There's a big universe out there... It's ok to recognize that... as long as you can remember I am the center of it....
Bwaaaaaaaaaaa hahaha!
echi wrote:Why must there be any space, at all?
Simply because there is Echi...
Does Einstein's theory of relativity have any relevance here? LOL
hephzibah wrote:echi wrote:Why must there be any space, at all?
Simply because there is Echi...
If you say so, hep... but I'm not convinced.
Just because you can see it with your own eyes, does that make it real?
Hmmmm....
That argument sounds pretty familiar... If it's not tangible, it's not real... If science can't explain it, it must not be real...
We can't see the wind... is IT real?
It isn't an argument. It is only a question.
Why do you believe that you have free will? Is it because you feel it? Is it just obvious to you?
Well, that's just an argument I've heard a lot. Sorry about that...
Anyway, I believe I have free will because I keep
choosing to answer you...
Not that I mind though, but it's a choice none the less. God didn't tell me to do it. Neither did the devil. LOL I don't know that free will can necessarily be "felt". It just is. Just in this conversation we have both taken the time to think about and choose the words we use to answer. No one is sitting whispering the correct answers in our ears. We make the decision based on how we think, feel, or perceive things. Do you know what I mean?
I think I know what you mean. You have the experience of making choices. You believe that you are the one who's creating this. If it isn't you who's making these decisions, then what? It must be as it seems. Otherwise, what are you?
echi, "Reality" is a philosophical question that has many variables, answers, and still more questions.
cicerone imposter wrote:echi, "Reality" is a philosophical question that has many variables, answers, and still more questions.
How can you say, then, that "free will" is really free? That is an assumption about reality.
echi wrote:I think I know what you mean. You have the experience of making choices. You believe that you are the one who's creating this. If it isn't you who's making these decisions, then what? It must be as it seems. Otherwise, what are you?
Hmmmmm...
Well...
Darn you Echi...
I don't believe I'm creating
the experience of making choices. I believe I'm given the experience of making choices. Granted one can make experiences happen through thier choices, however, the fact still remains that the experience is based on the choice that is made. Without choice there is no free will, because that is the ground in which free will is planted.
Some believe it is not a matter of choice, rather a matter of destiny or something along those lines. To say that though would mean one of two things. Either we have NO control at all, and life just happens to us. Or, we have complete control and are a god within ourselves... I don't find either of those theories to hold any validity what so ever.
Echi, could it be that no-one is making those choices, that they are the expression of (competing) drives? I do not believe that there is anyONE who is choosing. I "transcend" the dilemna between free-will and determinism by rejecting the notion of the ego, of an entity within this person who chooses.
Hephzibah says:
" I have free will because I keep choosing to answer you... God didn't tell me to do it. Neither did the devil....No one is sitting whispering the correct answers in our ears. We make the decision based on how we think, feel, or perceive things. Do you know what I mean?"
I think I know--indeed we all know--what she means. I used to feel there was an "I" who made choices. Then for a while I assumed this was an illusion that the feeling of making free choices was "determined", i.e., the end of a causal chain of events.
NOW, I feel that my thoughts and deeds, just like my spontaneous and unconscious feelings, are not the property of an ego; they are literally Cosmic gestures. There is no "I", there is only the conditioned feeling of an "I" (ego or little "person" within me) or agent of "my" thoughts and deeds.
By "Cosmic gestures" I mean that everything I experience or do reflects all the natural forces that have converged to produce the experiences, desires, actions, etc. that seem to characterize "my" reality" right now.
Now this does not involve a metaphyscial determinism, an imprisonment of a "ME", since there is no "me" who exists as a separate entity within, and separate from, the Cosmos. Moreover, the Cosmos is COMPLETELY free in the sense that there is nothing external to it to constrain it (see how demanding is our grammar, not only do I have to use the subject, "I" to describe the predicate "do", I refer to the Cosmos as "it", without having any knowledge of its it-ness or boundaries). I (as well as you) AM the absolutely free Cosmos, therefore I am ULTIMATELY free. My existence is "determined", but it is determined by my true Self.
hephzibah wrote:echi wrote:I think I know what you mean. You have the experience of making choices. You believe that you are the one who's creating this. If it isn't you who's making these decisions, then what? It must be as it seems. Otherwise, what are you?
Hmmmmm...
Well...
Darn you Echi...
I don't believe I'm creating
the experience of making choices. I believe I'm given the experience of making choices. Granted one can make experiences happen through thier choices, however, the fact still remains that the experience is based on the choice that is made. Without choice there is no free will, because that is the ground in which free will is planted.
Yeah, that's what I meant, hep. You make the choices... The decisions you make are your creations.
Quote:Some believe it is not a matter of choice, rather a matter of destiny or something along those lines. To say that though would mean one of two things. Either we have NO control at all, and life just happens to us. Or, we have complete control and are a god within ourselves... I don't find either of those theories to hold any validity what so ever.
Okay... I argue that we have no control, at all. I argue in favor of a completely mechanistic, deterministic reality. Why not?
JL--
I'm gonna have to drink a few beers and respond to you later.
echi wrote:hephzibah wrote:echi wrote:I think I know what you mean. You have the experience of making choices. You believe that you are the one who's creating this. If it isn't you who's making these decisions, then what? It must be as it seems. Otherwise, what are you?
Hmmmmm...
Well...
Darn you Echi...
I don't believe I'm creating
the experience of making choices. I believe I'm given the experience of making choices. Granted one can make experiences happen through thier choices, however, the fact still remains that the experience is based on the choice that is made. Without choice there is no free will, because that is the ground in which free will is planted.
Yeah, that's what I meant, hep. You make the choices... The decisions you make are your creations.
Quote:Some believe it is not a matter of choice, rather a matter of destiny or something along those lines. To say that though would mean one of two things. Either we have NO control at all, and life just happens to us. Or, we have complete control and are a god within ourselves... I don't find either of those theories to hold any validity what so ever.
Okay... I argue that we have no control, at all. I argue in favor of a completely mechanistic, deterministic reality. Why not?
Come on now echi... what exactly are the determining factors in what's happening right now then?
JL... working on reading yours... Whew... you are quiet for awhile and them WHAMO... here ya are again! Good to see ya by the way. :wink:
[IMG]First let me ask you this then... do you BELIEVE we have no control what so ever? Because you can argue it all ya[/IMG]
Echi, who is it that has no control?
Nietzsche--as well as zen Buddhism, as I understand it--argues that our actions reflect drives, and these drives are the "victors" in a complex of competing drives within us. I test this all the time. Pardon my mundane example, but when I am in bed at night and awaken by the drive to urinate, I sometimes have the competing drive of wanting to go back to sleep, not to get up in the cold and go to urinate. I watch my internal process, the competition between drives. Sometimes I "decide" (that is to say my "ego") determines to get up. I tell me left foot to move to the left off the bed, but it doesn't happen. I remain there in my semi-slumber, but with some bladder pain. But it's not enough pain to trump my desire to remain in bed. Then SUDDENLY I jump out of bed and go piss. It's an amazing feeling to realize that "I" made no decision. There was, in effect, no ego involved in the "decision" to get out of bed. The action occured at a less than conscious level of physical drives. I hope this is clear. At least I invite you to conduct the same "experiment".
Sometimes, when the thought to get up and the drive to do it coincide, I have a reinforcement of the illusion that "I" effected the action of getting out of bed to go pee. This is tested and repudiated by the occasions when there is is no such co-incidence.
JLNobody wrote:Echi, could it be that no-one is making those choices, that they are the expression of (competing) drives? I do not believe that there is anyONE who is choosing. I "transcend" the dilemna between free-will and determinism by rejecting the notion of the ego, of an entity within this person who chooses.
Hephzibah says:
" I have free will because I keep choosing to answer you... God didn't tell me to do it. Neither did the devil....No one is sitting whispering the correct answers in our ears. We make the decision based on how we think, feel, or perceive things. Do you know what I mean?"
I think I know--indeed we all know--what she means. I used to feel there was an "I" who made choices. Then for a while I assumed this was an illusion that the feeling of making free choices was "determined", i.e., the end of a causal chain of events.
NOW, I feel that my thoughts and deeds, just like my spontaneous and unconscious feelings, are not the property of an ego; they are literally Cosmic gestures. There is no "I", there is only the conditioned feeling of an "I" (ego or little "person" within me) or agent of "my" thoughts and deeds.
By "Cosmic gestures" I mean that everything I experience or do reflects all the natural forces that have converged to produce the experiences, desires, actions, etc. that seem to characterize "my" reality" right now.
Now this does not involve a metaphyscial determinism, an imprisonment of a "ME", since there is no "me" who exists as a separate entity within, and separate from, the Cosmos. Moreover, the Cosmos is COMPLETELY free in the sense that there is nothing external to it to constrain it (see how demanding is our grammar, not only do I have to use the subject, "I" to describe the predicate "do", I refer to the Cosmos as "it", without having any knowledge of its it-ness or boundaries). I (as well as you) AM the absolutely free Cosmos, therefore I am ULTIMATELY free. My existence is "determined", but it is determined by my true Self.
Wow, JL how did you come to this conclusion?
Quote:Come on now echi... what exactly are the determining factors in what's happening right now then?
How should I know? What's your point?
Well my point is... you are taking the opposite side as me on this... so tell me your story. If we don't chose what happens, something determines it right? Have you ever thought about what it could be that determines what happens if it's not us making choices? I haven't thought too much about to be honest.
Hehehe...
