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Post by philemon on Mar 25, 2010 11:50:19 GMT -5
Dear Porto if a mosquito sits on my arm. Do I have a option if I want to squese it now, later or never. Is that acting free I am not a educated man so I need to have things down to earth by exampel. looking forward to hear from you
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Post by enigma on Mar 25, 2010 11:52:55 GMT -5
Hi Philemon Lets try a thought game. If you imagine that you can speak Swahili (I'm assuming you can't), you will hear yourself speak and will be able to point to your own speech as evidence that you can, in fact, speak Swahili, when the truth is that you cannot.
Likewise, your belief that you are free to make your own choices results in you declaring such choices, and then pointing to the choices you declared as evidence that you have the ability to freely choose, while in reality it's merely evidence of your belief that you can.
The opposite may also happen. If you believe you don't know any English, you won't attempt to communicate in English, and you might be tempted to point to this as evidence that you don't know any English, while in reality it's just evidence of your belief.
Likewise, if you don't believe you can declare a choice, then you won't declare one, and you might use this as evidence to prove that you can't declare a choice, which would also be false.
The point is that the fact that you do or don't declare a choice is not evidence one way or the other as to whether or not you have free will, since all it does is demonstrate your belief.
The question of whether or not you have free will revolves around the question of whether or not you can choose your next thought. If you do, in fact, choose each of your thoughts ahead of time, then you must have free will, at least when it comes to declaring your own choices.
If you are not in control of all of your thoughts such that no thought shows up that you haven't chosen, then you are making choices on the basis of thoughts that have not, themselves, been chosen by you, and even the thought to choose and the options from which to choose (which are all thoughts) are not be of your own making.
If the latter seems to be true for you (that thoughts happen and then you notice them, rather than the reverse) then the question becomes, 'Where do thoughts come from and do I have any control over that?' You might notice that thoughts are triggered by sense perceptions over which you have no direct control, and they are formed by your own personal past experience, which you also have no control of as they influence you now, or they may come from feelings which are, themselves, tied to other thoughts.
The bottom line is, if you cannot know your next thought before it happens, then you're not in a position to choose what thoughts appear, and since these thoughts are the foundation of your options and choices, you cannot be freely choosing.
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Post by Portto on Mar 25, 2010 12:55:52 GMT -5
Enigma's post above gives you all the information and examples you need.
Whether or not you kill the mosquito has nothing to do with free will. Free will would just be an extra layer of discussion about what happened - but not the actual [cause of the] event.
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Post by philemon on Mar 25, 2010 12:58:40 GMT -5
Hi Enigma
There is a small but vital error in your thoughts as I see it !!! But I might be wrong as I have been before.
Between the sense perception and the thoughts is the thinking. Thoughts is only a form but thinking is not form. The thinking is the lifeproces . Thoughts are dead.
But It still remains in your experiment. How does I decide which impact my thoughts should have on me ?? Do I just act on every thougt ?
If I can get free of the impact of my thoughts by inner activity (meditationen - or other will excercises) could I get to a free choice ?
regards philemon waiting for your point of wiev
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Post by zendancer on Mar 25, 2010 16:00:39 GMT -5
Philemon: You keep referring to "me" and "my" thoughts as if there is a "someone" who can respond to "outside" influences. This is the fundamental illusion. If you discover who you are, IN TRUTH, then your question about free will will vanish. There are not two here--only One--and it isn't Philemon.
To answer your other question, meditation and other exercises will not give you anything that you don't already have. Again, there are not two here. Cheers.
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Post by zendancer on Mar 25, 2010 16:13:33 GMT -5
Philemon: When I refer to "mind" I am referring to the intellect--the brain function that generates ideas, images, and symbols and internally talks, thinks, delineates, cognizes, discriminates, evaluates, names, calculates, etc.
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Post by philemon on Mar 25, 2010 16:31:27 GMT -5
Zendancer
Where is the thinking then or is that a illusion to ?
As I understand from some of your post regarding your experiences after meditation.
you experienct the world on a higher level of thinking What I would call pure thinking.
So I have the higest respect for your innerwork
I would very much have a interest in hearing more about these experience you have after your meditation
looking forward to hear from you
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Post by zendancer on Mar 25, 2010 17:19:13 GMT -5
Philemon: Thinking is not the problem. The problem (that is not really a problem) is that people mistake their thoughts for reality. Most people look at ___________and think "tree." What they are looking at, however, is more of a verb than a noun. It is the living truth. The word "tree" is how we can imagine what we are seeing. A "tree" is something like a mental cartoon projected in the mind's eye after being abstracted from the field of our being. What we actually see is ____________. In the same way people imagine that they are separate entities, but the truth is ____________. There is only ___________ wherever we look. __________is whole. _________is not composed of things and events and is beyond space and time.
Please be assured that I do not experience the world on a higher level of thinking. I experience it much of the time in silence, directly, and without thinking. In silence there is pure awareness without cognition or reflection--no ideas, images, or symbols being conceived or manipulated.
It is true that meditation often precedes mystical experiences of oneness. People who collect this sort of information list the three main things that precede mystical experiences in order of frequency as (1) feelings of utter despair, (2) meditation, and (3) being alone in nature. This would suggest that if one is not suffering despair, and wants to have a mystical experience, his/her odds would be improved by going into a wilderness to meditate. LOL
One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Psalms 42:10: "Be still and know that I am God." The third patriarch of Zen said the same thing in a slightly different way: "The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking, and there is nothing you will not be able to know." Cheers.
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Post by enigma on Mar 25, 2010 17:25:48 GMT -5
Philemon:If I can get free of the impact of my thoughts by inner activity (meditationen - or other will excercises) could I get to a free choice ?
Nope.
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Post by question on Mar 25, 2010 17:57:19 GMT -5
Hi Philemon, welcome to the forums! Scientists have made experiments in which they have found that simple decisions are decided in the brain (without us knowing consciously anything about it) up to 10 seconds before we become aware of the decision and execute it. Here is a wikipedia link that you might want to check out: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will
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Post by philemon on Mar 27, 2010 6:04:12 GMT -5
Dear Zendancer
If I follow you corectly shall I then understand that everything is a illusion and the "task" is to become aware of that ?
My second ? is :
Could you explain to me the following experince i have to me. During a periode of meditation in the natur. I was just looking on the same tree for about 20 min every day with open eyes. One evening when I was sitting there I experience that I was inside the tree.. My head opened up and one piece of the tree came from the inside of me and went out of my head.
I dont know how long the experience took in earth time. But I experience it as real as when I bite in aple.
looking forward to your reply
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Post by philemon on Mar 27, 2010 6:09:15 GMT -5
Dear question
How can you be sure that decions is taking place in the physical brain ?
How do you become aware of that something is the color red ?
with love
philemon
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Post by philemon on Mar 27, 2010 6:17:01 GMT -5
Dear Enigma
I would realy like to accept your thought with open heart but something inside strugles with that. I come from a jewish family and my grand father was in a camp during the war. Are you saying that the guard has no responsibility for the behavior he conducts ??
I just want to understand what you mean by free will !!!
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Post by enigma on Mar 27, 2010 10:52:38 GMT -5
Dear Enigma I would realy like to accept your thought with open heart but something inside strugles with that. I come from a jewish family and my grand father was in a camp during the war. Are you saying that the guard has no responsibility for the behavior he conducts ?? I just want to understand what you mean by free will !!! Hi Philemon I understand the struggle. If no-one is to blame for injustice, how could there ever be justice? I suggest it's found at the end of blame. Responsibility clearly only has meaning from within the delusion of free will, and from there responsibility is encouraged. However, if there is only one, which is the accuser and which is the accused? If you were truly responsible, your own self judgment would be inevitable and unforgivable, as would your condemnation of others. Freedom would be impossible. Devoid of personal will, you are already free, because you have set others free. Is this difficult? Of course, and so freedom is a very rare thing in our world and it remains a prison camp.
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Post by zendancer on Mar 27, 2010 12:11:08 GMT -5
Dear Zendancer If I follow you corectly shall I then understand that everything is a illusion and the "task" is to become aware of that ? My second ? is : Could you explain to me the following experince i have to me. During a periode of meditation in the natur. I was just looking on the same tree for about 20 min every day with open eyes. One evening when I was sitting there I experience that I was inside the tree.. My head opened up and one piece of the tree came from the inside of me and went out of my head. I dont know how long the experience took in earth time. But I experience it as real as when I bite in aple. looking forward to your reply Philemon: Every "thing" is an illusion except ____________(take a look for yourself). THAT is not an illusion, but I can't tell you what it is. You can see THAT, and you are THAT, but you cannot know THAT using the mind. Imagination obscures the obvious. The experience you had cannot be explained adequately using words. During mystical experiences our ordinary dualistic meta-world collapses and the observer and observed become one. Prior to your experience you imagined that you were an external observer looking at a tree. This is what most people imagine, but there are not two things here. You and the tree are one. You are therefore always looking at yourself (your True Self), whether you realize it or not. If you keep looking at _________, you will see deeper and deeper into the issue. The question you should always be asking is, "What is it that sees?" or "What am I?" Two "things" appear within awareness--the truth and products of imagination. Who you think you are is an idea--a product of imagination. A tree is also a product of imagination. What the tree IS and what you ARE is not imaginary. If you stay focused upon what can be seen with the eyes rather than what is seen in the mind's eye, all of your questions will be answered. Cheers (and look in your email inbox).
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