"Your only role here is to breath and not to resist. Everything else is Predetermined."

reply to post by smithjustinb


Unity in diversity, the one being has trillions of wills acting, this game requires unpredictability, creation is happening, evolution is happening, all is not written. That is a weak idea, the idea that all is written, no, the creator is creating, creation is always changing by the will of the creator, which is composed by the trillions of beings, that are the creator in action.

reply to post by arpgme


Free-will is an illusion granted only on earth. If we are all one, and we, or all of us had a soul plan before coming here. I agree with what is said in the OP. I already know this from personal experiences. And I accepted that my fate is in the hands of my true self and God. While I may be hard headed and forget sometimes, spirit makes sure to let me know if I am on the right path or not.


You cant find truth. Truth ultimately finds you.

Why does it apply only on earth? Think of earth as a school where you graduate and be among a much more mature community that isnt driven by fear, hypocrisy and greed.

Originally posted by Dark Ghost
reply to post by arpgme

 

If we are not here to learn lessons or try and achieve a positive karma, why exactly are we here? Why do we put our soul through this physical existence if the point isn't to enrich it?

The point isn't to enrich it, the point is to realize that it is already enriched. We put ourself through it, because its just a great thing to go through. If, in your life, you weren't able to see its greatness, its richness, then you missed the point.

Heaven is already on Earth. Hell is failing to realize it.

Originally posted by Manula
reply to post by smithjustinb

 

Unity in diversity, the one being has trillions of wills acting, this game requires unpredictability, creation is happening, evolution is happening, all is not written. That is a weak idea, the idea that all is written, no, the creator is creating, creation is always changing by the will of the creator, which is composed by the trillions of beings, that are the creator in action.

I never said it is all written. I said there is no will but the will of the creator. The creator is creating, but you having separated individual free will implies that there is more than one creator, which there isn't. There is only one creator and we are a creative expression of it. For the one creator rule to stay true, it has to be that your will is really God's.

Because people believe they are separate from God, they believe that it is their own will. There is free will, but it doesn't belong to the individual.

reply to post by arpgme


She is right. And the spiritual side has been saying this for thousands of years now, actually. It was just not posed in the same western philosophical "free-will vs. determinism" question until recently, well, that past few hundred years or so. But the Buddha, Lao-Tzu, and many other ancient mystics, including Jesus, all were pointing to this same fact of reality. I came to this realization through vipassana meditation and self-inquiry as Ramana Maharshi taught it, but only recently have I began to delve into the "free-will vs. determinism" question as posed by western philosophers. So far, I can see no logical argument for free-will. All arguments for free-will have to come to a premature end before it reaches determinism, that is the only way to argue free-will. At least this is what I've seen so far.

Peace

reply to post by LifeIsEnergy


All I see is people in favor of free will complaining about determinists beliefs, expressing their fear of the idea, and failing to come up with a decent opposing point.

Originally posted by smithjustinb
reply to post by LifeIsEnergy

 

All I see is people in favor of free will complaining about determinists beliefs, expressing their fear of the idea, and failing to come up with a decent opposing point.

Of course, and this is only expected. Their conditioning has established an independent self which is fearful of being dissolved, as it has in all of us, the difference is they have yet to be shown the 'other side' of reality, which is what we are now doing.

There is so many sources talking about free will...
People don't need to try to prove something that is so wide spread.
Creator is one being alright but by dividing himself in a lot of cells (all beings) he allowed them to have free will under certain conditions.
The creator is me, i am the creator, i am a part of him, a part that has free will.
All souls are made of the one being, and they are connected to him, but they have a will of their own, which is granted by the creator. The will is exercised under some conditions, it is in a controlled environment, but, nevertheless, it is free-will.
What is wrong with my idea? Where is it irrational?
If you can convince me, I will change my mind.

Free will does exist, but it is like a muscle; those who do not train it will never develop it.

Look, you can go through your life just "accepting" your difficulties, or you can work to overcome them.

You can live on a HFCS diet of Twinkies and Pepsi, or you can live on a nutritional diet of fruits and veggies and lean meats.

You can spend 4-6 hours staring at a screen, or you can spend 4-6 hours being active or enriching your mind with new knowledge.

These are all decisions made by you which impact your life. Is anyone going to actually try and deny that people can choose to eat healthy or exercise? Can't people use judgment and instinct to avoid putting themselves in dangerous situations?
It almost always comes down to the choices we make and our willpower.

The opposite of willpower is laziness. Too much laziness is a bad thing. There is a time for rest and relaxation, but too much complacency breaks down all muscle, including that of will. In terms of fitness, think of laziness as fat, willpower as muscle, and right-action/the exertion of will power as the method of turning that fat into muscle.

As for acceptance, it, like all things in this universe, must will balanced with its opposite. There must be acceptance, otherwise one will suffer from resistance, which is very similar to depression. There must be resistance, too, lest one wishes to suffer from over-compliance.

For example, if someone wants to harm you, should you accept this as destiny and allow yourself to be harmed, or resist this and attempt to escape it or defend yourself?

I do think that there is some element to life which is planned out beforehand, but for the most part life is a sandbox.

I think that, if we do choose what kinds of lives we are born into, the purpose of all life is learning and the collection of first hand knowledge. We set ourselves up with obstacles so that we may attempt to overcome them. How we do so and whether we are successful is up to us. We chose the course so that we could experience it.

ETA:

TLDR: Change what you can, accept what you can't.

reply to post by Manula


Your whole philosophy stands upon the assumption that there is a creator being who "grants limited abilities" to himself, which he has divided into many individual pieces. There is enough holes in the notion of a "creator being" already, no need to go further into the rest of what you said.

Originally posted by arpgme
I know some people just do not want to ACCEPT that free-will does not exist (at least not here), but it is true.

Guess I am one of those "some people". I think it is a lot more complex than just a yes or a no, everything or nothing.

Your soul already planned it all out before being here and all of your interactions with others - your actions towards them and their actions towards you...

if this is so,

The only free-will you have is whether you will go with the flow of it or whether you'll resist and get beat up by it

then how is this possible. It is a contradiction. If I resist, does everything still stay the same everywhere else? If I get beat up, how does this not influence all others around me? It certainly influences me - so my free will caused a change to my plan - resist.

This "plan" for my life that my soul figured out, presupposes that the soul of each other person with which I interact was part of the planning of this plan, so as to know my actions so that his or her reaction will be the one that I have been programmed to receive. And then when natural events interfere with my life, that must also be known, so this implies there is no randomness in nature and it too is running according to a planned schedule. Probably true to some extent, but the sheer extent of this interactive plan starts to look like free will and randomness.

OK, that said. What is free will? Firstly, have my possible choices been determined by everything I have experienced to date? So given a specific situation, my reaction can probably be predicted from my arsenal of responses. Even me changing my mind at the last minute can simply be a predictable reaction. Everyone possibly knows someone who always makes a last minute change of mind. So where does the free will fit in?

I would say free will is when we make a decision to act in a way that falls outside the brain's store of interlinked information and potential reactions. This is where I think pseudo-free will can exist, at least sufficiently obscure to look free - meaning that I make non-logical responses to situations.

Dreams seem to produce situations and reactions that fall right outside one's usual actions and reactions. My thoughts on this is that these weird dreams are the result of the simple and exhaustive sleeptime housekeeping of the brain, trying to figure out where new info should be stored, and deciding what necessary indexing links should be established to relate it to other info. So it tests the new info by linking it to all sorts of stored memories to check the fit, and fleetingly, this testing creates links that make the combination of information become real in a dream, only to vanish again when the fit is not found to be relevant.

But what is to stop us from making and reacting according to such apparently irrelevant links in our awake, conscious state, probably activated by some unusual extraneous stimulus (or divine intervention...)? Serendipity? Is this free will or just part of the big plan. This becomes compounded when more than one brain is involved, probably compounded to the square of the number of souls involved.

OK, at a stretch, possible, BUT
what would the purpose of this be, having no free will? It cannot have a spiritual value as without our free will, we are responsible for - nothing that we do.
And, does the soul have free will to determine its own life plan? If so, what does this prove if the plan will simply "go according to plan" irrespective of anything or anyone else (because all outside influences were also part of the plan)? Is it just the experience that the soul adds to its collection in the case of multiple lives? Why does it need to do this unless it needs to learn something or gain some experience. But since the plan already determined what it needed to learn and it planned all the related lessons, it must already know what it is planning to learn, if no free will is involved.

I think I will stick with the free will scenario. It is simpler - and my tongue is tired from being in my cheek for too long ...
KenArten

reply to post by Manula


All will comes from the creator. Our will is merely human free-will restricted by the limitations of what we are. But our will is the creator's will and is our because we are the creator.

reply to post by KenArten


Resistance isn't really changing anything. It is you "trying" not to go with the flow of your own life script but the flow will drag you anyway so it makes not changes.

Originally posted by KenArten

what would the purpose of this be, having no free will? It cannot have a spiritual value as without our free will, we are responsible for - nothing that we do.

This seems to be a popular argument against the notion of determinism, but I honestly don't understand what is so bad about not being responsible. It seems like "taking responsibility", in this context, is always another way of saying "setting yourself up for guilt".

The point is, its not about taking responsibility for your actions, its just about actions. You say there is no spiritual value to determinisim, but what you probably don't understand is that when you realize that you don't have free will, you realize God is controlling you. But you can also see that even though God is controlling you, you still have the illusion of free will. That's because you are God. So its not really an illusion. There is no will but the will of the creator and you are that, but only with an individualized relative perspective of being that. When you realize that your will is God's will you also realize your spiritual goal is to just exist and enjoy existence. You realize thats all you're really here for.

It must be "Free-will week" in this Forum

I have some questions.

what difference does it make in either case? Would you behave differently knowing either one to be true?

Did anyone also think that at least half of the problem with the argument is our concept of time?

and If I "resist", why am allowed to?

"Oh of course free will doesnt exist, I have no control over my behavior and no reason to listen to my conscience, I am completely free from all responsibilities for my wrong doing. After all, I had no choice, its not my fault I do bad things."

Originally posted by juveous
It must be "Free-will week" in this Forum

I have some questions.

what difference does it make in either case? Would you behave differently knowing either one to be true?

It makes a huge difference in the frame work of reality, and for us to have the proper perspective instead of an illusion.

Originally posted by juveous
and If I "resist", why am allowed to?

Because it doesn't change anything, it will still drag you.

Originally posted by osirys
"Oh of course free will doesnt exist, I have no control over my behavior and no reason to listen to my conscience, I am completely free from all responsibilities for my wrong doing. After all, I had no choice, its not my fault I do bad things."

Originally posted by arpgme
Originally posted by juveous
It must be "Free-will week" in this Forum

I have some questions.

what difference does it make in either case? Would you behave differently knowing either one to be true?

It makes a huge difference in the frame work of reality, and for us to have the proper perspective instead of an illusion.

So the illusion is that we have free-will, and having the proper perspective changes what? Other than your emotional solace, why would some one with the impression that it is their will, and not someone else's, behave worse?

Originally posted by juveous
and If I "resist", why am allowed to?

Because it doesn't change anything, it will still drag you.

So i'm allowed to resist because it doesn't change anything? You didn't tell me why, you just told me an effect.

reply to post by juveous


It changes the perspective into one of REALITY. Do you care about TRUTH?

Also, you are allowed to resist because it doesn't change anything. It allows the illusion of free-will. Although, it is there because you ARE the human body so you can slow it down or speed it up.

Originally posted by arpgme
reply to post by juveous

 

It changes the perspective into one of REALITY. Do you care about TRUTH?

Also, you are allowed to resist because it doesn't change anything. It allows the illusion of free-will. Although, it is there because you ARE the human body so you can slow it down or speed it up.

What difference does it matter what I care about? It is not even my concern. I am determined to care or not care.

So I have the free will to choose it's speed now? You say I will be dragged along anyway, what does that even mean? Is this all just a clever craft on a sentence that says "what is going to happen, is going to happen".