Determinism, Randomness, and Free Will

[BigMoaner]

To quote Riktam T Tavi, "it's all fun and games until someone loses an 'I'"

I expect these episodes are terrifying, but not everyone whose self falls away goes crazy. Some barely notice and carry on much as before, and what is seen from this perspective is that the self is unnecessary for functioning. At this point, the question of free will becomes moot- whose will exactly?

It’s problematic tho because if the self falls away, there’s someone there to experience it lol. I think a more helpful way to look at the Buddhist idea of no self is to say I am the self but that’s not all I am.

 

[NoXion]

Ego death is overrated. I find it a bit suspicious that it's a difficult state to achieve without either intense meditation(?), extreme emotional/psychological distress, or (the way I've personally experienced it) powerfully psychoactive drugs. It wasn't a bad experience for me, but neither was it good. It just was.

That to me says less "path to enlightenment" and more "neurochemical failure mode".

It seems obvious to me that the ego forms part of what motivates human beings. Nobody is completely selfless, and I think it's a good idea to be suspicious of those who claim that they are.

 

[BigMoaner]

Ego death is overrated. I find it a bit suspicious that it's a difficult state to achieve without either intense meditation(?), extreme emotional/psychological distress, or (the way I've personally experienced it) powerfully psychoactive drugs. It wasn't a bad experience for me, but neither was it good. It just was.

That to me says less "path to enlightenment" and more "neurochemical failure mode".

It seems obvious to me that the ego forms part of what motivates human beings. Nobody is completely selfless, and I think it's a good idea to be suspicious of those who claim that they are.

it's a nonsense.

"(the way I've personally experienced it)"

the only death of the ego possible is the one through actual death.

 

[Pickman's model]

.

 

[NoXion]

it's a nonsense.

"(the way I've personally experienced it)"

the only death of the ego possible is the one through actual death.

I'm not so sure!

Maybe the phenomenon is indeed badly named, or maybe I'm just relaying the sensations recorded by my brain while my ego was shattered. After all, brains can process information from the senses without requiring any ratiocination on the part of the organism concerned. I don't think it's a massive stretch to suppose that the processes underlying our "sense of self" can be temporarily suspended or disrupted.

 

[BigMoaner]

I'm not so sure!

Maybe the phenomenon is indeed badly named, or maybe I'm just relaying the sensations recorded by my brain while my ego was shattered. After all, brains can process information from the senses without requiring any ratiocination on the part of the organism concerned. I don't think it's a massive stretch to suppose that the processes underlying our "sense of self" can be temporarily suspended or disrupted.

i've had many experiences where just awareness is "left" - thought has ceased, the sense of self has ceased. but that awareness is just another mental process, no different from the metnal processes that comprise the ego. Awareness, sensations, thoughts, it's all self/awaremess, sensations, thoughts, it's all not self - the paradox of it all. For me the death of the self would also require death of awareness as awareness is a fundemental part of self. so then the only true option is Death in regards ego death. And a lot would say that that there is no death because you were never born - the problem of "first causes" - we've all been here from the start. We are everythign that has been and will be so how can anythign be born or die within it? groovy man

 

[BigMoaner]

this shit has definitely helped me get over my wife's infidelity that broke (a breaking) marriage. there was no true "decider" - the thoughts were coming to her, rather than she comign to thought as old Heidegger said. It's fundemental. I think this is what old JC meant when he said "forgive them, for they know not what they do." no one anyone knows what is going to happen next, what thought will happen next. Conventionally, in our world of representations, it pays to have justice and retribution - some people need locking up not forgiving (rapists, Johnson, etc), but ultimately letting go of the idea of a thing behind it all allows space for forgiveness. it's sad sometimes what we are, how we bumble through, trying our best and failing. The Fall in a christian sense, always slipping up.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

I say that the concept is ill-defined. More than that, I don't see what free will could be.

I just don't get how you can say, without qualification, that 'the concept is ill-defined'. To make that claim you would have to know every single definition ever offered of free will and have an argument as to why all of them are vague or unclear. So you're aware not only of the broad schools of thought with regard to free will and all the subdivisions within those camps and the minutiae of the technical arguments about free will found in thousands of articles, chapters and books but you also think none of them have succeeded in providing an acceptable definition? You think you have some sort of profound insight on this matter that 100s of people whose full time job is to research and write about this have all somehow missed? Such breathtaking arrogance!

 

[Carl Steele]

when i decide something, giving the impression of free will, the decision comes from nowhere - is as random as a throw of the dice. and in that decision a decider is implied - but really there's no decider. if i suddenly have the thought "go for a bath, it's time for a bath" - that thought has come to me much like a pang of hunger comes to me. and if i then have the thought "no, i will hold off, i can have one tomorrow", that thought also has come from nothing. certainly not a decider.

Heidegger nailed it - "we don't come to thought, thought comes to us".

I don't think this is quite right, although there's some truth to it. When I write a story it feels more like I'm uncovering something that's already there rather than creating. Some poets and songwriters have talked about their supposed creations coming to them from outside. But it doesn't seem to be random. And the idea of the random appearance of thoughts and ideas can't explain the deepening of awareness that comes from experience. Experience teaches us to understand events in different ways. The thoughts that came to me 30 years ago often barely resemble thoughts I experience now. I do think there is a sense in which we choose who we are (to differing degrees at different times) although we don't seem able to change the course of events.

 

[BigMoaner]

I do think there is a sense in which we choose who we are (to differing degrees at different times) although we don't seem able to change the course of events.

I disagree. If i have the thought to be a better/worse person today, where is that thought coming from? a chooser?

if i have the thought to get up and do a poo in the corner, and i then have a thought to not to a poo in the corner, can you see that this is received, always, with no exception, rather than a choosing?

"We dont' come to thought, thought comes to us." it's pretty phrase, sounds good. but to me it is one of the deepest phrases ever written. ever. it captures huge swaths of eastern thought for example in just one sentance. to me it reverses the whole ontological illusion we are taught from birth (probably necessarily so) (i.e. selves doing stuff with wills, deciding, etc).

 

[Carl Steele]

if i have the thought to get up and do a poo in the corner, and i then have a thought to not to a poo in the corner, can you see that this is received, always, with no exception, rather than a choosing?

If you do a poo in the corner and there is an unpleasant consequence (maybe your friends shun you thereafter) it's likely you will not do a poo in the corner (or that corner at least) again. I don't necessarily reject the notion that thoughts come to us but, as I said, the process is not random and the thoughts do change as we change. A world where thoughts just randomly appeared in people's heads would look rather different to the world we inhabit, where so much is predictable.

 

[kabbes]

If you do a poo in the corner and there is an unpleasant consequence (maybe your friends shun you thereafter) it's likely you will not do a poo in the corner (or that corner at least) again. I don't necessarily reject the notion that thoughts come to us but, as I said, the process is not random and the thoughts do change as we change. A world where thoughts just randomly appeared in people's heads would look rather different to the world we inhabit, where so much is predictable.

To be honest, this is where Big Moaner could have done with reading the text I scanned into this thread a few pages ago, rather than not reading it and just dismissing it outright.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If you do a poo in the corner and there is an unpleasant consequence (maybe your friends shun you thereafter) it's likely you will not do a poo in the corner (or that corner at least) again. I don't necessarily reject the notion that thoughts come to us but, as I said, the process is not random and the thoughts do change as we change. A world where thoughts just randomly appeared in people's heads would look rather different to the world we inhabit, where so much is predictable.

Hence our working hypothesis of a doer doing in a world. It's a very effective hypothesis. It allows us to live. But we never have direct access to the decision. We only see the decision after it has been made.

That's not to say that conscious awareness is a passive onlooker, some kind of ontological accident.* The story of us in the world that we tell in our conscious awareness informs everything we do - it is the basis of our memories, perhaps should be looked at as the first layer of memory. It has evolved to allow us to make sense of the world in order to live in it. But there again we're back to the paradoxical position of having to assume that which we cannot access in order to make sense of what we can access. There's no getting around that, I don't think. It's one of the limits to our knowledge.

*This is why I don't think the thought experiments involving zombies make sense. The hypothesised creatures will have conscious awareness. Otherwise, they could not be like we are.

 

[BigMoaner]

If you do a poo in the corner and there is an unpleasant consequence (maybe your friends shun you thereafter) it's likely you will not do a poo in the corner (or that corner at least) again. I don't necessarily reject the notion that thoughts come to us but, as I said, the process is not random and the thoughts do change as we change. A world where thoughts just randomly appeared in people's heads would look rather different to the world we inhabit, where so much is predictable.

i don't disagree - thought is actually pretty confined along certain parameters. but i still would suggest that we are recievers rather than choosers. even the choice and then any counter choice is recieved.

 

[BigMoaner]

and if we our thought processes are determined (which i'm sure they are a lot of the time) by things outside of ourselves, waht is determing them? it's an infinite regress until voided out.

no selfs. no choosers. it's really nothing grand or mystical.

 

[BigMoaner]

it's a first cause issue again init

 

[bimble]

i don't disagree - thought is actually pretty confined along certain parameters. but i still would suggest that we are recievers rather than choosers. even the choice and then any counter choice is recieved.

received from where? i think you're leaping to an unnecessary degree of abstraction to account for something thats much more mundane."i" am a bag of impulses and chemicals and learnt behaviours etc, no need for an ineffable external cause.

 

[BigMoaner]

received from where? i think you're leaping to an unnecessary degree of abstraction to account for something thats much more mundane."i" am a bag of impulses and chemicals and learnt behaviours etc, no need for an ineffable external cause.

taht is one way of looking at it, but it's not the only way. to answer would be to repeat what i have already written and i should be doing work lol.

 

[BigMoaner]

received from where? i think you're leaping to an unnecessary degree of abstraction to account for something thats much more mundane."i" am a bag of impulses and chemicals and learnt behaviours etc, no need for an ineffable external cause.

there might be no need for ineffable cause, infact its very useful to forget about one, but as with most matters of truth eventually you end up trying to find it.

who are we and what is this? unanswerable but it's the context in which all our explorations start and end.

 

[Carl Steele]

i don't disagree - thought is actually pretty confined along certain parameters. but i still would suggest that we are recievers rather than choosers. even the choice and then any counter choice is recieved.

Yes, it is confined, but we do respond to punishment, usually by trying to avoid further punishment, which makes us malleable.

My working hypothesis, for which I can provide no proof other than to myself, is that we belong to one gigantic theatre troupe and we all have a part to play. Sometimes we go off script (because we have reflective self-consciousness) and then something happens to push us back into line - a thought, a desire, a threat, an event, a failure to see something. There's nothing we can do to get off the island and each time we try the big rubber ball comes bouncing along the beach and smothers us. There's a tension between a predetermined collective outcome and our individual desires but the collective always wins. What's behind it? I have no idea, it's just how things seem to work.

 

[BigMoaner]

Yes, it is confined, but we do respond to punishment, usually by trying to avoid further punishment, which makes us malleable.

My working hypothesis, for which I can provide no proof other than to myself, is that we belong to one gigantic theatre troupe and we all have a part to play. Sometimes we go off script (because we have reflective self-consciousness) and then something happens to push us back into line - a thought, a desire, a threat, an event, a failure to see something. There's nothing we can do to get off the island and each time we try the big rubber ball comes bouncing along the beach and smothers us. There's a tension between a predetermined collective outcome and our individual desires but the collective always wins. What's behind it? I have no idea, it's just how things seem to work.

similar but i don't believe anything is acted outside of the play. it's all a representation of something else.

like logos on our phones. i go to the whatsapp logo and whatsapp pops up. but that logo is representing shit that is going on deep within teh phone, processes etc. conciousness is mere logos, representation. all experience just sense data. what it might represent might be there and as it appears to us in our minds, but it equally might not either. not sure we will ever knwo. when we gaze at teh stars etc through telescopes etc, we are staring at our own brain chemistry primarily. but shit gets even weirder when terms like "brain" "chemistry" "body" etc are also just representations in conciousness. easy to disappear up ones rectum i guess with this stuff

 

[Carl Steele]

do people do poos in the corner of this particular play?

Indeed they do, and sometimes right out in the open.

 

[Carl Steele]

similar but i don't believe anything is acted outside of the play. it's all a representation of something else.

like logos on our phones. i go to the whatsapp logo and whatsapp pops up. but that logo is representing shit that is going on deep within teh phone, processes etc. conciousness is mere logos, representation. all experience just sense data. what it might represent might be there and as it appears to us in our minds, but it equally might not either. not sure we will ever knwo. when we gaze at teh stars etc through telescopes etc, we are staring at our own brain chemistry primarily. but shit gets even weirder when terms like "brain" "chemistry" "body" etc are also just representations in conciousness. easy to disappear up ones rectum i guess with this stuff

You may be right but, as you suggest, we can never know. I try to pay attention to what's going on around me, and I see very little that suggests we can control our lives. If everything is not essentially pre-determined how do you explain the success of the Joe Rogan podcast?

ETA: You really confused me BigMoaner, did you overwrite the post about poo?

 

[BigMoaner]

You may be right but, as you suggest, we can never know. I try to pay attention to what's going on around me, and I see very little that suggests we can control our lives. If everything is not essentially pre-determined how do you explain the success of the Joe Rogan podcast?

or even worse, Jordan Peterson.

 

[BigMoaner]

You may be right but, as you suggest, we can never know. I try to pay attention to what's going on around me, and I see very little that suggests we can control our lives. If everything is not essentially pre-determined how do you explain the success of the Joe Rogan podcast?

ETA: You really confused me BigMoaner, did you overwrite the post about poo?

i did, i was paranoid that you thought i was being glib to your post

 

[Carl Steele]

or even worse, Jordan Peterson.

Peterson is a case in point of phenomenally successful mediocrity, but he has at least suffered for his success - illness and drug addiction. Rogan is a guy who should have spent a lifetime mouthing off in a bar but was instead plucked from obscurity by Eckhart Tolle's universe.

 

[BigMoaner]

Peterson is a case in point of phenomenally successful mediocrity, but he has at least suffered for his success - illness and drug addiction. Rogan is a guy who should have spent a lifetime mouthing off in a bar but was instead plucked from obscurity by Eckhart Tolle's universe.

12 Rules for Life told by a lunatic Benzo addict. he's a grim force in this world.