Free Will

[songwriter]

is like asking is Destiny exist...

you have a Destiny but you can use your free will to avoid it...

You have free will but there is a Destiny that's always knocking at the door remaining you what you should do.

I believe everything we do depends of what already happened and that all the future is "written" and we can not change it.

There's lot of precognizition stuff to show that. I've learnt myself things in my dreams that predicts thing about the next day. But in the past I didn't see any pattern or thought it was my imagination.

But what you do is already decided much before you do it. And others too.
I use to have a recurrent dream before any bad day for me and other dream before any day I'll achieve a great thing.

It has taken away much of excitation for the "good days" but the "bad days" are not so hard for me cause i'm more relaxed.
It's just part of the "script"...

[songwriter]

Originally Posted by impaul99

I'll try to simplify it a bit further. Supposed God, who has the power to do anything and everything (100% free will), decided to test out what it would be like to exist without 100% free will. Since he is God and can do anything, he should be able to try that. How would he go about doing that, lets say giving himself 20% free will, without getting stuck inside the trap forever. Also, during the time when he only has 20% free will, who has the other 80%?

In mathematical terms I could see this being possible if God created a copy of himself first...Since Infinity + Infinity = Infinity it's mathematically doable. He then took the cloned version of himself and with the cloned versions permission did 2 things:
1) Took away 100% free will, giving him only 20% lets say.
2) Made the cloned part forget that he is a copy of God and therefore 100% in control, otherwise without the forgetting the experiment wouldn't work.

This is one way it could be achieved. Does anyone know any other ways to accomplish this hypothetical scenario? This isn't meant to be a discussion about whether we have free will or not. I'm more interested in discussing the possibilities IF there is a God and he has 100% free will to do anything.

How would he be able to experience what it feels like not to have 100% free will while still being able to come back to 100% at some point?

hmm... God has not 100% free will, or may I say the power to do what all he wants. (Free will it's the freedom of choosing what you want to but not the power)

he can not destroy himself. he can not turn back time. he can not alter himself in anyway, he just is, etc.

[songwriter]

Originally Posted by impaul99

All this would mean that there is no real meaning to life, in the sense that the only reason for life to exist is so that we can experience the polar opposites of pain and pleasure in all their different forms.

If that's the case, then that would mean that there is no point in trying to help the suffering people in the world because they are SUPPOSED to be suffering so that God can experience what suffering feels like in order to appreciate non-suffering somewhere else in the world.

Would that mean that if your life is somewhat happy, you should try to make it complete absolute bliss so that God can experience bliss through your life, and if your life sucks right now it's because you're supposed to experience pain in this lifetime so you might as well make yourself experience a LOT of pain by becoming more and more destructive?

This seems like a flawed concept. Also, throughout our history I am pretty sure that someone out there at some point must have endured torturous agony and pain beyond belief so if God already experienced that once why have ANY pain in our lives? Same goes for pleasure. If God wants to know what it feels like to feel proud, isn't there someone already out there who has felt proudness to a super high level so that we don't have to try to achieve it?

In either case, pain, suffering, proudness, pleasure seem all like human emotions. Why would God want to experience these anyways? And if he did, why not just experience them directly like manifest himself as a human being in a void of black space and then manifest feeling intense pain for however long he feels like testing that feeling out and then manifest intense pleasure in this body for however long he wants to test it out and then end the experiment. Why invent a whole world of cars, trees, insects, stop signs, pens, computers, cellular phones, light switches etc. just to experience the range of human emotion indirectly?

Because God wants a sophisticated enough being to understand the creation.
And these are we. All the matter evolved till dust to the masterpiece, the human brain, that's basicallly the Universe/God trying to understand itself.
And I guess in the future there'll be a greater sophistication so we/whoever will be more conscious about it all.

I mean rocks and planets are not enough to understand, they can not think. We're quite some steps forward , while alive of course, and any alive being, who understand what does hurt him or does him good.
He feels it, that's why we need the pain and the pleasure.
I mean we're better having 2 hands, so if your finger aches is cause is sending a message to you there's something going wrong.

Without that you would put a finger in a fire yet not noticing any pain and fire all yourself.
But not, god/source/the big consciousness wants you alive, he likes life, you know... it took long to achieve that in the universe

[joelr]

Originally Posted by impaul99

In mathematical terms I could see this being possible if God created a copy of himself first...Since Infinity + Infinity = Infinity it's mathematically doable. He then took the cloned version of himself and with the cloned versions permission did 2 things:
1) Took away 100% free will, giving him only 20% lets say.
2) Made the cloned part forget that he is a copy of God and therefore 100% in control, otherwise without the forgetting the experiment wouldn't work.

I know this is still a fun topic to ponder but mathematically it cannot be done.
In the world of Transfinite numbers that rule is true about the lower infinities. But the highest infinity - The Absolute Infinite - which would be the one representing God cannot be manipulated with math.
There is a thing called the "Reflection Principle" which says any description you have of the Absolute is only a reflection of the actual thing. So it can't be used to make conclusive statements. In math god is unknowable.

Still a good intellectual topic.

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by joelr

. In math god is unknowable..

Good point! This makes the scientific search for God futile as it needs mathematics to support it.

[joelr]

Originally Posted by newsbone

Good point! This makes the scientific search for God futile as it needs mathematics to support it.

The search is fun anyway

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by joelr

The search is fun anyway

Yes you right for pursuits are the essence of life and without them we are lost.

[shivraj]

Will is not free. We have extremely limited control of what happens with us.
But what is behind that 'will' is free. that's our divine nature which is free.

[sk8joyful]

Originally Posted by impaul99

For the purpose of this discussion, lets assume for a second that there is a God.

Now, lets assume that the supreme being grants us free will to do whatever we want for eternity.

How would this being, giving us complete free will, prevent us from accidentally using that free will, to take away our own free will?
Supposed we all had free will but then we accidentally took it away from ourselves by a stupid decision, to see what life would be like with less choices.
Wouldn't this supreme being have some form of protection system in place to give us back our free will so we dont' have to suffer for eternity in our own self-made prisons?

Not every choice & decision is because of stupidity; often it's mere 'ignorance', of not knowing better. - But not to worry, as GOD imprinted us each with His few BASIC laws, prior to our earthly journey.

You want God, to also save humanity from its 'stupid' choices, too?

GOD should let us each, as He does so well, choose... who & what we will pattern... our eternal lifestyle after, right?
.

[aphorist]

Egoic free will doesn't exist. Egos are all products of external influences. Those external influences are products of precursor external influences. You can keep going back until you reach the only logical conclusion, that source is the original external influence (or internal for that matter). In this way, ego is source. The thought that you have choice is an illusion, but it is the only thought you can have if you have it (as you have no will).

Now, there is room for internal influences, but those are not egoic (because any egoic internal influences are just the culmination of external influences). Which leaves source as the only internal influence. This flow is not choice based, either. You can not live in flow and choose what you do.

As I said before, though, the idea of ego vs source is silly to start with. That duality cannot exist because ego is of source. Therefore, everything is in perfect harmony and flow and even those of you fighting your idea of flow with your idea of free will are in flow.

You cannot escape, everything is right and you have no control.

[themaster]

Originally Posted by impaul99

Wouldn't this supreme being have some form of protection system in place to give us back our free will so we don’t' have to suffer for eternity in our own self-made prisons?

Just a random thought to see if anyone's thought about this.

Just a tad convoluted..

There is a protection system in place.. if you want to call it that..

Originally Posted by impaul99

Supposed we all had free will but then we accidentally took it away from ourselves by a stupid decision to see what life would be like with less choices.

Were already here aren't we?

Originally Posted by impaul99

Now, lets assume that the supreme being grants us free will to do whatever we want for eternity. How would this being, giving us complete free will, prevent us from accidentally using that free will to take away our own free will? Meaning, would this being have a rule set which says "You can do whatever you want, you can have total free will and I will not step in and change anything. You express yourself whatever way you want. However, if you accidentally have the intention to live a life without free will via a single or multiple decisions which end up imprisoning you inside your own self, I will have to step in and free you from the jail you created for yourself because if I allowed you to have the free will to take away your own free will then that wouldn't be free will anymore."

We already exist in a environment where the "truth" is hidden from us.. isn't that good enough?

Even when some of us our provided evidence of the "truth" to play the game we forget.. we disavow.. we deny the truth if we wish it is our right as players by choice in this limitation game..

In addition that release you talk about 1 method is simply death.. Your also missing even more rules to the game such as parallel reality's, a re-load in effect.. the use of selective memory.. and that we our given guidance in our lives in somewhat form..

Maybe you should knock it up a step in your theoretical model..

What if we had a genie with 3 wishes and some of those harder wishes might be?

I wish you genie and me and reality in its unlimitedness to not exist

Now you might ask why can't we do this?
Because we are in a limitation game.. we don't even have access to our own powers which are far greater than that.. and all our powers as it were are slowed down/delayed by TIME SPACE illusion.. and convoluted belief systems.. the game is the equivalent to saying (computer metaphors) I love being level 100.. but I feel like maybe I should throw myself into darkness and start all over again.. at level 1 working my way back up to level 100 cause obviously the JOURNEY is the fun..

And it's just about here.. that I give up on my point as it seems lost in translation and I don't really give a F#$%

I can only say that we our 3rd dimension entity's we may not be able to see the bigger picture which given were in a limited reality makes sense that we will only get a limited view..

One of the laws of creation for yah..
1. The all is one, the one is all (chew on that one for a while )

[MissVlo]

God did more than create us with just a body and a brain. He also created us with special mental and emotional qualities. A key part of our mental and emotional makeup is free will. Yes, God implanted in us the faculty of freedom of choice. It was indeed a wonderful gift from him.

No normal person wants his life taken out of his control so completely. Why not? Because of the way God made us. The Bible tells us that God created man in his ‘image and likeness,’ and one of the faculties God himself has is freedom of choice. (Genesis 1:26; Deuteronomy 7:6) When he created humans, he gave them that same wonderful faculty—the gift of free will. That is one reason why we find it frustrating to be enslaved by oppressive rulers.

So the desire for freedom is no accident, for God is a God of freedom. The Bible says: “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom..” (2Corinthians 3:17) Hence, God gave us free will as part of our very makeup. Since he knew the way our minds and emotions would work, he knew that we would be happiest with free will.

To go with the gift of free will, God gave us the ability to think, weigh matters, make decisions, and know right from wrong. (Hebrews 5:14) Thus, free will was to be based on intelligent choice. We were not made like mindless robots having no will of their own. Nor were we created to act out of instinct as were the animals. Instead, our marvelous brain was designed to work in harmony with our freedom of choice.

To show how caring God was, along with the gift of free will, our first parents, Adam and Eve, were given everything that anyone could reasonably want. They were put in a large, parklike paradise. They had material abundance. They had perfect minds and bodies, so they would not have to get old or get sick or die—they could have lived forever. They would have had perfect children who could also have had a happy, everlasting future. And the expanding population would have had the satisfying work of eventually turning the entire earth into a paradise.—Genesis 1:26-30; 2:15.

Regarding what was provided, the Bible relates: “God saw everything he had made and, look! it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31) The Bible also says of God: “Perfect is his activity.” (Deuteronomy 32:4) Yes, the Creator gave the human family a perfect start. It could not have been better.

However, did God purpose for free will to be without limits? Imagine a busy city without any traffic laws, where everybody could drive in any direction at any speed. Would you want to drive under those conditions? No, that would be traffic anarchy and would surely result in many accidents.

So too with God’s gift of free will. Unlimited freedom would mean anarchy in society. There have to be laws to guide human activities. God’s Word says: “Behave like free men, and never use your freedom as an excuse for wickedness.” (1Peter 2:16) God wants free will to be regulated for the common good. He purposed for us to have, not total freedom, but relative freedom, subject to the rule of law.

And whose laws were we designed to obey? Another part of the text at 1Peter 2:16 states: “You are slaves of no one except God.” This does not mean an oppressive slavery, but, rather, it means that we were designed to be happiest when in subjection to God’s laws. (Matthew 22:35-40) His laws, more than any laws devised by humans, provide the best guide. “I am your God, the One teaching you to benefit yourself, the One causing you to tread in the way in which you should walk.”—Isaiah 48:17.

At the same time, God’s laws allow for great freedom of choice within their boundaries. This results in variety and makes the human family fascinating. Think of the different types of food, clothing, music, art, and homes throughout the world. We surely prefer to have our choice in such matters rather than have some other person decide for us. Thus we were created to be happiest when subject to God’s laws for human behavior. It is similar to being subject to God’s physical laws. For instance, if we ignore the law of gravity and jump off a high place, we will be injured or killed. If we ignore the internal laws of our body and stop eating food, drinking water, or breathing air, we will die.

As surely as we were created with the need to submit to God’s physical laws, we were created with the need to submit to God’s moral and social laws. (Matthew 4:4) Humans were not created to be independent of their Maker and be successful. The prophet Jeremiah says: “It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.” (Jeremiah 10:23,24) So in every way humans were created to live under God’s rulership, not their own.

Obedience to God’s laws would not have been burdensome for our first parents. Instead, it would have worked for their welfare and that of the entire human family. Had the first pair stayed within the limits of God’s laws, all would have been well. In fact, we would now be living in a wonderful paradise of pleasure as a loving, united human family! There would not have been wickedness, suffering, and death.