainly give them the authority to say it is such.

In this case, it would be a matter of looking into what gender and sex are for themselves, their nature. People will live their lives however they want. The example is superficial.

You're confused about the authenticity part. Don't overthink it. Tell the truth, mainly to yourself. For that, first you have to get clear on your experience. You know whenever something's not really authentic in your experience. It "stinks". Then be clear on that and drop the pretense.

Acting as if you know what something is while you actually don't know -- that's a form of pretension. Acting tough, adopting a character that misrepresents your internal state, concealing one's feeling of incapacity in life, are others examples. The principle is profound.

I recommend you read Radical Honesty by Blanton.

Edited October 1, 2023 by UnbornTao

[Yimpa]

The truth is humans are full of shit and thinking they have free will makes them even more full of shit.

[tuku747]

23 hours ago, Henry234 said:

@tuku747do we have free choice to even like move and walk and think?

 

 

Edited September 30, 2023 by tuku747

[UnbornTao]

@tuku747 Why are you randomly posting videos? Did your account get hacked?

Edited October 1, 2023 by UnbornTao

[Merkabah Star]

I agree with the no, we don’t have free will.
 

Free will, free choice, same thing yeah? 
 

free will is an illusion. the ego loves to think it has free will. 

[Carl-Richard]

4 hours ago, Someone here said:

@Carl-Richard stop playing peekaboo with me .

I will pull a Leo on you " don't think you have outsmarted me "

If you can say there is an "I", then I can say there is an "I" that makes choices. It's as simple as that. There is no "I" in an ultimate sense, yet we speak about an "I" in many situations. In the same way, there is no choice in an ultimate sense, yet we speak about making choices in many situations.

Edited October 1, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[tuku747]

15 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

@tuku747 why are you randomly posting all of these videos in unrelated threads? Did your account get hacked?

There are simply some questions that cannot be answered. Instead, I offer a mantra for meditation:

Pure as we begin;

Move by will alone.

Leave as we come in;

Pure as Light, return to One.

Edited October 1, 2023 by tuku747

[Jowblob]

Yes, you have free will at all times but all of you don't understand what is said here or how it works.

The ego is god, there are 3 levels of god. 

1. You being aware that you're god and see no difference between everything.

2. Sleep dream state.

3. Waking dream state.

All states are god, but you as god only live in 1 state at a time since you're in presence at all times even though you don't know.  There are no others, others are different versions of yourself that are turning around you.

When you start deconstructing yourself and choose to merge your consciousness with a dream character, everything else will manifest around you because you're already so evolved that it has to be this way by your will. The free will is evolution itself of consciousness, it doesnt stay at the same place for eternity so all the notions of god is love are false. God itself is choosing what to be depending on its circumstances. God is basically the same as you, and have same thoughts depending on its circumstances. There will be moments where you will notice that you don't have free will but that's because you throw these things at yourself by your will from previous past moments you have lived. When you take control as god you will see how much freewill you actually have, but your evolution lead you to laziness since you're eternal so you understand that the best way is : Simplicity, work, love, distractions. 

God is total mindfuck in the nothingness , when you try to put limits or notions you already failed. God is out of control, but when you try to regain your status as God you will fail with high degree since having control is not in your evolution anymore.

 

 

[Razard86]

On 9/30/2023 at 8:56 PM, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

What choice would there be? When a character in a book makes a "decision", are we speaking of it having a "choice"? Did the character itself have any say in the decision, or is the decision part of a larger narrative that the character has absolutely no control over?

So on a relative level, we can say that there are decisions that can be made, but on an absolute level, reality simply IS. It's not a choice, it's a constant. Choice is relative to there being something, someone can choose. If you only had one option, it wouldn't be much of a choice. It'd be your reality. If you were absolutely immortal, there wouldn't be a "choice" in living, meaning every action taken would be based on something you didn't choose.

https://youtu.be/MEatCKgB6Qc?si=jZ_qJWClsHCxDOMy

^^^^Some things to add. The character/human never chose their species, their time period, their parents, what part of the world they are in, what talents they have, what weaknesses they have, what fears they have, I could go on and on....if a human being was born a slave, how much freedom did they have in that? 

Does an aborted fetus have free will? Does a flower have free will? The human identity is not going to like all this evidence pointing....it's just an appearance.

[Razard86]

8 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

@Razard86 I agree with some of the things Tolle said, but I'd have some remarks. The way I look at it, reading back my original answer, it's best described as a choiceless choice. Consciousness can choose aspects of itself, it can appear as a dog or it can appear as a cat, and it's totally free in doing so, but it can't choose anything outside of itself, because there is nothing outside of itself. So you could say that every decision is based on the choiceless being that lays the ground for all form. Consciousness isn't a decision, it is simply consciousness. It can't be chosen because there are no alternatives to choose from. That doesn't invalidate that there is some capacity for choices to be made, but that every decision must be made in that eternal space, which can't be "undecided".

Well the question isn't about consciousness. Consciousness is totally free to be the way it wants to. Nothing can stop consciousness from choosing or not choosing because it is all there is. 

But the Original Poster is just asking about the human character and unfortunately the human character only gets to experience the illusion of choice, but it never actually has it. If you zoom onto the tip of your finger you can fool yourself that you are a finger making decisions, until you zoom out and realize the finger was being controlled it wasn't the controller lol.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Razard86

[Razard86]

18 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

@Razard86 Yep. I mean it's quiet simple from the characters pov. Raise a hand. Notice that no matter which hand you chose, your decision has been based on the fact that you were born with that hand and that you haven't lost it yet. You as a character didn't decide that.

I'm just pointing out that even consciousness itself, which is truly free, can't choose to NOT be itself. Even the decision to be an unconscious human is a result of consciousness being itself first and foremost. So there is something that is NOT a decision, meaning the idea of choice is inherently limited.

Oh yeah I agree....but that is where the concept of love comes in. Consciousness is love, which I will substitute the word care for egos that hate that term. Consciousness is an intelligence that cares. It cares about every detail of experience onto the smallest degree and that is why all form seeks to expand in ever more complexity. Evolution is a manifestation/expression of utmost care.

[BlueOak]

Its the same thing. Things happen in a cyclic pattern.

You choose. The pattern repeats slightly changed. Others are talking about a greater you controlling you, which is also true. There is no separation. You, the greater mind, the pattern, it's all the being you are.

Much of life is realising whatever you are talking about is also you.

[Atb210201]

Of course we have free choice

If you put attention on exercising your free choice you would definitely be convinced that you actually have free choice and you can break yourself free from your habits but only if you want to 

 

You cannot live life by thinking everything is determined and keep on choosing to do nothing forever

 

Because if you do that that is also out of your own choice

 

Hope my words helped🙏

[Yimpa]

Will my next orgasm be in 10 hours? 10 days? 1 minute?

Certainly not the last, but possibly the formers.

[Yimpa]

I did not choose to have an imbalance of my right side compare to my left side

Free choice: I am choosing to use the left side of my body more in day-to-day activity, despite it being uncomfortable and foreign. I can imagine a year from now that it’ll be much more intuitive if I stick with it. I don’t choose if this will actually be the case, but I choose to be open to the possibility.

[gettoefl]

script's been written for every lifetime but you can erase chapters if you care

integrate what you are and disregard what you're not

or don't

[Yimpa]

7 minutes ago, gettoefl said:

script's been written for every lifetime but you can erase chapters if you care

integrate what you are and disregard what you're not

or don't

I would argue that that can lead to many misunderstandings; used to justify one’s narrow worldview. Done more from selfishness and rigidity, rather than from authenticity; curiosity about one’s true nature. For example, those who cherry pick without considering context or broader information. 

It is possible to do what you’re pointing to from a more authentic foundation, but that would require letting go of a major aspect of yourself and delving fully into the unknown.

[jaylimix]

Self-created reality >> Actions >> Beliefs >> Self-survival bias >> Self-awareness

Self-created reality is a derivative of actions, and so on.

We do what we believe is the right thing at a specific point in time

We believe something is true based on our survival bias.

Why do immigrants and their children gravitate to the Left and believe leftist politics is the best?

Conversely why do natives prefer the status quo and believe conservative politics is the right one?