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Thread: Free Will

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    Default Free Will

    Are we merely a cocktail of chemicals, a linear reactionary process, deterministic in nature. Or is it possible to elevate ourselves above our neurotransmitters, in to a plane of consciousness in which we can choose actions in discordance of biology and encountered circumstance. In this sense does free will exist?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Goose View Post
    Are we merely a cocktail of chemicals, a linear reactionary process, deterministic in nature. Or is it possible to elevate ourselves above our neurotransmitters, in to a plane of consciousness in which we can choose actions in discordance of biology and encountered circumstance. In this sense does free will exist?
    Your question is very Buddhist, even if you are not one. What are we, can we be more than what we appear to be, and is there free will?

    Let me answer it from a Buddhist take, my own not the official version, as I don't know if there is one. We are a set of interdependent processes, that exist because of the underlying causes. These processes are impersonal in nature. We are not entities. That's reality if you dig deep. That should be enough for now.

    Can we be more than what we appear to be? This is the essence of Buddhism, can we transform/elevate consciousness from the illusory to the realm of real? That's the job of the insight meditation, tuning of the very process of perception, switching the mind from thinking to mindfulness, and all the little things that need to be done to get there. Anyhoo, the answer is yes we can, it's a very hard work, but we can.

    Now on to the free will, does it really exist, is it really possible in the end? The answer is yes, and no. Yes, there is always a choice, a possibility to choose one or the other, but what one chooses depends on the state of the mind of the chooser. This may surprise you, but the higher the mind gets elevated the less choice there is as the mind nears singularity. The so called enlightened minds do not have a choice as we normally understand it, as they will always do/choose the optimal action for the time, situation they find themselves in. By optimal I mean the action in agreement with the ultimate laws of reality.

    So, it depends. The less developed the mind, the more choice there appear to be available to it, but the clarity of why is fuzzy. The more advanced the mind is, the less of a choice it has, but the clarity of why is much better.

    One little digression, to a Buddhist, mind and brain are not the same thing, highly interdependent they are but not the same thing.
    A Fanatical Buddhist

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    I would have to yes because life itself is a byproduct of our own subjectivity that defines one's "meaning" in life. The whole basis of our lives manifests throughout the ups and downs in life as well as the emotional state of mind we experience then and now. As well as one's outlook in life will determine how your life will turn out in general. If a person spends their entire lives trying to look for scapegoats in life and not take responsibility for their actions will ultimately end with the person having a "victim" mentality where they think the world owes them something. While in reality, we don't owe the world anything nor does the world owes us; we simply define our lives within the world in accordance to how we choose to live it in general. Whereas, the person who takes responsibility for their actions and live within the world to the best of their ability are content, more "free" and enduring for what life has in store the individual depending on how they choose to live their lives justify those very means.

    In all, you either delude oneself that you have no control in one's life, thus, one perceives they have no "free will" or you live life to the best of your ability whilst defining life the best you can in accordance to how you live your life will have a sense of "free will" in that respect.


    Its up to you to determine if you have "free will" or not in accordance to how you live your life will justify how you experience and perceive the world around you will determine that in the end.

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    Do you have Free Will?

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