Nature might actually be truly random. If so then even ‘our personal choices’ would reflect this random nature. The illusion might be to think that our choices are not-random. The illusion might be to think that by choosing we actively shape and direct (only) a personal life.

From this perspective we do have a free will because we express the free will of nature.
Free = random, will=flow/flux. In this case we have a free will which is not personal, yet it is.

I think therefore I am. But this does not mean I am not part of something bigger too.

Anyways, im still puzzling : )

What about Chokmah? Where are the Kabbalists? (Can't seem to find some interesting texts I had saved at the moment. ) This thread needs an esoteric twist!

But, seriously (and I'd love to hear both sides of the interpretation, if you can elucidate): for example, much of what I did in life before I began my work with entheogens has been UNCONSCIOUS. Slowly, as I became conscious of these patterns--behavioral, linguistic, mental, emotional--I suddenly had an ability to CHOOSE whether or not I wanted to keep the pattern, choose whether or not it served me, or, if it was something useless implanted by experiences that would be better off purged.

Words are not yet quite with me this morning, but do you understand what I mean? How can something like that be dissected by various free will arguments?

What about people who can take that a step further, and do things like those monks who consciously alter brain wave patterns in conversation? choose to alter body temperature in meditation? etc.

Cheers.

"Slowly, as I became conscious of these patterns--behavioral, linguistic, mental, emotional--I suddenly had an ability to CHOOSE whether or not I wanted to keep the pattern, choose whether or not it served me, or, if it was something useless implanted by experiences that would be better off purged."

How can you be sure your not now just running an upgraded, more sophisticated program, that is more intricate in it's ability to identify the patterns..but still has a pattern within itself?

Interesing how in the old Norse mythology there is no "future"..there is "wyrd"(that which has come to pass, or fate)..there is "verdandi"(what is in the process of happening)..and "skuld"(debt or guild, or to owe)..these 3 make up what is known as the "3 norns"

"Between themselves, the Norns weave fate or ørlǫg (from ór "out, from, beyond" and lǫg "law", and may be interpreted literally as "beyond law" ). According to Voluspa 20, the three Norns "set up the laws", "decided on the lives of the children of time" and "promulgate their ørlǫg". Frigg, on the other hand, while she "knows all ørlǫg", "says it not herself" (Lokasenna 30). ørlǫglausa "ørlǫg-less" occurs in Voluspa 17 in reference to trees (as opposed to humans)"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyrd

For lunch, I have the choice between rice and pasta. I enjoy both equally.
I had rice yesterday, so for sake of variety, I am leaning towards pasta. The sauce and noodles are already made and will be ready to eat right now. Rice sounds really good though. Never mind that I will have to prepare it and wait for around and hour for it to be ready to eat, I really want some rice today.

Now, this might not truly be a free choice. Any number of external factors or chemical reactions in my brain could be guiding me to take the "harder" path. The number of factors can be considered infinite for the sake of my very finite brain. I cannot even begin to comprehend the vastness of the factors influencing my every decision.

So does free will exist? Maybe not, but for all practical purposes, I can live my life believing it does. My choices will be the same, and I will live with the consequences either way.

Perhaps the very belief that free exists can itself add another variable to the deterministic equation.

I would like to explore that more. Can one randomly "choose" to upgrade, however?

well this is like the dicotemy between chaos and order...does all chaos have some sort of order behind it?..if not..then the chaos derives from what, or where?..randomness is a huge part of chaos theory, and chaos magic..at some point it seems apparent that everything ordered aboutthe universe, all the laws etc could very well be a random preset it collapsed into..but if everything is coupled at the subjective level, mirroring its opposite, what does that mean about this dicotemy?..can you ever have chaos without order..order without chaos..

What the hell the idea of paradox implies is probabily the biggest question man can ponder.

Interesting thoughts, everyone.

I drank some Ayahuasca last night. She greeted me, snickering, and whispered in my ear, "There is no such thing as free will. All primates are mind-controlled by plants!"

There you have it! Whew. Glad I don't have to ponder THIS anymore.

Not so fast! Now we have to ask if plants have free will.

"free will"..it isnt anything..it makes no sense to say that it is real, and also makes no sense to sa it's not real..we are part of a larger system..

Can you survive without food?..or water?..how about no oxygen?..can you choose wheather you are homesexual or heterosexusal?..or both?..

I have tried tosay tis soooooooooooooooooooooooo many times here before..that to even ask this question reguarding "free will" is missing a more fundamental realization..there is something beyond teh free will/non-free will debate..

Ive had this conversation with a few people out in the world that get uncomfortable and uptight with the idea of the whole question becomming actaully irrelevant at a certain level..and really that just tells me more about where they are at and where they're personal hang ups are than anything else..they always want to think they are in controll becasuethey are controll freaks..I notice that these people tend to have the need for an explanation for everything as well otherwise they feel insecure..

if you say that you have "free will", than I would go so far as to say outright that you simply cannot follow any paradigm of ecological interconnectedness such as the gaian hypothesis..since free will and that level of intimate interconnectedness with nature are not congruent philosophies..

I get food from the forest, and from the rivers and ocean..I get water from a spring..I NEED all of this to survive..in that sense it's as if the forests, rivers, ocean etc..all become an extension of that which I am..they are all a part of me at some point..and this is the fundamental misundrstanding modern society has taken on..they believe in free will so much that they have concluded they are 100% independant and are NOT so intimately connected with they're "natural" surroundings..in that sense we collectivly decided to cut off our own limbs..and "free will" equates to a slow suicide..

We are part of a larger system..a system which contains a will only of its own, collectivly..there is no way around it..we are subjected to the will of the system..to imagine we are outside and somehow free to move beyond the boundries of such a system is a dream..

However..and there is always a however it seems, since if there is no paradox we're not really going deep enough..philisophically there can be the very valid speculation made that what we know as the "laws of physics" that bring about the apparent presets of the system are somewhat akin to the conscious mind..so then one must ask..what lies in the background?..what of the dreaming mind?..if reality is the conscious mind..what of the subconscious mind?..the chaos behind the order??

If one really can "hack" reality, thats where it must go down..this is what magic is about..

Ever wonder about syncronicity? Here alone we seem to find great paradox...most will attest to the fact that it doesnt arise until one begins to delve into the realms of the subconscious mind..as one becomes the self appointed navigator of the dream, explorer of the great chaos, one begins to realize order of an unparralled, nearly "supernatural" magnitude..

"Free will"..for it to gain any validity in realiy it MUST imply chaos..chaos only exists within the mind of the dreamer..yet the dream is not be cast aside as an invald raving of the irrational madman, yet not tangible enough to be accuratily measured..

Does it make sense to have an ultimate seperation between s state of chaos and a state of order?

Is there a point at which the philosopher simply cant ask the question reguarding "free will"..not because they have exhausted all mental facilties..but becasue a question formulated as such looses relevance?

Yes.

I don’t phrase it as you do, but I think we are referring to the same thing. The universe, the multiverse, the “all”, whatever you want to call it, is continually growing, expanding, unfolding, revealing itself to itself, and following it’s own “rules” for this unfolding. And that’s what it’s all about.

I'm going to throw a party the day the whole "separation between observer and observed" paradigm finally bites the dust, that much is certain.

It's funny, I used to feel completely threatened by the idea of "not being control of my life," but I think it's pretty clear that ultimately, I'm not, anyway, so... might as well sit back and enjoy the ride!

I think someone said it here, "Those who seek to control the most are the most out of control."

Pattern recognition: as I upgrade myself (or am upgraded? uhh?), I recognize myself more and more AS the universe?

I think alot of people find empowerment inthe idea of free will..and I also think that that is essential, just as asking the question about free will i valid and essentail, but only at a certain point..

The next stage is when you realize that accepting the fact that you are really subject to the will of the system, and I think that is much more empowering than simply wanting to believe in free will..

Then there is a point where you realize that, while you are part of the system and "free will" the way it is sold to us, doesnt quite make sense..you can still put on that costume when necessary..and sort of play the role of the unconscious dreamer, cocreating reality as you go along, AS LONG as you realize that thatis what you are doing-roleplaying..in that way the line between chaos and order is blurred, and through the suspence of any untimate belief you can play the role of "magician"..

The conscious suspension of belief at "will" is how the magician becomes seperate from the fool..who simply walks off the same cliff twice(I heard someone describe it that way once in reference to the tarot), never looking up to acknowledge, to learn the nature of gravity..the magician collects many masks that they can choose to wear or discard, and is always open to finding new ones..

Belief when taken as a literal ultimatum is limiting..belief is a tool..a tool you choos to take out when it's useful to do so..you dont use a hammer to chop a 2x4 in half..the more beliefs at your disposal, the more tools in your toolbelt as you learn to co-create in the play we call life..

^and even that should not be taken literally at all..nothing more than a metaphorical analogy spewed out from the mind of a dreamer..

The only being with free will is a being that requires nothing to survive.

Our consciousness is influenced by our body through the acts of breathing, eating, and living (using 5 senses).
If one were to find out how to survive without any inputs, they could truly exhibit free will.

Imagine we are all beings of pure consciousness (energy) and matter is a simply energy vibrating to the point where it appears to be solid. Therefore our finger still contains the same original piece of ourselves (consciousness) and could theoretically influence the surrounding environment.

Now take a plant leaf (appendage or organ) or a seed (sexual reproductive organ) and ingest that. Is it possible that plant's consciousness is now affecting your own? While the degree of affect may not be readily perceivable, it is still there.

But do you really believe that?
Did that being get to choose to not require anything for survival?..what if they want to have the ability to eat and drink and experience those pleasures?..

Then they incarnate on a physically dense world like our own with a portion of their consciousness. Not needing to eat and drink but freely choosing to expeirence those unnecessary pleasures.

Does the system have free will to another limited and illusory extent?

(Props on the tarot, Fractal. )

I think the whole free will discussion is based on illusion. This is true as well for those who believe in free will and those who don't.

There is no total freedom in the sense of there literally being no limits at all. Everything is limited to some extent wch means that those with very fundamentalistic views on free will are by definition holding on to something illusory, even if they would be right in essence after all.

But the fact that something is deterministic to a certain degree also doesn't proof anything. It certainly doesn't need to proof that the whole construction is deterministic.

I think that at first the concept of free will is part of our neural program. If the brain is a computer, than the idea of having a free will is part of it's software.

I think that the illusion of having a free will is actually a nessecary part of the whole machinery, it has a purpose. The purpose of it could be to unite several independantly running programs, simply because free will is the simplest concept that could unify multiple layers of complex decission-making processes. A bit like we have one visual field while we have a multitude of visual systems and it's just so much more practical to unite them all in one visual field and one picture at the time. But to unite them all you need to have a new concept, a new sort of program to run all these aplications together without it becoming a chaos.

But if the concept of free will would be part of a whole machinery with deterministic traits, that would still not proof that free will doesn't exist.
It could be that the simulation ran, is actually a bit more complex than we think. What if part of it's functioning could actually deeply influence all it's contstituting parts wich on their turn influence the functioning of the free will program again? and if the system would in that manner contain an almost endless degree of 'feedback-loops', then to say whether free will exists or not would greatly depend on from wich angle you're looking at the system, or more precisely: where you draw the lines where the free-will program ends and the rest of the system begins.
If you would want to analyse how the system works you would have to draw the lines somewhere and when the system is 'contained' in your model it will show to actively influence the other systems processes, like it's supposed to.
Saying the system isn't 'free' because you can locate some parts of it on a brain scan doesn't work. Those parts may very well be exactly the constituents of that 'freedom-function'.

Our personal free will is part of the free will (flow) of all there is. Free will is an illusion in so far it seems (only) personal. And it is free in so far it is random.

How is this useful?

Well, once you take it this way you are saved from nihilism (and the 'leaf in the wind syndrome' ; )
And you are now ready to enter the world of magic..

(Im recystallizing some thoughts before trying new perspectives )

The only alternative to determinism is randomness (can you think of any others?). It’s obvious that a deterministic universe precludes the possibility of free will. But how does randomness allow it? How do you define free will?

I originally equated “will” with making choices, and showed that all choices satisfy a logical tautology in that they are either made for a reason (deterministic) or not made for a reason (random). So where’s free will in choice-making?

There is ultimately no free will, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make choices. We DO make choices all the time, we weigh the pros and cons, we apply problem-solving skills, we consider our emotional response to imagined outcomes, etc. But all of this is ultimately a bunch of sub-atomic particles obeying the laws of physics. Isn’t it?