Focus,

Cloning will bring in that animal the same DNA, the same features etc, but the soul isnt the same.

I think.

What exactly does "free will" mean at all?
It could well be an illusion.
For example, you have a thought and act on it, and you think it is "your" thought and "your" impulse and "your" decision to act. But is this not an over-simplification of our over-simplified mindset in this so-called "awake-world"?
Think about who you are. What defines your "I"?
Is it the body? Thoughts? Impressions? An impression of a centeredness inside a body? A network of relationships with body and environment and concepts and thoughts and and and?
Where does the "I" end? Does it really end at the skin of the body? And if not, where is its limit? Or is there no limit to the "I"?
Where do thoughts come from? From within the body or from without? Is the body a thought-form? Or are thoughts physical phenomena?
Thinking it to the end, it leads to the notion that "free will" is a naive childish illusion without any real meaning.
Just a byproduct of the illusion of separation.

I believe that we all have free will, it is just that some of us get so caught up in our psychological conditioning and emotional attachments that we have a hard time using it in a wise and "loving" way.

I've found that if I forget about thinking about free will in a philosophical way and just simply allow myself to be aware of what takes place with my immediate experience, I do in fact have free will.  In a way, tuning into how we have free will is the same as tuning into our inner self. Is our inner self bound?

Free will isn't about being able to do whatever we want regardless of the consequences and how we effect others. It is about being free to make the most  love-based decision possible.

Whenever we make a decision there is going to be some parameters that we need to consider. The existence of parameters doesn't mean that we don't have free will.  The more we can consider the parameters with an expansive viewpoint, the more we'll be able to respond to them in a way that is representative of freedom.

Our inner self is too amazing and boundless to be caught in a hopeless chain of causation.

spooky2 wrote on Nov 8^th, 2011 at 8:18pm:


Hi Spooky,

but could'nt we have effectively 'free will' in that choices/decisions always have antecents but since we can never, in practice, have a state of knowledge in which we can know all those antecedents, free will is maintained in practice if not in theory.

D

Heisenberg69,

about your first respond in that no one can anticipate the effects of effects of effects etc. , that's true, but it is not the point, as the "will" is some intention, like "I'm going to do this". What the effects might be of this action is another question. More interesting is to ask how we come to think "I'm going to do this". If this is a result from earlier decisions, having caused unpredictable effects, well then the resulting "will" is as well an element of the chain of unpredictable events. You certainly can call this will "free", in the meaning "unpredictable" or "chaotic", but look what happens then to the "person". Now, we then couldn't talk about a person anymore. "Person" and "free will" just don't go together.

Regarding your second response, yes, there are two models to interprete cause and effect. One is in the way of the "Laplace Demon", in that if we knew all parameters about a timepoint, we would be able to predict the future. The other is, we are principally not able to get all parameters, either because there are no such parameters (quantum mechanics) and/or because the image of a "timepoint" doesn't match the reality, in the way that it is impossible to reconstruct the (maybe) fluid, running reality through an infinite row of timepoints.
   But I have to emphasize that, regarding "personal free will", it doesn't matter if we believe in a predictable or non-predictable universe; my point is that it is just self-contradictive (as either there is a consistent cause-and-effect structure or freedom, but you can't have both) and therefore we simply should forget this phrase.

Spooky

In my deepest meditation, I am aware of nothing but that I am aware; a point of perception, devoid of form.  Take away from me what you will, I am (and we all are) a focus or conscious perception. 

Spooky is correct about personal free will in a semantic sense.  In the conscious earthly mind, there is an ego, personality, a history.  If you have burned your hand in a flame, you will likely not put it in the flame again.

But getting to our essence, that is where my thought takes me.  When I've been there, I am at that place of Cogito ergo sum (Descartes).  I am because I think/perceive.  Often in that state of deep meditation, I am not aware of my history.  The conscious mind is asleep and the pure perception is awake.  This is our deepest "self."  We react the way our spiritual/emotional perceptive self reacts.  There is no "if x, then y" thought involved. 

This is the most basic form of spirituality I know of.  On earth, in the physical, we develop an interactive rational ego to live with others.  The rational side can respond to past events, and act logically.  Many many people will act rationally even if it is against their spiritual nature or instincts.  This usually sets up a conflict, and leads to unhappiness. 

When the layer of earthly ego falls away, after we pass from the earth plane, we simply are who we are.  We are who we have nurtured and become.  We are the fruit of what our inner loves and nature have nourished.  We planted thought seeds into our subconscious and they sprouted and flowered.

It is this inner nature that I believe acts unto its own love.  This is the same thing simply as saying you get corn from corn seeds and cucumber from cucumber seeds.  When we act from our true love and nature, it is spontaneous.  The cause and effect theory of no free will no longer applies (though it did in ego based earthly life). 

Now admittedly, it may be that in our pure perceptive spiritual state, we can rationally choose to cultivate new loves and continue to evolve in the path of love (or hate).  But I believe if this does occur, it is at a much slower pace than what is found on the earth plane. 

I should also note that Spooky mentions quantum mechanics, and admits that using quantum models, there is an uncertainty thrown into the mix (the same electron being in two different places at the same time, etc.).   This concept has always made me humble to never assume that anything is written in stone.  Newton's billiard balls of physics were found not to apply in a strict sense to the most basic building blocks of physical reality.

So I can attest to the presence of my own pure perceptive state in deep meditation, and to the existence of my own consciousness and free will during that state.  In its most pure state, that "is"ness or being is devoid of history; it becomes irrelevant what circumstances came about in my earthly life which cultivated that state of spiritual being, because it simply "is."  And it chooses to go get a cup of coffee.

Matthew

Roman:

The entirety of the sentence you quoted reads: "Regarding the time conundrum, just because all decisions we ever make happen in the same now, this doesn't mean free will wasn't available each time we made a decision."

Some people conclude that because all of time exists simultaneosly everything is predetermined and therefore freewill doesn't exist. My response to this unexamined misconception is that time doesn't have to exist in a chronological way in order for it to be possible to make decisions on each occasion the need occurs.

If we respond to a need with a mind that is overladen with psychological conditioning and emotional attachments we won't be able to decide with freedom. If we understand the importance of deciding with freedom and do our best to not be influenced by our psychological conditioning and emotional attachments, we are likely to decide with freedom.

It isn't an all or nothing process, which is a form of absolutism some people unfortunately get into. Such absolutism is often based on supposed sophisticated thinking, rather than a person looking within and seeing what his (or her) experience tells him. If a person examines himself closely he will see that he can use his will to decide "freely" as much as he allows himself to do so.



Roman wrote on Nov 10^th, 2011 at 10:24am: