Greatly articulated post acacian!

Just to re-iterate:

http://www.geenstijl.nl/.../images/suicide_note.pdf

This is interesting also.. on human suffering, God, and life.

http://www.hebrew4christ...ology_of_suffering.html

The question remains tabled, I wonder if an argument for or again'st God could ever get any further than simple.. being... grounded in this as we all are.

If there is no God then what made the stars.. could they have just happened, are they independent of some God, as we are?

Life is so large.. I just don't know.


It's just a dream... running a mathematical equation that keeps me asleep, others working. One day they might figure it out.

I don't know. Would you rather have a world without suffering, but also without free-will? Free-will inevitably means having acces to the possibility of suffering.

Anyway...i find the notion of there being a god who created everything realy weird. But then again, i find the notion of the universe and everything in it, spontaneously popping up out of nowhere equally weird.

Deep down i think i do believe there is a god, but i'm also very much a sceptic. So i'm very sceptical toward my own beliefs.

As far as i know, i'm the only who's both a believer as well as a sceptic. But i think it would be very strange if that would realy be the case. It would mean that everybody else, whether believer or sceptic, never has any doubts on such untangible things like the concept of 'god'.

I'm thinking along your lines these days. I was raised a Christian so I know I'm colored by this. I love Buddhist views also. Gives it all a new shade, I think it's true that we shine from the inside out.

Spirit.. we have that, or it seems to me. Whats behind it all.. wish I knew without a doubt.

I have my personal views and it's best perhaps I just keep it that way unless you truly need to know. And I like it this way, people can think what they want. We are free in some ways...

I'm kinda new to these threads.. I should say Hi. Been hanging around the edges..

Given that free-will seems more like a very convicing illusion rather than anything that exists independently, I think the most sensible interpretation is that we have free will and that life is inherently full of suffering.

Blessings
~ND

I don't know if free will can be dismissed that easily. There have been some studies that have shown that individuals who're being told that free-will is an illusion, act differently than individuals who haven't been told that it's an illusion.

My guess is that the experience of free-will therefore, pre-determined by neural processes or not, plays a crucial and decisive role in decission making.

I don't know if that would make free-will an illusion or not, even if the outcome of the neural processes would be 100% predictable. I guess it comes down to how you define the term free-will.

I don't see how that's evidence against free will. If our behaviors are outputs determined by specific inputs, then two different cases of inputs (being told free will is real vs. being told it's an illusion) could produce distinct outputs.

Blessings
~ND

Hey Dragonrider if you want to debate freewill it would be an idea to resurrect illusion of freewill thread. At a marathon 10 pages long it is currently neck and neck with another philosophical behemoth of a thread "Joe Rogan good or bad"

No, not against fee will. Evidence in favor of there being such a thing as free will.

The significance is that the relation between inputs and outputs is not random. If people are being told that free will does not exist, they tend to behave less morally. They more easily lie or cheat when they're given the chance.
This is a very specific relation between inputs and outputs.

If people would be told that sand contains silocon they might behave differently as well, as when they would be told that sand does not contain silicon. But you would not expect such a specific relation between inputs and outputs. Probably not even a relation that is consistent among different individuals.

The relation does seem to realy have a lot to do with the phenomenological quality of the experience of free will. And with the social function of the concept as well.

So that's why i think that, although the whole neural processing may be completely predictable (theoretically, for now), the experience of free will itself actually has a function, and a decisive impact on the proces of decission making. Or maybe i should say, the neural processes that are involved in experiencing free will.

The question is if, when this intuïtion would be correct, that would mean that free will is real or not. The concept of free-will in the religious sense would ofcourse be a false one. But the religious concept of free will is a bit of a contradiction, so even without neuro-science, it would not hold. Free will as a phenomenological concept would still be valid though. Even objectively, because we experience that our counscious experience of free will affects our choices, and in this view it does.

That there probably is a whole deterministic machinery going on behind all of this, is irrelevant from that perspective.

If a person should have say altruistic motives, what drives that. A need to look and feel a certain way or what is it? There could be many reasons, social, economical, religious, whatever.. is there not a process that emerges from the "individuals" developed heart awareness? And even that could be a lure that bends the will this way or that.

Are we individually defined and is that even possible?

Is every event of our lives predetermined some how and our paths just cause and effect? If so then we are not free at all, I could see that this is just another one of these mental gyrations that truly can not be answered or proven this way or that.

I feel like I have free will and that feeling has a huge impact on what I do. It can be reduced to a very mechanistic system, what can I say.

I love you.. in fact or in theory, all dependent on my next move. Is it mine?

I have self awareness, does that give me some leverage?

What about a person with a repentant heart.. is there not a thing that could be said for this sorrow and what personally drives that.

Is that mechanistic in nature.. or a feeling that is only understood by the individuals free willed heart.

I like your point and understand it.

But, what are the missing variables that we yearn after?

meaning? purpose? unity? ecstasy?

Also, if dick thinks x=god=meaning then that would not be the same for harry who thinks x=god=purpose. God's existence could validate purpose and not meaning or meaning but not purpose.

I agree, but we need something to explain the enormity of the syncronicities that occur to us on a daily basis. Without a doubt things are connected to something deeper than we see, causally that is. Unless you want to blame it all on the aliens

"The subject on which I meditate is nothing. because they don't meditate on anything
The practice to which I devote myself is the nothing
The topic of my conversation is nothing because there is no conversation
My thoughts are always nothing because they have no thoughts
For lo! my self has become the nothing"

but nothing comes from nothing...

Benzo or atypical anti-psychotic?

The master is pointing out the absurdity of the minds apparent non-existence by giving an analogy of his tongue not existing. Because it seems like the mind/tongue exist, but it doesn't.

I liken rationality or reason to a box we are all caged in and there really is no escaping it, we can make the room larger or smaller. Once you are free from it though you see how ridiculous it is that we strive for meaning in that box because it can never be.

There is no proof or reason to believe it will remain that way though. I may wake up tomorrow and suddenly fathom it's limits, measurements, form and utter it's name.



circular reasoning



I agree. The mind has gaps in it's understand of existence and therefor the complete picture represents itself to us as unrectifiable "paradoxes".

Indeed

Any argument against God would need to prove there is no God. Maybe it's the wrong question or should not be asked.

Perhaps that's why the Buddha was silent about God?



When you lust for it you lose it.
You cannot take hold of it, but equally you cannot get rid of it.

And while you can do neither, it goes on it's way...

Remain silent it speaks.
You speak and its dumb.
The great gate of charity is wide open, with no obstacles before it.

Yung-chia Ta-shih.