there is no such thing as Free Will...

[SHATOUSHKA]

sapius--

well, ok.

i never understood why you posted at genius in the first place.
sure, i posted there...but it doesn't take a freakin genius to discover that you are arguing to a brick wall.
i wouldn't even waste my time.
if you feel the above about Absolute Truth(in your post), why argue to someone that doesn't care what you think?
it seems that the members of genius, are intent on using you to rectify their judgments of themselves.
basically, you make them look good (to themselves).
screw that.


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General Philosophy

[SHATOUSHKA]

*pops open bottle*

~~stishhhhhhh~~~

*reads thread again*

*chuckles in minor contempt*


its a fine day.

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General Philosophy

[zelazny]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Devil's Advocate:
[quote]
Do we really have the choice in what our mind accepts and rejects?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
no, but that's okay since you are your mind and vice versa.
if your mind accepts something, it's YOUR mind, it's you.


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
Are we not the product of history and of what those have "thought" before us? Meaning, do we ever have a unique thought? If no, I can not see how we can have free will - because if our thoughts are predetermined, our choices would seem to be as well.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I can believe that all is determined, from the choices we get to the choice we take.
But the point is, there is the choice.
no matter what you choose, a choice is a choice, may the choice you get be determined just like the response you give on it.
but there was a choice.

YOU decide to take the strawberry, even though it was clear from the start that you would.
When your friends expect you will do something, and you turn out to do it, do you say it was predetermined?

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Sure the universe is a great place, but if it wasn't here, no-one would miss it.

[This message has been edited by zelazny (edited September 27, 2001).]

[Sapius]

Well, Zela has said something close, but it may not be very clear to some.

I have responded to few other threads and I'm done for now, let me get back on this later..... *O! bed sweet bed* *yawn* *yawn*

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....just IMHO though.

[Sapius]

OK, I will first try to explain a bit more to our friend employed by dear Devil, and then tell Shatoush why I started and still do post at Genius.

DA, There is this old joke about how one would never win a case in Heaven; one could never find an Advocate there.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>

Me: But in which direction of mental evolution you will end up, will result from the things your mind accepts and rejects, as thoughts and ideas, and as a thing, you have that choice, and there are many things that have been given certain liberty of choice; it is not only us humans that have "free-will" you know.

Devil's Advocate: Do we really have the choice in what our mind accepts and rejects?

Are we not the product of history and of what those have "thought" before us? Meaning, do we ever have a unique thought? If no, I can not see how we can have free will - because if our thoughts are predetermined, our choices would seem to be as well. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

A Big yes, and basically no. I will get back to this, but before that we should understand something else which makes the above more apparent.

As I always like to explain it so, understanding the mysteries of our existence is like putting a BIG jigsaw puzzle together. What usually happens though is that people get hold of a single piece, understand it, and find another few pieces, and then, either logically (Reason) or by faith (Religion) try to deduce what the rest of the picture should be like, you can get a million interpretations. But they hold totally different pieces because they pick it up according to their own understandings. Say out of 100 pieces, Science sees 20 pcs, Mathematics sees 30, Physics sees 15, a person with mystical experiences sees 25, an Advocate sees 25, a profit or an enlightened person sees, may be 60 or 50 or 80, but it might not necessarily be the very same pieces that every one holds, and the enlightened and profits include many pieces from science and other such fields. Science not necessarily as understood today, but understanding the intricacies of Nature is no more than a Science deduced mentally without any academic background. Nature is not a "thing", but is made up of every damned thing we can perceive, think or imagine, including our minds. So, understanding Mind is also a science, which is not taught in schools. Well, in a way, Philosophers do that, but many do not necessarily include pieces found in other fields, because certain pre-conceived and well-established logic does not allow it.

Science and subjects of the kind hold on to things that can be proven, Mathematics goes further by providing formulas that cannot be proven yet, but still make some sense, mysticism is totally a personal based experience, and although they cannot prove anything, hold a totally different set of pieces, and so on.

Now all of the above and more, whether provable or not, does exist in the very same Universe, only that we choose to "believe" according to whatever our logic concludes. There are people who believe that we never went to the moon, supported by logical reasoning, whereas others prove the opposite.

So, who is to say that a mystic does not actually experience something that which is generally believed to be a delusion or some form of mental displacement?

In my experience, it will not be until one sieves out the "logical" basis to these mysteries, and puts other Scientific proofs together, sieves the spark of truths found in Religions, (basically most of the pieces lie there) to finally see a BIG picture.


Basically, there are bits of many many rudimentary things, found in almost all fields, and the greatest one being the experiencing of the Nature, which does not mean sitting in front of a tree and watching it grow, but really looking into EVERY THING you perceive, every verbal or thought provoking interaction you have with any human being, trying to understand every emotion and where all, how and why do they exist at all; and all this and much much more has to be in your mind at the same time to at least see a much bigger picture if not THE BIG picture, for now.

One of the main things that our logic and the system of thinking have come up with is seeing things as black and white. For the simple reason that once it starts to operate logically, it starts wondering and questioning everything it comes across, including "thinking" itself, but most of the things connected to understanding metaphysical existence lie in a gray area. The black and white world necessarily shows contradictions; its either this or that, and that is the beginning point of understanding rudimentary phenomenon such as in Science, Physics, Chemistry, all the way down to House keeping. One cannot readily believe that if I keep a particular pillow on the bed, the very same could exist in another bedroom. Simple logic, isn't it?

Now, Metaphysical existence needs "belief" for most of the people, because they have never experienced what it is like to be in more that one place at the same time. Now, if everyone automatically pops up in that kind of existence, it would be a moot existence, for the simple reason that he would have nothing to compare it to and understand the experience of metaphysical existence.

Tell me, what would be more exciting, to be born in a world where there is no sadness and one is always happy, or in a world where we have both, and appreciate happiness to a greater extent because we KNOW what is sadness.

So it is necessary for us to go through a world of contradictions so that we may on our own, with each individually based experience, may know what a non-contradictory world is. And since it is a mixture of Science and Metaphysics, we are yet to combine it together to see a non-contradictory world, but our black and white mind does not allow it for all people because it has yet to go far. We are like two days old infants as far as the Universal Evolution is concerned, and cannot expect all people to experience a well developed logic of a grown up, which would mean understanding a non-contradictory existence, logically. In the future, if we don't kill our selves off first, say in a million years, our basic logic would have changed according to information fed to the Mind.

Just as we find that a certain person seems to be more "mature" than another, and that there are rare occasions of some geniuses sprouting (I mean Einstein and Mozart kind), we could have certain Minds that are Naturally driven towards metaphysical quest, and people such as profits, mystics, and enlightened people, are able to break through and experience it in reality. How profits have tried to explain it in a language that others could understand (mostly parables), and how people have tried to interpret that in a million ways, is another story. And how an enlightened person has tried to explain it by giving worldly analogies, because it is not something one can easily communicate without the other person not having experienced it. If one has never ever tasted a banana, how can you explain in words as to what it tastes like? Yes, you could give many different examples of what might it might be close to, how it looks like, but you could never make that person actually experience the unique taste of a banana, unless it touches his taste buds; Same goes for explaining a metaphysical experience to someone who has never experienced it. Hence, all the enlightened people have always said, that it is not something one can give to another, but will be apparent if experienced on their own. So in a way, all they could do is try to leave traces and would-be methods to lead others to it, and there are more than one ways according experiences of different people. Buddhism, Kabala, Sufism, different Hindu system of Meditation, Christian Mystics who dedicate their entire lives to following a certain mystical path according to a Saint or particular teaching that they pull out of the Bible or other books of "belief". But there is also another way if one can shed pre-conceived logic and work Philosophically by making just one simple assumption, which basically also comes from our already known Science. And I know that people will first reject that assumption, because assumption IT IS, for them, since they are yet to experience it as reality, and that is the only reason that holds back a person from speaking out loud.

Now, do we have free will? Yes and No.

Free Will (freedom to make a "choice") is on a leash (bound to Cause and Effect) of different lengths (allowances) for different things.

(Don't think that it is a property of us Humans Only, I have explained it earlier and will do it below)

As I mentioned earlier, Cause and Effect is no more than Energy changing form from one thing to another, and so the cycle goes on without any end, nor having a beginning. And this is not my unique discovery.

But in the wake of Universal Evolution, Nature creates a Mind, which is on a far longer leashing than an atom. An atom, as our present knowledge tells us, has a certain code imbedded in it to meet and reject another Atom. But, it first detects, recognizes, and "chooses" to meet or not to meet in a sense. Now this is a very short leash, all it has to "decide" is to meet or not to meet, and Nature is not behind every Atom with a stick directing it to do what it already has the liberty to do, but it is Nature which has imbedded the code in it. Now saying, "Nature has imbedded" is also not correct because it is an inherent imbedded thing, which is "natural" through Energy. Confusing eh? It is very natural for us not to "believe" such attributions because we do not Know the Reality of Nature.

In any case, when Nature reaches a certain balance it creates life, (remember, Nature experiments, and is not ALL perfect), and when a billion of things fall in place, it is able to create a Complex Mind in Humans, (we are no more than tools to Nature and act in the same way as our tools of perception act to us), in now able to accept and reject far more "Causes" than an Atom. I don't mean physical causes, but a Mind which is now complex enough to create Language, communicate verbally, even talk to its own self, and Logically create Concepts and ideas, and logically accept and reject them; A far greater deciding power than an Atom. Now you can thing and do many more things at the same time. You could be thinking about Nature sitting on a toilet seat, answering another call of Nature. Controlled by the one Brain, which controls your physical movements and generates a Mind, which thinks.

So for all practical purposes, "you" do make the decision, because Nature has given you the allowance, but only after Millions of Causes, which have affected "you" from time immemorial until "you", exist. (And this is what the Mystics mean when they say "YOU" do not exist in a sense), and hence eventually all goes back to the imbedded code, in everything, only that it now has many more individually based freedom of thought decision, but still will act according to un-realizable verbal and environmental Causes.

For example, all ideas put forth act as causes to a mind to go in a certain direction, by choosing any of those, rejecting, or taking bits and pieces form different ones and come up with an ORIGINAL idea, which it can on its own, but there were many causes that influenced his original thought. This includes, (I will just mention in a broader sense) where he was born? Family he was born in? Did they follow a religion or not? If yes, which one? Which school he went to? What kind of books and people did he get to interact with? At home with family relatives and friends, at school and collage, at his work place; basically all that one has come across and been exposed to and kept changing his Mind by choosing according to information received. Above all that, a Mind has the capability of thinking and speaking to its self verbally, which needs very little input from another Mind to come up with his own original idea, but what CAUSES that, is a Mind, a complex CODE Caused by Nature, and hence in this sense it is a prisoner of Cause and Effect.

I guess that answers your original question, but I'm sure many will be in doubt.

I am going to post this at another forum, not Genius though, since I cannot keep on writing similar things again and again, and normally I do not keep copies of what I say, and a similar thing on metaphysics has come up there. In any case, I cannot say it in a more eloquent or coherent manner to collect all that I say, I jump form one aspect to another because it is so vast and heavily interconnected and interdependent, that one cannot help but go astray.

I hope you don't mind DA, and Shatoush of course, because it might include you quotes too, and may be others at times. If anybody has any objections, please speak up now.


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....just IMHO though.

[This message has been edited by Sapius (edited September 29, 2001).]

[pplaverita]

In your humble opinion, dear Sapius, your posts may look of a fair size. In my not that humble opinion, your posts bring my machine to its knees. Before pouring your thoughts, you may moderate them, prune them so that your point becomes comprehensible.

Best regards

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Never onlyne

[Sapius]

Oops! I forgot this one.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
Me: So, free will exists and not at the same time, no contradictions. IF you see one, there is no outside logic that will convince you otherwise, it has to come through your own understanding.

DA: I'm sorry - I don't think I understood this section of your reply - can you clarify?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Let me see.....Ah! yes. What I mean is, if you find contradictions in anything, as I once did, in fact quite intensely, which led me to thorough mental investigation on my own, you will not readily accept what others say because it goes against your present logical understanding.

So what I did was, taking a rational assumption, tried to deduce certain mysteries of existence, and one of them fits so well that it answers almost all mysteries of physical and metaphysical nature.

This is possible when you basically do not go too deep and immediately reject something because you see contradictions and close the chapter, but keep on investigating other things which seem to have contradictions, keeping all of them somewhere back of your mind, and once a certain assumption answers one question, you suddenly realize that in fact it answers all those contradictions you hold in your mind, and like a falling domino line, all of them can now be easily understood.

And in my experience, all this happens if your mind is naturally, and very intensely, driven in a quest of understanding things of physical and metaphysical nature from an early age, and is so imaginative that it does not need much academic education to deduce and philosophically come up with rational thoughts. And the cumulative experiences that result from interacting with People and Nature, Plus, how Balanced a mind you have become; I now KNOW what is the Real meaning of Love, but only after I first took it as a false attachment and illusion, and then realizing it in the true sense again. But If I come to thing of it, I always loved others naturally. Although somewhere along the line, I internally believed that it was a false attachment, and thought that there is no harm in simply acting as if I am the same, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise! For I found out that it is very essential to have a loving Mind, because it brings peace, and removes Hate automatically, and hence Anger, which results in a very well balanced and peaceful Mind which can now move on to other things by being able to focus with a concentration which a meditator longs for, sitting under a tree for a hundred years, and I could get it living among all my loved ones all the time. But let me tell you this, I did live all alone by myself for the last 20 or so years, and I am naturally prone to spent time all by myself, without doing anything and not getting bored, just sitting and thinking away, which I do even now to relax, and many things come to mind. I do have my mood swings from time to time for no apparent reasons, or due to certain things that disturb me at times, but I do not go wild at any time, because of a well-balanced Mind, and I can control it almost immediately.
There is practically nothing that could provoke me to even dislike anything or anyone. Yes, there are good and bad things, but they are all necessary for us to experience, for how would we experience good if there were no bad? And once you see no contradiction in good and bad, you kind of begin to love both of them, for basically they exist and not, at the same time - exist because they are all real, and not because they hold no inherent essence or meaning in them, they are all tools to know the physical, and hence see the difference and EXPERIENCE the metaphysical. Where emotions are not needed anymore.

I do not always speak unless spoken to; I respond better when I am questioned on things that I have understood, and will be glad if it helps someone, but it is not what I can give someone. So keep on asking and I will do my best to explain.

I think I must have confused in some other direction now DA, so go ahead and ask, but please give me time for I give a lot of time to myself, and at times I give myself a longer break.


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....just IMHO though.

[Sapius]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by pplaverita:
In your humble opinion, dear Sapius, your posts may look of a fair size. In my not that humble opinion, your posts bring my machine to its knees. Before pouring your thoughts, you may moderate them, prune them so that your point becomes comprehensible.

Best regards
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm extremely sorry for your machine; I will try my best to make it as short and succinct as possible. I answer questions on-line and as they come to my mind. A very close friend of mine in RL, we know each other since we were 6~7, told me that I think faster than I speak, and end up speaking incoherently. But to be succinct, I cannot help it due to many reasons.

On the other hand, I would suggest you to keep certain thoughts in mind even if they are not clear enough, and it might all fit into place all of a sudden. You could always ask for clarifications, I will try to be brief.


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....just IMHO though.

[Sapius]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by SHATOUSHKA:
sapius--

well, ok.

i never understood why you posted at genius in the first place.
sure, i posted there...but it doesn't take a freakin genius to discover that you are arguing to a brick wall.
i wouldn't even waste my time.
if you feel the above about Absolute Truth(in your post), why argue to someone that doesn't care what you think?
it seems that the members of genius, are intent on using you to rectify their judgments of themselves.
basically, you make them look good (to themselves).
screw that.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I said earlier that I would get back to this, so here I am.

Shatoush, Let me tell you something more about my nature, which although had to do something with my DNA, but the world and my experiences have had an major impact on. I understand that many will see contradictions in my "words", but they are all that they are - words. But there is no contradiction in my Mind as to whatever I say.

I consider all people at Genius, and all here, and each and all othere souls that exist, and ever existed, to be unique gems and creations of "God". And basically they are no different than me. You are most probably a christian, so how could you not love any person or thing created by God?

And that is the foundation of everything that Juses thought.

You must have known many people who say this, but how many do you know that mean it?

There is no person in the Universe that I could basically ever hate, for whatever s/he may be. I know it is difficult to "believe", so lets just leave it at that, and get on with life.



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....just IMHO though.

[Alex]

hehehehehehehehe, my free will made me do it.

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Alex