Free Will or the Illusion of freedom.

originally posted by: Boundless1
So I guess we've concluded.. : Freewill is only adaptation to surroundings?

That will explain why we make different decisions on what appear to be same situations.

A) Those other decisions could have been just as futile..

Even doing nothing is doing something. So the universe stay in constant movement.

b) some one who is born poor cannot choose to be wealthy.

Born poor is not your choice, but staying like that is your choice. You can born poor and work it up to be wealthy or at least in a better economical position than the original.

C) that is my whole point. We are a slave to our options and any choice is really just our best option.

Exactly and those were already predetermined.

So it is no choice at all.

You got to a store to buy some bread and there are 10 different brands. You really did not choose the one you wanted. You choose from the ones they wanted you to choose.

We are all a victim of our options and genetics..

Yes, indeed.

If you have the choice to stay at your job, or your family starve. Is that really a choice???

Everything we do is a choice. Like I said above, even doing nothing is.

I personally do not think so.

Your opinion is well respected. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

a reply to: Abednego

You cannot even know what thought will pop up next.
Is there someone in there choosing what thought comes next?

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Hahahahahahah, yeh, science its just junk.

Unless of course you were meaning that comment from a more metaphysical or philisophical standpoint, in which case you maybe forgot where you were on ATS and also maybe never noticed the links to the information regarding the studies I'm referring to.

While I completely agree with you that were are the proud owners of our own brains, the question was about real free will or the illusion of freedom(by which I'm assuming the OP also meant free will), and when one looks at the data from these studies amongst a whole plethora of others resouces and information, it can easily be derived that somehow, someway and by some not yet understood mechanism, your brain decides and sets in stone what will happen BEFORE you are ever conscious of making that very same decision that you truly believe you made of your own "free will".

Now the time difference between your brain deciding and you the person thinking that you made that conscious decision may be miniscule but it is nevertheless the wrong way round, if we the individual were in charge of our own brains the data would show the opposite in that a particular decision would be made and then the signal would be registered and set in the brain which would be easily identifiable through the FMRI, this of course is not what we see.

I'm not sure how else to say it.

originally posted by: Ophiuchus 13
a reply to: LesMisanthrope

It could also be your higher self guiding you in your current experience.
Which still would be you.

I think the same thing.

a reply to: Abednego

You are aware of what is occurring as it occurs - it does not mean you have any volition.

originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
a reply to: Abednego

Good Abe. I think this to be the second most important question of our existence. It comes right before the most important question. The answer to your question is maybe, maybe not. Once we know that we can then ask the most important question. If we do have free will then ok, fine. But if we do not have free will, how do we get it?

We can read about all the new studies and neuro findings that tell us that for the most part all of our actions and thoughts are routine, that they are just logical a leads to b leads to c to d to e responses. The key word there is most. Realizing that most of our consciousness is really just unconscious patterned response will allow us to focus on that small amount of what we consider ourselves to be and there we might find, or nurture what little freewill we have.
That make any sense?

The Buddhists had it right a thousand years ago.

Most of what "we" are is programmed.. there is just a little sliver of apparent free will
to work with..

and.. there is talk of there being a deterministic layer "above" quantum mechanics..
so even that sliver might be "pre-ordained".

But it's all we have to work with.. it gives our lives meanings..

Kev

You cannot have freewill because you don't exist as the doer - you are aware of what is happening as it happens.

There is no thinker of thought - thought simply appears.

You cannot even know what thought will pop up next.

Oh yes I can. That's what meditation is all about. To silence you mind. To be aware of your thoughts and control yourself.

Is there someone in there choosing what thought comes next?

Only you can choose what comes next. But someone already put the options you choose from.

Is like a basketball game. Someone made the rules. So based on that you know how to play the game. You cannot do whatever you want, you can do what they allow you to do. They even has rules for not following the rules.

originally posted by: Abednego

You cannot even know what thought will pop up next.

Oh yes I can. That's what meditation is all about. To silence you mind. To be aware of your thoughts and control yourself.

You can only be aware of a thought if it happens as it happens. You do not decide/choose what thought will happen.

a reply to: Abednego

It is impossible to silence the mind - and there is no need to when it is not troublesome - it can be very entertaining when it is seen for what it is.

originally posted by: Pazuzu666
a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Hahahahahahah, yeh, science its just junk.

Unless of course you were meaning that comment from a more metaphysical or philisophical standpoint, in which case you maybe forgot where you were on ATS and also maybe never noticed the links to the information regarding the studies I'm referring to.

While I completely agree with you that were are the proud owners of our own brains, the question was about real free will or the illusion of freedom(by which I'm assuming the OP also meant free will), and when one looks at the data from these studies amongst a whole plethora of others resouces and information, it can easily be derived that somehow, someway and by some not yet understood mechanism, your brain decides and sets in stone what will happen BEFORE you are ever conscious of making that very same decision that you truly believe you made of your own "free will".

Now the time difference between your brain deciding and you the person thinking that you made that conscious decision may be miniscule but it is nevertheless the wrong way round, if we the individual were in charge of our own brains the data would show the opposite in that a particular decision would be made and then the signal would be registered and set in the brain which would be easily identifiable through the FMRI, this of course is not what we see.

I'm not sure how else to say it.

I didn't say science was junk. The idea that something like your brain decides before "you the person" does is junk, given that "you the person" includes your brain. This is weird dualistic nonsense. Whether our decisions are conscious or unconscious, whether we are conscious or unconscious of how are decisions arise, they are nonetheless our decisions, and no one else's.

You cannot have freewill because you don't exist as the doer

Your right on that one.

- you are aware of what is happening as it happens.

Not necessarily.

There is no thinker of thought - thought simply appears.

I think this sentence alone is just a matter of another great thread.
Think about it:
There is a thinker, otherwise thought would not exist alone by itself. So this thinker does not have to be physical entity but a conscious one. At the moment it acquire consciousness, thought became real. As thought became real, all other possibilities came into existence.

I didn't say science was junk. The idea that something like your brain decides before "you the person" does is junk, given that "you the person" includes your brain. This is weird dualistic nonsense. Whether our decisions are conscious or unconscious, whether we are conscious or unconscious of how are decisions arise, they are nonetheless our decisions, and no one else's.

The thing is that the brain receives input from outside faster than we can perceive. When you get into a conversation, you think words just appears out of nowhere, but in reality your brain is thinking what to say. The process is so fast that your conscious do not perceive it.
When you want to walk, you just stand up and walk. Do you think your brain did not thought about it first? The brain does think about, but the process is so common and mechanical that it just save the time to let your conscious know what us going to do.

originally posted by: Abednego
There is a thinker, otherwise thought would not exist alone by itself. So this thinker does not have to be physical entity but a conscious one. At the moment it acquire consciousness, thought became real. As thought became real, all other possibilities came into existence.

The Thinker and Thought
Is there any relationship between the thinker and his thought, or is there only thought and not a thinker? If there are no thoughts there is no thinker. When you have thoughts, is there a thinker? Perceiving the impermanency of thoughts, thought itself creates the thinker who gives himself permanency; so thought creates the thinker; then the thinker establishes himself as a permanent entity apart from thoughts which are always in a state of flux. So, thought creates the thinker and not the other way about. The thinker does not create thought, for if there are no thoughts, there is no thinker. The thinker separates himself from his parent and tries to establish a relationship, a relationship between the so-called permanent, which is the thinker created by thought, and the impermanent or transient, which is thought. So, both are really transient.
Pursue a thought completely to its very end. Think it out fully, feel it out and discover for yourself what happens. You will find that there is no thinker at all. For, when thought ceases, the thinker is not. We think there are two states, as the thinker and the thought. These two states are fictitious, unreal. There is only thought, and the bundle of thought creates the 'me', the thinker.www.jkrishnamurti.org...

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope

originally posted by: Pazuzu666
a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Hahahahahahah, yeh, science its just junk.

Unless of course you were meaning that comment from a more metaphysical or philisophical standpoint, in which case you maybe forgot where you were on ATS and also maybe never noticed the links to the information regarding the studies I'm referring to.

While I completely agree with you that were are the proud owners of our own brains, the question was about real free will or the illusion of freedom(by which I'm assuming the OP also meant free will), and when one looks at the data from these studies amongst a whole plethora of others resouces and information, it can easily be derived that somehow, someway and by some not yet understood mechanism, your brain decides and sets in stone what will happen BEFORE you are ever conscious of making that very same decision that you truly believe you made of your own "free will".

Now the time difference between your brain deciding and you the person thinking that you made that conscious decision may be miniscule but it is nevertheless the wrong way round, if we the individual were in charge of our own brains the data would show the opposite in that a particular decision would be made and then the signal would be registered and set in the brain which would be easily identifiable through the FMRI, this of course is not what we see.

I'm not sure how else to say it.

I didn't say science was junk. The idea that something like your brain decides before "you the person" does is junk, given that "you the person" includes your brain. This is weird dualistic nonsense. Whether our decisions are conscious or unconscious, whether we are conscious or unconscious of how are decisions arise, they are nonetheless our decisions, and no one else's.

So where is this 'you' that stands apart which can choose?
There is no choice, no freewil because there isn't someone in there - the body/brain does what it does - choicelessly.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

So where is this 'you' that stands apart which can choose?

You're talking to him.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

It is not 'your' brain or 'your' body. It is just a body, just a brain - it does not belong to anyone.
There isn't anyone 'in there' to choose.

You can only be aware of a thought if it happens as it happens. You do not decide/choose what thought will happen.

Have you ever being in a situation were you said to yourself let me get out of this before someone says something that may escalate into a dangerous situation?
If your answer is yes, there you have it. You can know what is going too happen before hand. Only that at that moment was at a subconscious level. But if you work enough you can be aware of those moment. Is called premonition. The brain knows it before it happen and then "decide" if it going to let your conscious part know it.
Happen so fast that we do not realize it.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

There isn't anyone talking to anyone.
There is simply what appears.