Free Will

[impaul99]

For the purpose of this discussion, lets assume for a second that there is a God and we are spiritual beings beyond just the human life we encompass right now. Meaning, we're not just biological blobs of chemicals that are born, and then die and cease to exist.

What kind of God doesn't matter. By God I don't just mean the Christian kind. You can substitute the word for Universe, Supreme Being, Allah, etc. etc. I just mean some form of supreme organizing power.

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."

Do you guys get the "gist" of what I'm saying? 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?

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

[RedPanda]

I don't see how you could take your own free will away. You can limit your choices, but that in itself is a choice. We all have a limited set of choices at any particular point in time anyway. I suppose what I'm really saying is that I don't get the gist of what you're saying.

[Markus74]

So we have free will? Free will could be an illusion. We could be programmed to do what we're doing and still think we would decide on our own.

I don't claim that this is probable though

[Erin Pavlina]

I believe we have free will, and I believe some people give up their free will either knowingly or unknowingly. I believe that when you die and get back to the ether there are kindly beings (angels and guides) who help you remember who you really are and where you really came from. And you eventually get your free will back.

[Frans]

Originally Posted by impaul99

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

Can you give a more detailed explanation for "free will"?

If you define "free will" with doing whatever we want to do, then there is no free will, because we cannot do everything we want to do (no matter what some die-hard I-M preachers may say).
For example: suppose I want to be God, I want to be in control of everything.

If it is possible to become God, it's clear that only one person can manifest this intention.

[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?

[Frans]

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%?

I love thought experiments

So, let's begin...

God has only one purpose: he wants to be 100% happy.
Happiness is a dual concept: you can only experience happiness, if you first have experienced what it means to be unhappy.
So, before God can become happy, he must first experience what it means to be unhappy. As he wants to become 100% happy, he must undergo everything that makes him 100% unhappy (miserable!).

The problem is: God knows everything, he cannot experience ignorance, and when he needs to experience a bad feeling, he knows that it is only temporarily.

Solution: God "writes" a scenario. He creates a dual universe where everything exists thanks to its opposite. He makes a dual entity of himself: he "divides" himself in two "parts": an abstract ego (the Universe, Nature, God) and a concrete ego: that concrete ego takes an ordinary male human body.
This concrete ego knows nothing about his true existence and must experience what all humans experience.
His abstract ego executes the scenario and let everything happen that the concrete ego must experience.
When all negative things are experienced and the concrete ego knows everything about his true identity, the abstract ego takes a female human form. They find each other and God is 100% happy. The End.

So, the split between a concrete and an abstract ego (unconscious and conscious mind) is a good way for God to make "free will" experiments.

[Angela]

Anyone here done the Landmark Forum/Advanced Course? One of the basic tenets is that you made decisions when you were little bitty, and those decisions run you. Finding those child-decisions and being aware of them gives you the choice in each moment to pick something that works better. I found it pretty valuable. Anyone else, positive or negative?

(This post was born out of wanting to create freedom every day, and that it's one way to view free will in a practical sense. But I just realized it looks like a thread hijacking. I'm sorry, and I did not mean it that way. )

[Alvin]

Originally Posted by impaul99

For the purpose of this discussion, lets assume for a second that there is a God and we are spiritual beings beyond just the human life we encompass right now. Meaning, we're not just biological blobs of chemicals that are born, and then die and cease to exist.

What kind of God doesn't matter. By God I don't just mean the Christian kind. You can substitute the word for Universe, Supreme Being, Allah, etc. etc. I just mean some form of supreme organizing power.

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."

Do you guys get the "gist" of what I'm saying? 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?

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

This is an old question; could God make a rock so heavy that even he couldn't lift it? I think greater minds have thought this through and have better answers than mine

Originally Posted by Frans

I love thought experiments

So, let's begin...

God has only one purpose: he wants to be 100% happy.
Happiness is a dual concept: you can only experience happiness, if you first have experienced what it means to be unhappy.
So, before God can become happy, he must first experience what it means to be unhappy. As he wants to become 100% happy, he must undergo everything that makes him 100% unhappy (miserable!).

The problem is: God knows everything, he cannot experience ignorance, and when he needs to experience a bad feeling, he knows that it is only temporarily.

Solution: God "writes" a scenario. He creates a dual universe where everything exists thanks to its opposite. He makes a dual entity of himself: he "divides" himself in two "parts": an abstract ego (the Universe, Nature, God) and a concrete ego: that concrete ego takes an ordinary male human body.
This concrete ego knows nothing about his true existence and must experience what all humans experience.
His abstract ego executes the scenario and let everything happen that the concrete ego must experience.
When all negative things are experienced and the concrete ego knows everything about his true identity, the abstract ego takes a female human form. They find each other and God is 100% happy. The End.

So, the split between a concrete and an abstract ego (unconscious and conscious mind) is a good way for God to make "free will" experiments.

This is interesting. If I remember my Kabbalah correctly, it's said that God became divisible the moment he became self-aware, therefore knowing what He is and isn't and the universe split into duality at that point, and began to divide into the 10 sephirah.

Another theory goes thus; that we are all bits of God experiencing life so that God may know life in all its richness, and it is our job in the end to return to God. It's nicely and entertainingly covered in Scott Adams' free ebook; God's debris.

[MGJ]

Take this one step further. Suppose you could come to terms that you are the physcial manifesation of God, or All that is, or Source energy... whatever you want to call it. In essence... you are God. You are free to take away your free will or give it back... but why take it away to begin with? Having free will means just that... the freedom to imprision yourself or free yourself. Thats the beauty of creating the life you want. Maybe, I'm intrepreting the question wrong... but it seems you are referring to God as something seperate from you... is God, or Source energy, etc... seperate from man? or a physcial manefistation of man? One in the same?

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Douglas Adams

There's also a theory which states that this has already happened.

With all assumptions in place... that there is at least one being that we would describe as a deity, this is actually the model that I prefer.

A god would certainly be able to subdivide its consciousness, much in the same way that people are able to have multiple personalities. If a god had a desire to experience its creations, then this would most certainly be its method of doing so. Each person's ego would be the 'key' to the experiences, limited in knowledge and functionality. The reason why I put the Douglas Adams quote above, is that if any ego attains a full knowledge of its infinite perspective, the universe instantly disappears (since the god can no longer experience things from a perspective of ignorance and impotence) and a new, more complex one would instantly spring into existence to replace it (so that the god can continue to experience everything). There's also a theory which states that this has already happened.

[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?

[Adam]

Well, if you just experience polar opposites, then you are limiting your experiences... When you're looking at a topic that covers the infinite, there are a *lot* of shades of gray... In my opinion, it isn't about finding one extreme or another, but it is about finding balance, where the most variety exists, and working on experiencing as much variety from within that balance as you can.

It is also my firm opinion that Consciousness has experienced enough suffering... I think that it is time to swing the balance towards a bit more peace.

[Alvin]

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?

Paul, Buddhism can help you answer those questions. To the Buddhists, all life is suffering. Sounds depressing, doesn't it?

From our point of view, how could happiness and bliss be suffering? But from the Buddha's point of view, anything else than enlightenment pales in comparison.

That's why the Buddhists say to be stuck in the wheel of reincarnation is suffering, for exactly the same reasons you mention, that we're still experiencing the polar opposites of life and subject to the twists and turns of outrageous fortune.

The ultimate purpose of life is to gain enlightenment, to mix it back up with the idea of God, it's returning to the Source, so that one day when all beings gain enlightenment and return to God, God shall have known all of existence.

And the way to gain enlightenment is through personal development and growth; the betterment of our being.

[Jaben]

Adam:

This is interesting. If I remember my Kabbalah correctly, it's said that God became divisible the moment he became self-aware, therefore knowing what He is and isn't and the universe split into duality at that point, and began to divide into the 10 sephirah.

Advaita or non-duality seems to imply from my understanding that god is divisible the moment any awareness arises. Nisargadatta Maharaj said in I Am That,

Obviously, every thing experienced is an experience. And in every experience there arises the experiencer of it.

Chapter 3 of I Am That (
3. The Living Present ) addresses the problem of suffering. Here is the chapter's conclusion:

M: In the going beyond the limiting, dividing and opposing mind. In ending the mental process as we know it. When this comes to an end, that mind is born.
Q: In that mind, the problem of joy and sorrow exist no longer?
M: Not as we know them, as desirable or repugnant. It becomes rather a question of love seeking expression and meeting with obstacles. The inclusive mind is love in action, battling against circumstances, initially frustrated, ultimately victorious.
Q: Between the spirit and the body, is it love that provides the bridge?
M: What else? Mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.

impaul99:

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?

My four year old's answer would be "Because he did." And I think that's probably the best answer. There may be many ways to experience and to grow. Maybe reality is like imagination, kind of an experiment or game for no reason outside its own sake.

[DoAnyOfYouExist]

Originally Posted by Adam

if any ego attains a full knowledge of its infinite perspective, the universe instantly disappears (since the god can no longer experience things from a perspective of ignorance and impotence) and a new, more complex one would instantly spring into existence to replace it (so that the god can continue to experience everything). There's also a theory which states that this has already happened.

Well this is gonna happen. This has happened to me 15+ times but I never allow myself to attain full knowledge cuz I am scared of losing my knowledge of this life and all that I have been through...it is inevitable though and I will attain full knowledge in 2012 no ifs ands or butts but I think someone wants me to do it sooner cuz they keep pushing it on me but I keep pushing it back at them.

[Frans]

Do you really believe that just existing is the reason why you live?

What do you want the most in your life?
You want to be happy, isn't it?
Can you imagine a greater goal in life than become happy?
This is not typical human, all creatures do whatever they can to enjoy their life.

Your goal is to become happy.

Every person has his own vocation.
If you feel deep in yourself that you must help suffering people, and you become happy when you do that, then by all means, do that.
If you feel more happy when you do sports, then do that.
If you feel absolutely not happy, than you can be assured that you are acting against your own vocation.

God has his own human avatar to experience everything what he needs.
He doesn't need other people to experience suffering or happiness.
The reason why there are cars, trees, insects, stop signs... in the world can be explained by a subjective reality concept.

[Jaben]

Do you really believe that just existing is the reason why you live?

Yes, the notion that we exist because we exist is the most satisfying explanation to me. I believe happiness cannot be achieved if it depends on the pursuit of fulfilling an emotional state such as desire or escaping one such as pain. Perhaps the true happiness you are seeking is available to you always regardless of circumstance?

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by Frans

Your goal is to become happy.

I used to believe this, but I'm not so sure anymore. Happiness is a very subjective feeling largely based on the experience of "unhappiness".

Since happiness has a polar opposite in unhappiness, I do not believe it to be the meaning of life, but rather a tool God can use to point us in the direction of the meaning of life.

Meaning, happiness/unhappiness, pleasure/pain, are just tools of the body to teach us whether we are on the right track. Burning your hands on fire causes pain, so we don't do that. Having sex feels good, so we do that. It's like we are pre-built with a set of indicators which tell us whether what we're doing is good or bad. If it makes us feel like crap, it's bad, don't do it. If it brings us pleasure, it's good, so keep doing it.

Imagine if everyone in life got rid of fears and focused their lives on doing what brings them the most pleasure. Builders built, artists created art, teachers taught, cooks cooked etc. We would have a society of perfect happiness.

However, this just brings harmony to humanity, but it doesn't explain what the purpose of the harmony is in the first place.

For example, lets say that God's purpose was to build a massive planetary network of 1,000 planets, but it required everyone to work in unison to do this and Earth is the first of those 1,000 planets. Our building speed at which we accomplish this task is related to how closely we live life according to God's plan, experiencing pleasure/happiness when we're "doing his work" and feeling like crap when we stray away from "his work". If we all just focus on what we're "supposed" to do, we can build this planetary network in 500 years lets say, but since we're all riddled with fear and doubt and stuff, it's probably going to take us 5,000 years (as an example).

If this was true, it would mean that pleasure and pain are just tools of God to tell us whether we are doing what he wants us to do, but they in themselves would not be the meanings behind life. Building the planetary network would be the real meaning, or the meaning behind the planetary network would be the meaning.

I guess it boils down to the means to an end vs the end. I believe happiness is a means to an end. It brings us in congruency with experiencing the meaning, but what is that meaning?

If experiencing a range of human emotions is the real meaning behind why God created this, then we don't stand a chance of achieving a world of perfect happiness, because that wouldn't allow God to experience the full range. If pain/pleasure and all the derivatives of it have nothing to do with God, where he doesn't give a crap if we are in pain or pleasure, he simply uses them to guide us in the right direction then we technically could end all suffering on earth and just have pleasant feelings eventually, but then the existance of life coudln't be for God to experience himself in all the range of human emotion.

Pretend that instead of pleasure/pain, you just had two lights affixed to your arm. When you are doing something harmful that God doesn't want, the RED light goes on. When you are doing something beneficial, that God does want you to do, the GREEN light goes on. The futher away from doing bad stuff you get the darker the red light gets and the brighter the green light gets. This is fine, but then we can't say that the meaning of life is for us to keep the green light on throughout our lives. That would be the thing we DO in order to experience the meaning of life, but it wouldn't BE the meaning.

Also, in the above example, why would God create us just so that he could experience seeing a red light and a green light and all the variations in between.

I'm really having a hard time trying to explain what I mean here, but it just seems to me that happiness can't be the meaning behind life, it's simply an indicator we are on the right track. Also, experiencing happiness through billions of different human beings can't be the reason God created this world either, but rather a process by which to fulfill the meaning.