Do we have a choice when we die?

I guess this question goes to the heart of free will vs. determinism. I thought about this when a friend recently died. He was a Police Detective and he got off of work and stopped at a late night gas station to pick up a few items. The place was robbed and he was shot and killed. His wife said, she asked him to stop at the gas station on his way home and if she just would have waited to go to the store the next day he would still be here.

The question is, did she really have a choice? Was he meant to die that night and was there anything that could have stopped him from stopping at the gas station or was this purely a free choice?

When a person dies in a car accident people say it was just his time but if they survive the accident then they were blessed. Did either person have a choice on whether they would live or die?

Is free will just an illusion of our lack of information? For instance a hypothetical being that occupies 4 dimensions of space could see our past, present and future without the constraints of our 3 dimensional perception which is moment to moment. So if I'm going to go to Chipolte in an hour this hypothetical being would know and they would know what I was going to order but from my perception of "time" it seems like this is just a random choice.

Is there points in space on a plane with our future and light from a future event reaches them before we experience it? Here's Professor Brian Greene talking about this:



You also have Simultaneity which adds to this:



This highlights what Einstein was talking about when he said the distinctions between past, present and future is just a persistent illusions.

So essentially we live in one continuum called spacetime where all events occur simultaneously and we just experience these events differently based on our motion in this continuum. So a person in a train will see the flashes of lighting differently than the person that's stationary outside of the train and this is because the light from the first lighting strike while reach them before the light from the strike reaches the eyes of the stationary observer so the observer on the train will see the lightning strike in front of the train before the stationary observe sees it. So this shows events are not bound by what we call time. The person on the train could see the first strike at 6:58 and the stationary observer sees it at 7:01 and they would both be right.

This is why I think what we call time is actually a fourth dimension of space. We don't have sense perception of this 4th dimension so we call it time. So we observe events in the 3rd dimension from 4 dimensional space. Our biology is just hardwired to have sense perception of the 3rd dimension.

If we could see things from the 4th dimension we could know what we're buying from the store before we go to the store. Now this would be a static dimension unless 4 dimensional beings move in a 5th dimension. This could go on and on and maybe there's one static dimension where there is no motion and hypothetical beings from this dimension would be like the Q from Star Trek. They could just appear in different dimensions.

The thing is those hypothetical beings in the static dimension would be us. We would just be a 3 dimensional reflection of higher dimensional beings.

So say there's 11 dimensions and the 11th dimension is the static dimension. This would be a dimension of true choice. A being from that dimension would go from point A to point B they would just make a choice and appear. This would mean the choices made in the 11th dimension would play out in lower dimensions.

So back to the wife of my Police Detective friend who was killed. Maybe a choice was made in a higher dimension that's just playing out in a lower dimension.

So at the end of the day we have free will just not in the 3 dimensional world we experience.

There is no free will. Our lives are dictated by a less than benevolent, hands-off creator.

Sorry about your friend.

a reply to: neoholographic

We don't have control (I think what you mean by choice) over the outcomes of our choices. At any given point in time we are free to make whatever decision we deem wise or best but the consequences of that freewill rarely meet our expectations.

Your friend, my condolences, chose to go to the store for his wife. The wife chose to ask her husband to stop at the market. Both had the freedom to decide what to do but neither had any volitional control of the outcome of their decisions.

Once a choice is 'willed', we have no control/say over the outcome.

While here we have choice over what in SPACE we engage in, with limits of various field range of effectiveness. There is nothing you can do about the flow of time. Space can change, time cannot.

After you die, you time dwell within your recorded envelope of conception-to-death, with limits of the effects in that recording. There is nothing you can do about the contents of the recorded space you produced. Time can change, space cannot.

a reply to: neoholographic

Determinism is the "illusion".

quoting myself:

Something cannot come from nothing, so what exists must have always existed in some form or another.

>Something being unable to come from nothing means we must have infinity.

>>Cause and effect cannot go into infinity because it requires an initial cause, and there cannot be an initial cause to infinity.

>>>Cause and effect must therefor be an illusion or an affect created by the only thing which can supercede, or does not require, "cause and effect" -- and that thing, is free will.

and another:

Existence requires infinity, even randomness requires order, and infinite order, causation cannot do. Thus, causation is an illusion.

There is only one thing which creates order, yet is unbound by it, by causation, and that, is will. Thus, this immeasurable thing called "random", which is itself, infinite, must be will.

So, determinism, or free, is solely up to what is willed.

Seriously think about it. Determinism must be determined / initiated / created. People who deny God might claim chaos instead of will but chaos is not really less orderly, it is more order created by separated will.

e.g. A line of prisioners all following the will/order of their correction officer and then suddenly they do their own will. It is not chaos or less order, it is more order created by separating will.

Here's another thread if you want to see me and some guy arguing over pseudo-conceptial "nothing". It might be worth the read because we delve a little deeper into it.

---

As for time, I'm pretty sure it is the rate in which will/spirit manifests an image, and so like will, or anything which comes from it, it (time) is dependent upon will. Think about the time of entangled particles' reaction: How much time does it take one particle to react when the other is disturbed? Instantly? So time varies just as will varies.

Or think about it like we are all in one system, as there cannot be a boundry where there is nothing on the other side of it - there is no other place that is not connected. If one thing changes, the entire system has changed in that same instance.

Will is the Holy Ghost. Once you understand Jesus, all this stuff (infinity/eternity) becomes a lot easier to grasp. Shout out to Jesus.


Oh and to the holographic thing: No. Reality is like the awareness of God's mind as he sees his spirit and manifests the images thereof. There is no boundries in reality just like there is no boundries within your mind - there can't be. Heaven is within you - in the Spirit.

And speaking of dimensions, there is infinite dimensions because the view is of the spirit/will. x, y, z, infinity. A dimension being a measurement from an image but there is only one system in which are all things, so you can measure from all points and within all things simultaneously, as I am doing in this system. You can't say I didn't just measure, can you? What dimension was it that I measured? What is beyond the boundry of the "11 dimension"... you have to keep pushing it and then you realize what I said up there.

a reply to: FyreByrd

i wanted to clarify my meaning a bit.

The consequences of any decision may not ever be known (by the decider) they by be years or lives down the road. The point is that the corner of here & now is the effect of those built up decisions.

Your fiends decision to stop at the store - was not the single cause or condition of his death. Nor were his decisions alone feeding the event.

The point about free will, that I think all religions and philosophies agree upon, is that right here and now it's better to 'feed the good wolf' rather then the bad with our decisions. Make decisions with selfish intent or make them with wholesome will.

a reply to: neoholographic

At an intrinsic level, I continue to battle to exist, in whatever form that may be.

In other words, I do not want to die at all, and I maintain the possibility that I won't - when you accept death, you accept a certainty, and this fatalistic view robs you of any choice.

I dare to share this, however, I will.

I believe in immortality.

The only reason why I have to "die" in this "dimension" is because the rules of the game prevent resurrection - once I am allowed to use the full spectrum of my abilities, I believe that I can reconstitute myself.

I know that even a spirit is made of matter, so is a soul - a human body is far more complicated that a soul or a spirit, and the things you can do in a body are far superior to the things you can do being a soul or a spirit in an "afterlife".

In my view, God had created my body, if I pay that debt to him, he will grant me a body to call my own, and since it is mine, I can bring it back whenever I wish to.

In general, the basic events in one's life are predetermined. It is possible to go against them if one is determined, but it will generally disrupt the order of the original karmic relationships and result in additional burdens. Good deed/bad deed isn't really the correct way to think of it. Perhaps he had killed that person in a prior life and the debt had to be repaid. Had that incident been prevented, the debt would still be there.

Some karmic relationships are very complex, but the overall events need to take place, it is just how one decides to behave within that framework. It may determine whether the debt was repaid or whether another debt was accrued. People are overall more selfish nowadays, so net loss/gain is not ideal. That is at least my personal understanding as a Dafa practitioner.

A yes and no.

What your asking the in the thread is more along the lines of "Fate", since it believed to be determined, as well as super natural.

"noun
1.
the development of events beyond a person's control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power.
"fate decided his course for him"
synonyms: destiny, providence, the stars, chance, luck, serendipity, fortune, kismet, karma"

I am somewhat a believer in determinism, but Im a non-believer as well.

Very few probably get know how their fate will be, and fewer probably meet fate on their own terms. I think its the vary nature of the universe, since the moment it expanded, was determined from that single instant.

We have our choices, but in the end, we are all puppets to nature.

You have my condolences.

We are led to believe that we have free-will, but I don't think we really do.

Things just happen, and there's nothing we can do about it.

A couple years ago a childhood friend, who I hadn't spoke to in years due to her illness (she had skitzoaffective disorder and was very very paranoid) was having a rather good day, and her mother needed Chilli Powder. She volunteered to go to the store for her mother, and she was hit by a car while crossing the street. Things just happen. She died at 20. She was doing really well with her illness, and was apparently genuinely happy, according to her mother. She was no longer suicidal, either, like she was in high school. She didn't want to die, but she did.

Earlier this year, another friends son passed away. He was born with complications and had a trach. He was always sick, and in his last bout of sickness, they had him hooked to a breathing machine, something went wrong, and he died in his sleep. Does a child that young WANT to die? Do they even understand the concept of dying?

Things just happen, and I'm sure that there is some reason. We die when we die, and that's just that. It's predetermined.

Did you choose to be born? No. (At least not your body-mind.) So the first cause was pre-determined for you. When did you make your first choice? Do you even remember? It probably wasn't a well informed choice. Of course, you make well informed choices now, don't you? Informed by the things you have experienced? But what about tomorrow? What about when you get older and start to loose your grip? Will those choices still be well-informed?

The body-mind has and always will be at the mercy of the world we live in. The true self, however, is not. Do you trust it?

originally posted by: Restricted
There is no free will. Our lives are dictated by a less than benevolent, hands-off creator.

Sorry about your friend.

Absolutely not true. Step into your real self my friend. Start to purify yourself more and more thinking of others happiness over your own.

I would say 50/50 quite honestly I mean technically we barely have a choice in our lives now as it is we are constrained to a set of things while living and I just feel like more or less we may be constrained the same while deceased. Over the years I have become less likely to believe the whole G-D notion so I am more inclined to think we have free will; but as another poster stated we didn't choose to be born or even several other factors in our lives. Death perhaps may not hold the same as well. Otherwise death will be a state of chaos in someway, shape or form.

I'm sorry about the loss of your friends life.

Well this is a bit obvious but someone who commits suicide chooses when to die. Aside from that though people seem to have control over when they die if they are teetering between life and death. They do not get to choose when this moment of nearly dying happens but its not unheard of to hear of peoples will to live keeping them alive. Also there are people who lose their will to live and pass on. Mark Twain died of Broken Heart Syndrome not too long after his wife died and mentioned he wanted to die during the passing of Haileys Comet and he did. People who get into a car accident or something they dont choose to die they just die.