What is freewill?

Very good, Fresco.

Vikorr, you say that you "don't feel the need to establish the existence of "I". Of course not, the problem throughout the ages in India and among Buddhist countries has been how to establish the non-existence of "I". The Buddha considered it the source of suffering (dukkha), the cause of a general malaise acknowledged by western existentialists. When things are going well, when ego feels sufficiently nourished and one's identity is non-problematical, we are content with feeling at the center of the World even though separate from it. When things go badly it's another matter.
And it is not a neurotic condition to feel alienated from Reallty (The World) existentially. Monasteries and meditation centers function to cope with such a feeling of alienation. The so-called orientation known as "nirvana" or "enlightenment" is the elimination of this sense of separateness (a meaning of "re-ligion" is, as I understand it, that it is a means for re-connecting one with The World, or of realizing that one has never really ever been separate--the feeling of "I" is a delusion.

I came across a statement by Nietzsche in The Will To Power that might support this position (next post):

From aphorism 483:
"Through thought the ego is posited; but hitherto one believed as ordinary people do, that in 'I think' there was something of immediate certainty, and that this 'I' was the given CAUSE of thought, from which by analogy we understood all other causal relationships. However habitual and indispensable this fiction may have become by now--that in itself proves nothing against its imaginary origin: a belief can be a condition of life [serve an essential function] and nonetheless be false."

[my addition in brackets]

If you're engaged in a discussion with the non-dualists because they're the only ones who will talk with you, then you're bound to talk about their interests, not yours. But that's your decision. Maybe no one else wants to contribute to yet another thread on free will because that particular horse has been beaten deader than even the dead horse of non-dualism.

Garbage is as garbage does.

Perhaps so, Joe, but don't assume that that principle puts you in a better light than ours.

Oops! I resoved not to respond to your deprecations (don't look it up: put -downs).

Hello Joefromchicago



I find that a poor response Joe. Is there are reason you feel the need to resort to insults? They were, as I said, the only other two contributing to the thread (until you came along of course).



Perhaps you did not read why I was talking to them? I am curious - so it is my interest to hear what they have to say.



There have more than likely been many threads on free will, and I seem to recall the original author stating such. I am quite well aware of that, as seems to be every other person who's contributed. Apart from being able to add in insults about dead horses, what then did you hope to achieve by stating the obvious?

Fresco/JL,

We have a problem in what we are discussing, because I don't see people as entirely separate from each other. We are social creatures, and what others do effects those around them.

If it helps, I believe, on the strength purely of what I have observed in nature (so it may or may not be wrong and it doesnt bother me), that life involves (for want of a better word) spirit, that can be seen when two people are about to walk around a corner into each other, but stop without ever seeing/hearing each other, that identical twins experience even when they aren't in the same room, that very close lovers experience when they ?'know' the other has suddenly died (yet the are nowhere near them), that mobs experience when they rampage, that humans instinctively label ?'that's the spirit' ?'where's the team spirit' etc, that people know when ?'someone is staring daggers in the back of my head' etc etc etc.

Yet while I believe in the interconnected of human beings, I also believe in the awareness of self and the ?'individuality' that springs from that.

So I find myself in many ways ?'almost' agreeing with you, yet entirely disagreeing with much of what you say….seeing from my perspective a lack of balance/truth (again for want of a better word) in what you are saying in regards to concept that your propose re human interconnectedness / self.

Phrased another way, I have found a number of individual ideas you have given sound....but only half the story...which makes them difficult to agree with (again, from my perspective).

As a side note, from my perspective only, neither uou Fresco nor you JL has adequately addressed the ?'route choice' scenario, nor human curiosity (about non survival issues), nor human humour, nor human awareness per se. Perhaps it is in that link Fresco supplied. Forgive me for not looking them up yet, I have about 15 books at home I want to read, another 80 or so at Amazon I want to order, am teaching myself Italian, and still need to do assignments for pay advances with my work…as well as posting here, doing domestic stuff and social stuff etc (which is to say, time is limited for me).

vikorr,

I am encouraged by your interest in "unity of individuals". You will find this is tackled by Maturana (et al) and the "systems theorists". Yes... there is a level that "individuals" could be said to operate but as I think I mentioned before in systems theory blood cells are to individuals as indivisuals are to social groups. In the same way that blood cells cannot be "understood" except with reference to the integrity of the individual's "body", nor can invididuals be "understood" except with reference to their socal organizations (and that reference for humans involves their socially acquired "language" which gives common segmentation of their "world" including that of concepts of "selfhood")

I apologize if this still seems cryptic to you but much energy has already been expended elsewhere on A2K outlining these ideas. JLN tends to offer the intuitive insights of Eastern philosophy in support of "our position" and I tend to offer "scientific trends". If you want a taste of their convergence try the writings of thecelebrated physicist David Bohm under whose influence the article by David Peat was written. A less taxing seminal text is "The Web of Life" by Fritjof Capra. Alas, there is simply no substitute for doing the backround reading as this presents these counter-intuitive ideas in digestible chunks.

Careful, JLN, your hypocrisy is showing.

I have been reading an interesting book by Anthony De Mello called "Awareness".

Now, I didn't come across this book because of the conversation here, but rather because I decided a while back that becoming self aware is necessary for self sustained personal development.

De Mello talked about "I" and "me"...and from that perspective, gave me some idea (I think?) of what you Fresco, were talking about when you said "notice that I is not present" (in relation to the route choice scenario).

Of course, I didn't agree with his analogy - to me the "I" and "me" analogy is useful as a tool to enhance learning/understanding, but is not reality (ie the reality of a person is whole, not split). Actually, I didn't agree with a lot of what he said, but a lot of other things he said were eye openning - like 'we give power to that which we fight' (or words to that effect)...now in many ways I'd had some inkling of this, but I'd never fully grasped the concept before.

Thankfully, he was obviously a man of unusual common sense...he basically said "Don't believe anything I say (find it for yourself)" and "I can't tell you what the truth is"

Those are reputed to be the very (last?) words of the Buddha.