Free Will, Faith, And Religion

[cosmocentipede]

Free will considered as an independent individual expression is fallacious in scope.

The idea that we have free will as independent individuals is at the root of human unhappiness. Upon examination we may determine that we do not in fact exist independently of our total environment. We are not independent individuals, but rather dependent individuals. With some reflection we may see that we have never existed independently at all; our existence has always been dependent upon collective conditions. Therefore, human free will is not an independent individual expression, instead it is an expression of the dependent individual's total environment. Thus the view that we are independently existing free willing individuals is the cause of confusion and suffering because it is false.

Empirically we may observe that there are states of harmony and disharmony in nature. We may also observe that there is a prevailing state of comprehensive harmony whereas disharmony appears as a transition phase between states of harmony considered on limited scales. Furthermore, states of harmony are always preferable to states of disharmony where free will is involved. A dependent individual in a state of disharmony is an expression of the state of their environment being in disharmony. Because free will at all levels of existence may be empirically observed to prefer harmony over disharmony it will be the underlying will of a dependent individual to move towards a state of harmony with their dependent environment. Therefore to lose the idea of an individual, independently existing self is an expression of self realization and returns the dependent individual to a state of harmonious existence in relationship to their causally dependent conditions. Faith is non other than the letting go of our false ideas of independent existence in order that we may find solace in the reflection of the greater comprehension of existence as such.

This is why all religions advise selflessness.

[MidnightSun]

Free will? Oh plz, we have this discussion on every third topic.

[scameter]

I don't really see how free will says that we're independant from nature. Or why it would disprove determinism, for that matter. Free will simply means that we are aware, and are capable of choosing our actions.

[WanderingTaoist]

Free will? Oh plz, we have this discussion on every third topic.

Nothing wrong with that! :lol: It's a question that's puzzled philosophers for millenia, or else we still wouldn't be talking about it!

My own take on free will is that we have free will, but we do not control which choices are presented to us. To use an analogy, it's like a game of chess: the unverise and the laws of nature are like the chessboard and the rules of the game, respectively. We are the pieces on the chessboard. The rules of the game and the squares on the board determine which moves are possible, and how many we can make. A pawn cannot move like a rook, and vice-versa. However, the rules of the game do not determine the outcome of any particular game. In this anaology, I would argue we are in fact self-moving pieces, and that while we may choose our moves, the choices offered to us are set by the nature of the game, the nature of our paritcular type of piece, and the movements of other pieces. Of course, "the game" is the whole, and it includes every single piece and the board, and even the rules (which are not something physical, and yet it is they that govern everything!). One particular piece is no more a part of of "the game" then any other piece, or than the board, or than the rules. It is all one.

An excerpt from a dialogue between God and Man on the subject of Free Will, c/o of Mr. RAYMOND M. SMULLYAN (http://www.newbanner.com/SecHumSCM/IsGodTaoist.html)


GOD: ....you are only able to look at it through the eyes of a moralist. The more fundamental metaphysical aspects of the question [of free will] you never even considered.

MORTAL: I still do not see what you are driving at.

GOD: Before you requested me to remove your free will, shouldn't your first question have been whether as a matter of fact you do have free will?

MORTAL: That I simply took for granted.

GOD: But why should you?

MORTAL: I don't know. Do I have free will?

GOD: Yes.

MORTAL: Then why did you say I shouldn't have taken it for granted?

GOD: Because you shouldn't. Just because something happens to be true, it does not follow that it should be taken for granted.

MORTAL: Anyway, it is reassuring to know that my natural intuition about having free will is correct. Sometimes I have been worried that determinists are correct.

GOD: They are correct.

MORTAL: Wait a minute now, do I have free will or don't I?

GOD: I already told you you do. But that does not mean that determinism is incorrect.

MORTAL: Well, are my acts determined by the laws of nature or aren't they?

GOD: The word “determined” here is subtly but powerfully misleading and has contributed so much to the confusions of the free will versus determinism controversies. Your acts are certainly in accordance with the laws of nature, but to say they are determined by the laws of nature creates a totally misleading psychological image which is that your will could somehow be in conflict with the laws of nature and that the latter is somehow more powerful than you, and could “determine” your acts whether you liked it or not. But it is simply impossible for your will to ever conflict with natural law. You and natural law are really one and the same.

MORTAL: What do you mean that I cannot conflict with nature? Suppose I were to become very stubborn, and I determined not to obey the laws of nature. What could stop me? If I became sufficiently stubborn, even you could not stop me!

GOD: You are absolutely right! I certainly could not stop you. Nothing could stop you. But there is no need to stop you, because you could not even start! As Goethe very beautifully expressed it, “In trying to oppose Nature, we are, in the very process of doing so, acting according to the laws of nature!” Don't you see, that the so-called “laws of nature” are nothing more than a description of how in fact you and other beings do act. They are merely a description of how you act, not a prescription of how you should act, not a power or force which compels or determines your acts. To be valid a law of nature must take into account how in fact you do act, or, if you like, how you choose to act.

MORTAL: So you really claim that I am incapable of determining to act against natural law?

GOD: It is interesting that you have twice now used the phrase “determined to act” instead of “chosen to act.” This identification is quite common. Often one uses the statement “I am determined to do this” synonomously with “I have chosen to do this.” This very psychological identification should reveal that determinism and choice are much closer than they might appear. Of course, you might well say that the doctrine of free will says that it is you who are doing the determining, whereas the doctrine of determinism appears to say that your acts are determined by something apparently outside you. But the confusion is largely caused by your bifurcation of reality into the “you” and the “not you.” Really now, just where do you leave off and the rest of the universe begin? Or where does the rest of the universe leave off and you begin? Once you can see the so-called “you” and the so-called “nature” as a continuous whole, then you can never again be bothered by such questions as whether it is you who are controlling nature or nature who is controlling you. Thus the muddle of free will versus determinism will vanish. If I may use a crude analogy, imagine two bodies moving toward each other by virtue of gravitational attraction. Each body, if sentient, might wonder whether it is he or the other fellow who is exerting the “force.” In a way it is both, in a way it is neither. It is best to say that it is the configuration of the two which is crucial.

MORTAL: You said a short while ago that our whole discussion was based on a monstrous fallacy. You still have not told me what this fallacy is.

GOD: Why, the idea that I could possibly have created you without free will! You acted as if this were a genuine possibility, and wondered why I did not choose it! It never occurred to you that a sentient being without free will is no more conceivable than a physical object which exerts no gravitational attraction. (There is, incidentally, more analogy than you realize between a physical object exerting gravitational attraction and a sentient being exerting free will!) Can you honestly even imagine a conscious being without free will? What on earth could it be like? I think that one thing in your life that has so misled you is your having been told that I gave man the gift of free will. As if I first created man, and then as an afterthought endowed him with the extra property of free will. Maybe you think I have some sort of “paint brush” with which I daub some creatures with free will and not others. No, free will is not an “extra”; it is part and parcel of the very essence of consciousness. A conscious being without free will is simply a metaphysical absurdity.

EDIT: Removed an additional post and condensed into one :thumbsup:

[bito]

WT, I read the entire dialogue between God and Mortal - what seeker has not experienced this mental wrestling match in varying forms and degrees?

Thank you for the Christmas present - I'm passing it on!

:thumbsup:

[scameter]

Very excellent viewpoint Taoist, and one I share, but was too lazy and unskilled to so properly illustrate. :P Thanks. A friend of mine and I once had a discussion about this subject, with him believing free will doesn't exist except for those with power, and me believing free will exists for everyone. But in the end, we came to the point that although totally free will or choice doesn't exist, *decision* does. Although he seemed to just think it was like his original viewpoint anyways, I adapted mine.

[Starry_Canopy]

A hypothesis:

Existence is like a succession of slightly altered scenarios, with an illusion of contiuity as we are not able to perceive the rapidity at which the scenarios dissolve and get re-created. The free will of all the individual possessors of free will in one scenario influences partly how the next scenario gets created. The other inflencers are the 'laws of nature/ creation' and Divine Will.

[scameter]

We can't see it, and yet we can conceive of it. :)

[Starry_Canopy]

Scam,

We can't see it, and yet we can conceive of it. :)

Spiritually advanced people can probably see it happening, too. In Yogi Togananda's autobiography, he says that he saw this phenomenon in a psychic vision when he was awake. The book is "Autobiography of a Yogi".

[Starry_Canopy]

Scam, sorry, that was Yogi Yogananda... a spelling error in my post, that I used to earlier correct by editing. But now, seeing a few posts really incomprehensibly set against editing, I thought I'll post this additional message :)

[bito]

was that the part where his teacher struck him in the chest and all boundaries suddenly disapperared

no boundaries
so
no disappearing

[bito]

till.....

"there's a blaze of light in every word"

[sahyo]

what that referring?

[sahyo]

thanks :)

[sahyo]

"It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah"

[Starry_Canopy]

Psyche

I think that might be the part (where all boundaries disappeared after his Guru tapped him on the chest) or one quite soon after that, when he was alone in a park or on a road or something. But it is, if I remember correctly, somewhere in that earlier series of getting to know that there is something more about existence than he was aware of earlier.