In general, we assume that we have freedom of choice. We work and live where we wish. We choose our mates and our interests freely. However, to a range of authorities from psychologists to scientists to religious figures, this seeming freedom is an illusion.

Scientists classically assume that the world of nature operates according to fixed laws of behavior, adaptation and evolution. Psychologists follow closely behind with suggestions that our choices are genetically and culturally determined. We may think we have free will, they say, but in actuality we are acting according to our instincts, modified by the training of parents and other cultural authority figures and by the propagandizing and marketing forces of our corporations and the mass media.

Religions also tend to deny the existence of free will, sometimes specifically. They tend to describe human beings as too sinful to be able to make skilful choices for themselves. Human beings, they say, only have access to free will in the decision to throw themselves upon the mercy of their Creator. The religious attitude is that the Creator icon, whether that icon is Jesus, Allah or another figure, is humanity’s only hope for salvation.

Both of these models leave the individual human being feeling completely powerless.

When we humans do become aware that there is more to life than the culturally accepted channels of thinking, we start from scratch as to what we really know for sure. We are not questioning things within consensus reality like newspapers being delivered or the electricity being on. We are seeking a new, “outside the box” reality—a new view of the physical and spiritual world in which we live. We come to this
deeper seeking process with empty hands. We lay down those cultural religious and intellectual assumptions we have learned. We begin anew with the basic questions:

What is really true? Who am I? What am I doing here? When an assumption is tested, what solution is found to work?

That realization that we have drunk in a lot of bad information during our childhoods is often our starting point in choosing to accelerate the pace of our spiritual and mental evolution. Before we begin to play the Game of Life, we consciously choose to know the truth for ourselves. We choose to set out upon the Game of Life, which can also be termed the “seeking process” or “seeking the truth.”

We begin to build our own intelligence.

It is tricky to choose to seek the truth, because we have a lower faculty of choice which comes with our great-ape body. That great-ape
body and mind come with a faculty of fake free will. Our biocomputer minds are able to make our choices—but only from a menu known to it! That is the fake part, because we do not know all the options. We are given only the things we have learned in school and church and at our parents’ knees. We know how to live this life on the level of getting by.

When a person delegates to a religion, to science or to cultural norms the power over his personal decisions, he is choosing to play the game, not The Game. A person can thread his way through the maze of dogma and get to the next level from that flat board, but it is harder to play the game when no logical thinking or questioning is allowed. That is the game you choose to play if you do not invoke the free will that comes from a higher source.

Breaking away from religious authority, we take personal responsibility for the process of our spiritual and ethical evolution. Breaking away from the scientific view, we claim to have as much of a higher or heavenly nature in our make-up as we do of the lower or earthly nature which is the study of science and psychology.

When we use this higher faculty of free will, we are moving away from the flat gameboard and are setting up the enhanced Gameboard for a Game of Life. This faculty of free will imports data from our spirit world sources of guidance into our subconscious minds. We call upon that higher faculty of free will as if it were an angel which has dwelt within us but which we have not yet recognized. Only by that
inward reach to the faculty of true freedom of will can we catapult ourselves outside of the box and into a position above the mundane where we can, for the first time, begin to look at the gameboard without getting caught by the muddied emotions of the flat board.



***These words are not my own, they have been copied from a book, but I liked the message as it resonated with me, and I thought I would share***

I think the question is irrelevent when it really comes down to it...free will, non-free will..these are just polarities of human construct..I already know people will dissagree with me, and this has already been discussed in other threads...

The concept of free will is something humans thought up...weather or not you believe in "free will", what does it matter??..what could it possibly change?..things will happen anyway. All of this is only assumption..and that is all we as humans have. Not science, not anything is qualified at this point to answer such questions..questions that, in my opinion, are artifacts of humans very very limited understanding of "reality"..or even themselves for that matter.

That beings said..contemplating over these types of things is interesting nonetheless..and does help us to conceptualize what little we are capable of..our minds have limits..and it's when we hit those that we start to break things up, pit them against each other and scratch our heads in confusion..asking questions that really dont hit the nail..not even close..

I would disagree that it is irrelevant. I would argue that it is the one of the most relevant concepts that we have. It is essential to our nautre to ponder this question. Do I have free will, do my choices ultimately have meaning? Or am I just a pre-programed machine, whether biologically (genes/psychology) or spirtually (destiny)? It is fundamental to our understanding and perception of ourselves.

One of my points in posting this, is that what most people consider free will, is not. It is fake free will, conditioned by institutions, media, corporations and -isms, such that it gives us the illusion of choice. We think we are making choices for ourselves, while not realizing or understanding that we have been programmed to act and behave in certain ways. We allow our Ego's full control, but the Ego is only a tool. The vast majority of people allow the tool to control the tool maker, rather than using the tool to further our understanding and personal development.

Contemplating these concepts is facinating, and for me gives meaning to my life. I never bothered to contemplate the big questions prior to using DMT/Ayahuasa. Even if we are nothing more than meaningless collections of atoms, what better way could one spend thier time and intellect than pursuing the questions of: Who am I? What am I doing here? What is really true?

In the end we know nothing, and that realization opens up the whole of existence for our contemplation and exploration. I like scratching my head...it feels good!

Yes I find it facinating as well..I spend a while a college studying religous anthropology and philosophy becasue I have alwasy been drawn to these types of things..but still...I think that it is a product of a dualistic mind..left brain vs right brain..

It's the ego that continuousily tries to rationalize..picking things apart until it finds polarity, free-will vs non-free will, black vs white, light vs dark, right vs wrong etc...of course ther is polarity..but joining that there is also unitiy.

I think that all we can really know objectivily is that things just are...

Why does it really have to be free will or fake free will?? Why only one or the other?? Why not something else completely differnt incomprehenciple to the current mode of human conception?? Things do in fact usually turn out to be stranger than we could possibly assume...

What I am trying to say is so damn hard to english...it just doesnt seem possible to language it..language itself is a collapse into rationalization..

If you say that we only have "fake free will"..what does that even mean? Free will is a notion humans made up..so of course it's fake.. I just dont understand the term "fake free will"..if it's fake than free will as a term is fake..just something made up that is not real..which is in part what you are saying, I know.. but you might as well discard the whole notion of free will altogether and find a differnt term that does not imply such polarities..that would be true progress..and yes I know contemplation over such things would be what brought us there..like I said in the last paragraph of my post..these sorts of discussions are imperative to our advancement..but dont expect any sort of easy answer..or any answer at all ofr that matter..all that comes is more perplexion..more confusion, and then a higher level of questions..

Do you believe you are just a pre-programmed machine??..and if so..so what? What would you do then?? Things still are there to be done all the same..and without you (or I or anyone else here) those things wont happen..Our entire lives are lived in a plight agains't entropy..everything is gained..nothing is free..not even will.. there is no free will..just will. That is why I say that the topic of "free will" vs "fake free will" is in the end irrelevent..but only in the end..everything serves some purpose, everything brings us somewhere..no matter where that "where" is. That's just will, and everything has it.

[quote=SaidinContemplating these concepts is facinating, and for me gives meaning to my life. I never bothered to contemplate the big questions prior to using DMT/Ayahuasa. Even if we are nothing more than meaningless collections of atoms, what better way could one spend thier time and intellect than pursuing the questions of: Who am I? What am I doing here? What is really true.[/quote]

Yes. I agree with that completely.

I do understand what you are saying about culture and society etc..we are programmed that way from birth..all culture is like that I think, it's just sad that our society is so sick and demented..also why I thank god(yes I do belive is some sort of god, though unlanguagable) every day for psychedelics..

I do believe that we have 'free will' (some more than others!), depending on your definition of free will of course. I see free will as simply being autonomous in one's decision making. Yes we are generally follow our instincts, and most people also act how they are expected to act by society or acquaintances. Most of all, we follow the mental image of ourselves that we have formed over our lifetime, a vision that has been formed by all our past experiences. Our personal worldviews govern our actions too.

But when we act predictably, we CHOOSE to follow our instincts, and we CHOOSE to act as expected. We constructed our self-images and worldviews ourselves too. This does not mean that we don't have free will, it just means that we choose to act predictably. Which isn't surprising at all because the predictable choice is the one you would expect someone to make!

Because yes, we are probably each reasonably predictable in terms of probabilities, if someone were to have enough time and knowhow to go about predicting our actions.

But people can defy their insticts sometimes, even to the point of masochistic perversion. People can defy society, their loved ones. People can change their worldviews. People can even change their self-image, although this is the hardest change to make (psychedelics and psychology help!). Not every choice is the most genetically advantageous, or the most socially acceptable. People do make choices which are not currently predictable, and I expect never will be.

Obviously this is impossible, but let's imagine you had a complex computer just like a human mind, and perfectly fed in all a person's past perceptions and experiences etc, and perfectly fed in all their present sensory input, then used it to predict their actions perfectly in realtime. What would you have? You would just have another person, exactly the same as them, more than a clone but a carbon copy living the same life as they are, completely unaware that they were a copy... but what would it matter that they were? The result would be the same for them. They would be a carbon copy with free will just like the original. This computer is a 'person'. We are 'computers'. The copy would only stop having free will if you as an external entity started manipulating it to do your own will. And even the minutest change in the data stream between the original and the copy occurred, a split second delay perhaps, the butterfly effect could occur and the two entities would be living different lives forevermore. Conversely, the effect could sometimes be inconsequential and the two would continue their identical lives after the brief discrepancy.

'Free will' is not just a synonym for 'unpredictable'. The fact that we are predictable, which is so often used to argue against free will, proves nothing.

I agree that the concept of free will shouldn't be taken too literally. We all choose our lives... to varying degrees. I am a big fan of Sartre, and I believe the concept of free will is a very empowering one. The waiter is not a waiter because society made him be one, he is a waiter because he chose to do what society expected of him. At any moment he could snap out of his conditioning and run off to take his chances elsewhere, if only he chose to do so. People make such choices all the time.

Yes we ARE all organic machines, and we are all usually quite predictable, but why would that make us any less special anyway? It doesn't. It is currently believed that we are roughly 50/50 nature and nurture. Children are believed to be 40/60 and adults 60/40, so conditioning has more effect on children than adults, who are governed a little more by their genes. These ratios are of course disputed. But even if we are following our instincts, aren't we still acting with free will because our genes ARE US anyway? Our genes are not an external entity. Perhaps they are akin to code in a program, but the program is one that make autonomous choices... a 'free will program'!

Magazines like New Scientist like challenging the idea of free will because it's a good headline grabber and controvertial. But challenging the concept of free will is nothing new, there have always been those for and those against the idea.

A google search yields much on the idea of free will, eg:
http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/V014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

Is it a product of the dualistic mind? Which side is right brained and which left brained? I think that is too simplistic a definition of the dichotomy I am speaking of.

I say that our existence is actually a combination of both concepts. It is up to the individual to understand and control which perception dominates their experience. If you do not think critically, logically then you are being controled by fake free will. You are just playing out the program that your experience has determined for you. You give in to fear, let anger control you, you believe whatever the internet tells you, you go along with the ideas of your political party, you don't question any of the pre-concieved notions that you have. You are just playing the game of life on auto-pilot, a purely deterministic atomaton. That is fake free will, it is the illusion of choice.

Free Will on the other hand, is breaking out of this mold. When you experience fear, you stop and think about why you are feeling fear, you examine it critically, and can then act more appropiately. Of course there are instances when delaying a fear reaction can be detrimental to you, but that is just one example. What about anger, do you let your anger control you, playing out the programs that have been layered one upon another your whole life by experiences and outside influences, or do you stop and think about why you are angry, and what possible meaning that emotion has for you in that moment. If you stop and think, you realize that that anger is just a automatic reaction to a situation, and that in every case one is better served by understanding the reaction rather than acting upon it.

While the notion of this dualistic nature is implied, I would say that it is in itself an illusion. Our lives are in a constant flux of free will/fake free will. Most people go though life being dominated by the fake side of the equation and are those who are slaves to their Ego's. It is a zero sum game, but the trick is to understand the game, gain more control of the Ego, and thus let in more free will into the equation. 100% free will is not possible in my opinion, we need both in our lives. Having total free will would require too many decisions to be made at every point in life and no one would get anything done. We need that auto-pilot, but we also need to know when to turn it off.

I believe that in many ways I am a pre-programmed machine. I act out in ways that I have been taught by my schooling, parents, relationships, media, corporations, and -isms. But I realize and understand that I am just acting out a script when I do this. When I can step back and realize what I am doing, what the true motivations for my actions are, and then either come to the same or a different conclusion, then I am truly free, as I have control of my life, it is not controlling me.

I'm just reading the Wiki now. Your idea of free will vs fake free will sounds like this:

This is how I define 'free will':
It seems like a lot of argument on free will is just people arguing because they define free will differently.

Ahh, but you are missing a point here. When we act predictably, are we really CHOOSING to follow our instincts, or are we just acting instinctually? There is a difference. Going with ones instincts, without consciously choosing to do so is following the programming and is fake free will as proposed in my argument. If somoene expects something of you, or you expect it of yourself and do that action without consciously realizing, "This is what society/my experience says I'm to do, I understand that, and am going to do it" then you are not choosing, you are playing out a program. Letting your instincts control you without critical thinking is letting your Ego have full control, you are on 100% auto-pilot. This is not always a bad thing, and is necessary for our survival at times.

What is defying society, what is defying their loved ones? This is too broad a statement to be incorporated into this argument. One could be choosing a different mode of behavior consciously, or one could be playing out a program. It depends on the situation. Defying an institution or person is not necessairly an act of free will. What is socially acceptable? That is a program that you have been indoctrinated into. What is genetically advantageous? That is a program dictated by your biology. Breaking down free will into the category of predictablilty/non-predictability (socially or biologically) does not imply fake/free will. We can act unpredictably (by some external judgement) and still not have control of ourselves and our actions.

Masochistic perversion is a value judgement, and is a symptom of programming.

This too is the definition for Free Will I am using as the basis of my argument. If one cannnot postpone a decision long enough to reflect or deliberate upon the consequences of a choice, then they are using fake free will.

Haha sorry if I had explained my post would've been far too long. For example, defying society and parents by choosing to do something they don't want you to do, like drop out, or kill yourself.

I believe we are all computers, running complex programs in our minds, but that is irrelevent to whether we have free will in my eyes, and by the definition we agree on it should be irrelevent in your eyes too.

This is interesting, again from the Wiki:
You could say the same about the actions of animals as you could many of the actions of people. I agree with your main point about people not using 'free will' all the time, i.e. not always thinking before acting. Life would be pretty laborious if we did deliberate in depth before every decision though.

saidin, I personally dont think you quite understood what i was saying..you are still trying to argue that we somehow can have free will...but I say still that the term is just made up..and really makes absolutily no sense...I know this is long but you need to read my whole post or it wont make sense.

I mean, we are bio chemical machines, organic machines...on a physical levgel anyway...you could easiyl say that everything we do is based on chemical laws...Everything.

Can you go without food??No ..why?? becasue thatis a law of nature..it's about entropy. So then people come to the conclusiosn that we are just puppetes to the natural lawas of physics..butthen does physics somehow have free will?? Do these universal laws somehow "choose" to manifest this way or that way?? I would say no(I could be wrong)..even with quantum mechanics, there is no proven improbability..just a complexity of probability we may not yet understand..and so on it goes...one could trace it back and back and still find so cause for free will..everything is guided by something else..just as every generation has a moral obligation to the next generation...

So when you use a term like "fake free will", philisophically, it starts to sound absurd and makes absolutily no sense. That is ALL I am saying..nothing more. You act like I am saying we dont have "free will"..I am not saying that at all. I am only saying that saying we either do or don't, are both irrelevant answers.I belive in something more trancendental than that.. Think of it this way..someone makes a plastic replica of a tree..you could say that there is now something called a "fake tree"..but only because it exists in a state of comparative relevance..the fake tree can be contrasted against a real objective tree, and one could say yes, this is a fake tree.. Not so when it comes to will. There is no evidence of free will..everything you said can still be reduced by known science to bio-chemical activity..everything in the universe seems causative..one thing leads to another. Just try and dispute that. So where does the free will fit in?? Sure, you could close off the parameteres a bit, and say within a givin "space" we have the illusion of free will, and indeed that is what others refer to as "free will"..but when one views the bigger picture it doesnt make sense..and the whole thing becomes irreleveant.

Thinking before acting in no way objectivily proves free will, all it proves is a higher use of the brain. The bains functoning is still based on neuo-electric responces..you see, it goes on and on this way. I lisntened to this discussion over and over again in philosophy classes and there is no answer, becasue when you really think hard and deep enough about it, it statrs to make no sense in asking the question that way. you cannot have "fake free will", becasue there is no evience of "free will"..you can only have "fake" anything, when there is something objectivly real to compare it to.

I am not saying we are mindless drones..just that terms such as "free will" and "fake free will" make no sense. That is The only way that I can see it is that we are fractals of some objective, universal one..everything is..everything. We are all basically little schizophrenic pieces of the "universal mind"(whatever that thing is, i have no reservation on that)..The thing in and of itself is the only thing that may have any sort of objective, guiding force, in my opinion..but still I believe in infinity, so it's less of a line we could trace back and more of a forver recursing spiral..Sure, the thing has will, and as fractals of that thing, so does everything else.Thats why we are here, why anything is here, why anything at all ever happens. Thats what is so dman amazing about it, and what makes it so beautiful, ungly, perfect, unperfect etc etc all at the same time.

I cant stress this enought..that to have a fake anything, you must first prove the objective reality of of something from which you can build that comparison..Like a cars vs fake cars, trees vs fake trees, dogs vs fake dogs etc..

If you are looking for some sort of guiding force..look to love. Love is real, and we all feel it, it is there..wheather constructs of the bio chemical mind or not..it is what unites us..and in return, hate is what seperates us. I feel more confident say that I have love, that it guids me..rather than saying I have "free will" to guide me..and so what is love?? I would say it's unity..which directly relates to the theory that we are all just fractals of this one bigger thing..love is just our word for the uniting force within it..because we are all that thing.

It's like numbers..1 and 2..3 and 4..9 and 10..its all 1's to me. The numbers dont really matter..what matters is the space in between..what binds them..what makes the equations happen..and what is that?? Thats will. Not free or fake..just will.

[quote=Saidin
Ahh, but you are missing a point here. When we act predictably, are we really CHOOSING to follow our instincts, or are we just acting instinctually? There is a difference. Going with ones instincts, without consciously choosing to do so is following the programming and is fake free will as proposed in my argument. If somoene expects something of you, or you expect it of yourself and do that action without consciously realizing, "This is what society/my experience says I'm to do, I understand that, and am going to do it" then you are not choosing, you are playing out a program. Letting your instincts control you without critical thinking is letting your Ego have full control, you are on 100% auto-pilot. This is not always a bad thing, and is necessary for our survival at times.

What is defying society, what is defying their loved ones? This is too broad a statement to be incorporated into this argument. One could be choosing a different mode of behavior consciously, or one could be playing out a program. It depends on the situation. Defying an institution or person is not necessairly an act of free will. What is socially acceptable? That is a program that you have been indoctrinated into. What is genetically advantageous? That is a program dictated by your biology. Breaking down free will into the category of predictablilty/non-predictability (socially or biologically) does not imply fake/free will. We can act unpredictably (by some external judgement) and still not have control of ourselves and our actions.

Masochistic perversion is a value judgement, and is a symptom of programming.[/quote]


This is a perfect exapmle of working within limited parameters...you cannot prove that acting predicatabily is not still a function of neuro-electric phenomenon..It almost sounds like you are somwhow saying that when you act predictabily, that you have now somehow left the confines of the brain..which is just an assumption..and not a very founded one at that.

But still, you have the feeling that you are somehow more in controll now becasue of the fact that you're brain is working at a higher level than a brain that is not thinking predictabily..In my opinion this is just an evolutionary advantage..

It's not that I dont believe in "free will"..But that it's irrelevant..It's that I feel beyond the concept of it now(maybe arrogant but thats how I feel, I have spent the entire 25 years of my life contemplating these things)..which are two completely differnt things in my opinion. Once I finally got beyond the polarities implied in the question, I realized that at that point for me at least it made no sense and became useless, irrelevant..but still, the contemplation over it for so long brought me here, so it served some use..just doesn't any longer. That I found truely humbling..we are stranger than we could possibly know..the utter strangeness of it all, the incomprehensable, unlanguability of the thing is what facinates me these days.

If we in fact do not have free will, then the illusion free will is good enough for me because in no way do I think or feel that any decision I make is predetermined by biology. The argument has no traction. If people's behavior is confined to a list of possibilities written by our genes, then why do people seemingly go against this list? What I mean by that is the only biological purpose of ours is to procreate to ensure the continuation of our genes and in doing so perpetuate the existence of our species. Millions of people go against our ONLY biological purpose by not wanting children, and not having children. So it would seem to me that we do have free will, and are not helpless slaves to our biology.

Oh really??!!! says who?? Can you prove that?? I know that some biologists say that..doesn't mean it's set in stone.

Did you actually read my post?..I never said we are helpless slaves to society..

I tried to make that clear here..this is what I said..
I am not saying we are mindless drones..just that terms such as "free will" and "fake free will" make no sense...

And not having children in our world these days actaully doesn't seem to go against our sopposed only biological purpose..we live in an overpopulated world..having less offspring ensures that we wont procreate to such a rediculous level that we consume the enitre planet becasue of sheer numbers..it couldbe seen as a survival mechanism.

I kinda get the feeling wheni say these things that people just turn to they're emotions and completely disreguard what iamsaying becuase they dont like it. I purposily stated that all I am saying is that the whole discussion becomes irrelevant AT A CERTAIN POINT. I did not say that I dont belive in free will, but that I do discredit the entire discussion of free will vs non free will becasue it does not go far enough. Seems people just want to think they have the answer or something..and from I can tell none of you do..nor do I.

Disciple of Spice..I completely agree with you when you say that arguement has no traction..but then you go on anyway to continue the arguement! Makes no sense!

You say that people go against the possabilites written in our genes..I am curious..are you capable of stating allof those possabilities..I would be very intersted inhearing them if you can..becasue I sure as hell can't..what about all that "junk" DNA?? a far as I know they dont know what all of our genentic possabilities are...

I am not even sure to what things you are referrin to that we are doing that goes against those possabilities..computers??..technology..bio-technologies?? I would state that all of those things are there for our benifit..our future evolution..surely we wont be residing in this current form for the rest of eternity..

Even the things we do with genetic experimentation..things that fuck up our DNA and cause mutation..we learn from those mistakes..or at least I hope to god we will look back one day and know what NOT to do..that in myopinion is completely essential to our survival in an advanced technological society..how can one recongnise the light without first experiencing the dark??

Yes I agree with that. That's where language begins to in-part, fail us miserabily..I wouldnt have it any other way though, because it gives us the sense that we act as individuals.

I understand what you were saying. You were saying that it doesn't make any difference, that we are using human language to try to describe something intangible. You are saying there is just will. You could say that everything we do is based on chemical laws, and there is a certain amount of evidence for that, but it in itself is an unprovable assumption. Chemical reactions in the brain do not by any means provide proof of the nature of consciousness or sentience.

From your description: Will = Consciousness, which I would agree with. Therefore Fake Free Will = Unconsciousness.



Can I go without food? No, I cannot. But there have been cases of people who do not need food. It is not a law of nature. And to make the jump to anthropomorphizing laws of nature is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. I don't see the logical progression of your idea that being puppets to the laws of nature leads to those laws having free will of their own.



Is the idea of conscious action and unconscious action philosophically absurd and lack sense? Is asking the question whether we have control over our actions or not irrelevant?



I agree with you here. I believe that we are fractals of some objective (I would use the term subjective) universal force. Everything is. Thus being individuated fractals of that "universal mind" which in and of itself may have some sort of will (the ultimate free will in my opinion), we are endowed with the same properties of that force, as is the nature of fractals. That force is Infinite and is Intelligent in my opinion. That which is infinite cannot be many, for many-ness is a finite concept. To have infinity you must identify or define the infinity as unity; otherwise the term does not have any referant or meaning. True free will is a characteristic stemming from Intelligent Infinity. It is the principle by which Intelligent Infinity chooses to know itself. It generates the universe in which we live, and endows each of us with that same faculty.



I am not looking for a guiding force, in my opinion it is unnecssary for our understanding of existence, or to lead a fruitful meaningful life. But if I were to name a guiding force, I too would look to love. For me that is the answer to two of the questions I posed earlier, namely: Who am I? What am I doing here? I am a product of love, both human and divine. I am here to learn about love. I feel it, deeply. Love is what brings us together, fear is what separates us. I am by no means saying that free will is a guide, but rather it is an inherent property of existence, it is a natural law. It is what gives us the choice to love, or to fear. To be unified or separate. To be in cooperation or competition. Those are our choices at the most fundamental level. Free will is our ability to choose whether it be consciously (true) or unconsciously (fake).

I agree with what you are saying..personally I feel that we are on the same page..like i said, it's hard for me to put this into words..so I know some of what i say is inadequate at descibing it...I agree with alot of you're crtique on the way I chose to word things..

Discussions like this are good, becasue it helps us get to the meat of the thing, and find common ground. It's when we let our emotions take over and get cought up in argueing that we get nowhere..

I guess somewhere along the way I began to view spirit and matter as basically one and the same...that is why I say that untimatily I view the this vs that syndrom as irrelevent..but only untimatily..ona subjective level it is obviiousily necessary..

Someone once told me that they believed that the real way was to take the path of the least ammount of friction..and i spent alot of time thinking about that..I even took a high dose of psilocybin to try and figure it out..and what came to me dirring that trip is that without any friction at all, we would never progress...we would have nothing to push us..but it's imperative NOT to get caught up in the things causing the friction..but to observe the space in-between the things causing that friction..becasue that is where the real meat of the thing lies..in that inbetween state. Only when we observe what happens in that space in-between the things conflicting, do we really get a sense of a full picture..and then we grow. new base line realities, or viewpoints, worldviews etc are able to be expressed..and it is from that vantage point that new ideas and concepts come into play..

Once I saw that I decided that duality, pitting things agaisnt each other is necessary..but also that it is in that in-between place where the real heart of the thing lies..that is the only reason I chose to say that the discussion BECOMES irrelevant..but we have to first reash that point..

I dunno what else to say..perhaps that makes me a trancendentalist?

To me, when we have things like points of polarity, these things are only details, a part of the story, but not at all the story in it's entirety.

Nothing is set in stone, I'm only stating my perspective. Yes, I did read your post, and if you noticed in my first post I was not directly responding to any quoted statement you made like I am right now. I was only adding an argument that was not present in your post.




If that is true than people are smarter than I suspect. I don't know anyone personally or am aware of too many people in general besides the followers of eugenics who consciously think before f!cking, "Should I f!ck without a condom? I don't want to have a child by accident and contribute to the overpopulation of this world, do I?" or "Don't get me wrong, Honey! I want to start a family but we can't! We'd be guilty of destroying the world!"



Again, I never claimed anything about your beliefs. I'm sorry you misinterpreted my entire post.



No it makes perfect sense. We're human! We like scratching our heads.



Agreed, I only know some possibilities based on observation of animal behavior, and instinct which makes for a very short list no doubt.



Well put, and wasn't it Mckenna who said this?:"The larger you build the fire the more darkness is exposed"? Or was it Alan Watts?

Ok sorry if my post sounded like I was attacking you, that wasnt my intention..

I agree that people not having childrenmay not be intentional inthat way on a personal level..and for all I know I could be completely wrong..but I will haveto explain this a little bit more..i was sort of vauge..
I think there is a oversall species mind, or morphogenetic field of sorts, and a personal, individual mind..certain things that individuals do, like having less children, right now anyways is of great benifit to the species..so if there is some sort of collective unconciousness, or morphogenetic field..i think that certain aspects of human culture are goverened by that field or overmind, reguardless of how it may seem to single individuals..sort of like a collective instinct.