Free will .......

Well, I don't recall enjoying a discussion as much as this before! Fresco, may I ask, are you a philosophy lecturer? The casualty of causality maybe no surprise to you but I'm still reeling!!! Without causality, is there anything which governs the flux you speak of? Example: I turn my head and see an apple. At that moment, the thing, thinger and perception are simultaneously created to represent the apple. (Created by what?) On the other hand, by turning my head, previous perceptions cease to exist, including the thing and thinger along with it. If the things, thingers and perceptions are constantly changing, what drives the change? If "I" am a collection of interrelated perceptions and those perceptions are in constant flux, what do I even mean by "I?"

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pswfps,

I occasionally admit to being an ex-OU tutor on cognitive psychology courses but my philosophical interests are purely recreational. Smile

As for "causality" I believe it was Hume who started the philosophical demolition job later to be underscored in the sciences by Quantum Mechanics. It would seem that like Newtonan physics which has limited local applications "causality" is fine for predicting limited (linear) systems but cannot be applied in complex (non-linear) systems like "life processes" or sub-atomic interactions. To give just one example, the establishment of "non-locality" in physics has now given an authoritative platform for speculation on the modeling of the possible holistic nature of cognitive processes.
http://www.fdavidpeat.com/bibliography/essays/nat-cog.htm

I have admittedly not answered your questions like "what drives the flux" but by scanning references like the above you may be able to conceive of vantage point in which "the flux" is laid out like some " eternal boundless static landscape"...i.e. "time" is a psychological construct amd more properly is an aspect of "space-time". BTW One solution to your "fragmented "I" is provided by Gurdjieff's "levels of consciousness."

c.i.

I think we have moved on a little from Plato's cave except for the hard-line "naive realists".

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It is very gratifying to see how pswfps and Ashers have grasped Focus's meaning here.

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pswfps wrote:

Thanks Ashers, it's nice to know there's somebody else languishing at my level too!

Very much so! Razz

I've drawn a very specific line between intellectual understanding and some intuitive/experiential realisation of these ideas/problems for the last couple of years so I'm still mixing between having a genuine appreciation of an idea proposed and responding or critiquing an idea using the right terminology etc.

This talk of that which "governs the flux" is actually very similar to what I was trying to grasp when I originally posted, considering the whole as opposed to individual relationships. I'll read that link above over a good cup of tea I think, I may need it.

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Yes, this dualistic perspective is not something that is adequately grasped only intellectually. Intuition is critical since it is non-dualistic and cognition is, almost be definition, dualistic. Mystical understanding is not understanding in the usual sense. I guess it is more like the instantaneous grasping of the point of a subtle joke or the aesthetic value of an abstract painting than figuring out a puzzle.

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JLN emphasizes an important point, that of the ""gestalt" nature of understanding.

I should perhaps have prefaced the above reference a little more with the comment that it can be taken two ways (1) as external evidence for the utility of nondualistic thinking in conventional science or (2) that particular results of such science, like non-locality can be used as metaphors for exploring consciousness. (Above I mentioned the second rather than the first). The "scientific significance" of the non-locality result ( that of the finding of that "spatial separate" particles acted as a single entity) was that it was a response to a challenge by Einstein (et al) regarding the "reality" of nondualistic nature of quantum theory. The Einstein group was obliged to concede but the "understanding" remains elusive amongst many physicists today. A blinkered approach is often the alternative.

Quote:

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.

Richard Feynman.

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You don't have to be a weather man to know which way the wind blows?

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Quote:

that of the finding of that "spatial separate" particles acted as a single entity)

Yes, that's the bit that piqued my interest too... I've been pondering this along with Hume's thoughts and the lack of causality involved in perception.

Firstly, if the universe began as a singularity, does this mean that every quantum event/particle/waveform was at that point in direct interaction with every other? If yes, then it seems reasonable to suppose that this is still the case now, based on the findings of Bohr described in that article. So what I have in my mind now is a singular indivisible universe; one in which all quantum particles/waveforms do not exist and interact with others as discrete well-defined objects in their own right, rather they are all one and inseperable. The universe has become a single indivisible and inscrutible existence in which causality cannot exist since there is only oneness. I can't help but draw parellels with the oneness of thing, thinger and perception we were discussing earlier.

In this universe, we might see that event A is accompanied by event B and think that A was the cause of B. According to Hume, there is no rational reason to arrive at this belief and I'm inclined to agree. Rather we should see event A and B as one event (which would be a different event(s) if A and B were not conjoined) and see no reason to not extend this to the whole universe, seeing it as one indivisible event, undefinable in terms of artificially perceived parts.

What has all this to do with the original question of free-will though? If there is a "will" I suppose we can say that it is free from common "causality." If there is a will, it is the will of the universe and it is as free as the univserse is free to be. I'm not sure that is any real answer to the question though.

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Yes, somewhere much earlier I gave the view that the term "free will" had no deep philosophical connotations. In my opinion it is a "concept" used in relatonship to other concepts like "culpability" and "sin". The fallacy is to attempt to extricate it from "determinism" which itself falls with the fall of "causality". So on the one hand we have performed a "therapeutic exercise", a la Wittgenstein, in the spirit of his aphorism "meaning is use". Yet on the other hand we have touched on the deeper epistemological and ontological implications of nonduality in which questions of "will" dissipate with "the ego".

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I'm thinking of buying this book: "In Search of the Miraculous: The Definitive Exploration of G. I. Gurdjieff's Mystical Thought and Universal View." Anybody here read it? Is it any good or would you recommend another?

Earlier Ashers said

Quote:

Taking this realisation of "things"and "thinger's" though, this dependency, what observations can we make from a position of self transcendence about reality as a whole.

Fresco answered thus:

Quote:

When you say "we" lose "the I" in a transcendental state you forget there is no longer a "we" to lose anything! The experience is deemed to be ineffable

In a transcendental state, accepting that there is no "I", what is there to experience the state? Clearly an "I" is not necessary for such an experience, perhaps explaining subsequent ineffibility. Then again, what experiences any state at all, given that there was never any "I?" Presumably a transcendental experience is not merely a perception in the usual sense?

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pswfps.

You should certainly read "In Search of the Miraculous". Skip the weird cosmology (for now) and concentrate on the psychology. This work was well received by many intellectuals in the 20th century. Answers to questions like "what does the experiencing when the ego is dissipated ?" will be suggested by the text, but you need to bear in mind that the "work" (of self observation) is deemed to be essential rather than a mere intellectual grasp.

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pswfps wrote:

I'm thinking of buying this book: "In Search of the Miraculous: The Definitive Exploration of G. I. Gurdjieff's Mystical Thought and Universal View." Anybody here read it? Is it any good or would you recommend another?

Earlier Ashers said
Quote:
Taking this realisation of "things"and "thinger's" though, this dependency, what observations can we make from a position of self transcendence about reality as a whole.

Fresco answered thus:
Quote:
When you say "we" lose "the I" in a transcendental state you forget there is no longer a "we" to lose anything! The experience is deemed to be ineffable

In a transcendental state, accepting that there is no "I", what is there to experience the state? Clearly an "I" is not necessary for such an experience, perhaps explaining subsequent ineffibility. Then again, what experiences any state at all, given that there was never any "I?" Presumably a transcendental experience is not merely a perception in the usual sense?

Several posts back you were 'thinking about thinking'. One might say you were having a subjective dialogue regarding the transcendental functioning of I, self, ego etc ... where does subjective begin and objective end?

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Gelisgesti,

I do not accept that there was ever any objectivity to begin with. Objectivity is an absolute term and inherantly dualistic. You see, when I think about a previous thought, that thought is considered by a different state of mind, a different set of perceptions, a different "me." So all thought is subjective, having a meaning unique to the mind which exists at any precise moment.

Do you agree; it's all a little disorientating?

<ADDITION>
Perhaps it is this very realisation that is the transcendance of self? Is this what the Buddha was talking about? I feel no mirth because of it. I'm obviously missing the point somewhere. Sad

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pswfps

"I" will miss the point ! Smile

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Hehe, looks like you're not averse to the occasional aphorism too, fresco.

Have been thinking some more. Accepting that the universe is a singular holistic existence, inexplicable in terms of perceived parts I must also accept that there are in fact no distinct parts to begin with. It is an inscrutable whole. If I extend this realisation to the mind then it too cannot be explained in terms of perceived parts, in this case discrete packages of interrelated perceptions. I have been thinking that way for a while now and it is probably wrong, nothing more than a convenient simplification. A collection of perceptions explains the existence of sentience no more than a collection of atoms explains the existence of the universe. The mind too is an inscrutable whole. Therefore, to understand sentience, one must undertsand the whole and not attempt to break it down into artificial pieces. And what can understand the whole if not the whole? Can the whole be self-aware if it does not know itself? Perhaps something outside of the whole sentience trying to undertsand itself, but that would be something outside the perception of said sentience since to perceive it would make it self.

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pswfps

The key issue is the nature of a "satisfactory explanation". In normal usage this is involved with "prediction and control", but in esoteric usage these two ingredients are set aside. I often cite Capra's work "The Web of Life" as indicatng an epistemological shift towards the esoteric.

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pswfps wrote:

Hehe, looks like you're not averse to the occasional aphorism too, fresco.

Have been thinking some more. Accepting that the universe is a singular holistic existence, inexplicable in terms of perceived parts I must also accept that there are in fact no distinct parts to begin with. It is an inscrutable whole. If I extend this realisation to the mind then it too cannot be explained in terms of perceived parts, in this case discrete packages of interrelated perceptions. I have been thinking that way for a while now and it is probably wrong, nothing more than a convenient simplification. A collection of perceptions explains the existence of sentience no more than a collection of atoms explains the existence of the universe. The mind too is an inscrutable whole. Therefore, to understand sentience, one must undertsand the whole and not attempt to break it down into artificial pieces. And what can understand the whole if not the whole? Can the whole be self-aware if it does not know itself? Perhaps something outside of the whole sentience trying to undertsand itself, but that would be something outside the perception of said sentience since to perceive it would make it self.

ahhhhhh sweet resonance Smile

the self/I is the aggregate of the congregate thus making every self/I in existence unique ...... never entirely the same.
Of all the philosophers minds available is there one generally recognized 'model' of thought or theory

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Indeed, fresco, prediction and therefore control are expunged with the fall of causality. On that I think we agree. Do you also agree that the mind is an indivisible whole which cannot be understood by an analysis of perceived parts, ie, perceptions? Would you mind providing a brief summary of Capra's work for us?

Gelisgesti, would you mind providing a brief description of that "generally recognized 'model' of thought" for us here please?

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pswfps,

The reference I usually give to Capra is
http://www.tcd.ie/Physics/news/seminars/Schrodinger/Lecture3.html
but the book (Web of Life) is better.

I don't much use the term "mind" any more and and towards Capra's "system" even though he uses the term "mind" metaphorically in the above reference. Systems cannot be described simply by considering their parts. (See Godels incompleteness theorem) You should note that the difference between the Gurdjieff/Ouspensky approach and that of Capra is in terms of maintaining the "mind concept". Gurdjieff speaks of the "Absolute" which could be constued as either "holistic consciousness" or even "God" whereas Capra leaves the question of whether there is an "Ultimate System" an open one.

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Well, I've gone and done it now; ordered two Capra books and the Gurdjieff "In Search of the Miraculous." I wait with great anticipation.

The situation of understanding thus far:

1) The universe is an indivisable whole in which causaulity is redundant.(Perceived parts are artificial and cannot be used to explain the whole.)
2) Sentience likewise.
3) Concerning sentience; it's perceived universe and self are one.
4) Everything a sentience experiences is self. (fractals spring to mind, specifically Mandelbrot set)
5) There can be no choosing or control excercised by sentience since this relies on causality.
6) Both determinism and free-will have no meaning in this environment.

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Free will .......

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