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Can't Discuss Free Will as the Definition of Will is Not Substantial
    #6458265 -

Quote:
from Wikipedia
The problem of free will is the problem of whether rational agents exercise control over their own actions and decisions. Addressing this problem requires understanding the relation between freedom and causation...


Quote:
from Wikipedia
Rational may be:
pertaining to rationality...


Quote:
from Wikipedia
Rationality as a term is related to the idea of reason, a word which following Webster's may be derived as much from older terms referring to thinking itself as from giving an account or an explanation. This lends the term a dual aspect. One aspect associates it with comprehension, intelligence, or inference, particularly when an inference is drawn in ordered ways (thus a syllogism is a rational argument in this sense). The other part associates rationality with explanation, understanding or justification, particularly if it provides a ground or a motive. What is irrational, therefore, is defined as that which is not endowed with reason or understanding....


In any case the definition of will and rational end up as a snake biting its tail especially if motive is mapped into will, and rational is colored by syllogism.

===========================================================

In my ordered universe (rational?)
all thought is associative, a dynamic fluid of images in a vessel that shapes images based upon the matching of patterns or cues.
none of it is rational by principle, only rational if it worked out as matching a rational model after it is finished and measured against some reference of logic.

the actual thinking is a chaotic flux of association and mental posturing - reviewing - measuring - matching and revisiting the same images.

the effort of will or interest is in holding onto the thread until the cadence of the associated thought sequence seems well formed.

It is arbitrary to say well formed means rational; all it means is well formed as a cadence against references of other examples of thought cadence which are held as a model (model of rational thought cadence).

so in this thinking process, what is free, and what is will, and what is rational? I think the terms are laid upon archaic ideas of what comprises consciousness, so I keep returning to what has consistent meaning, i.e. sequences of associative mentation (a sifting movie of gestalt images).

my position is that will amounts to interest, or a kind of focus to the formative tasks in thinking (latching on). The more strict the model that the cadence must adhere to, the less free the thinker is; and among rational models of thought cadence, the quality "rational" is arbitrary.

Rigidity or strict adherence to some model of rationality is not a good enough measure of the validity of thinking, but it does suggest less freedom of process.

Just being interested in something - focussing and applying one's mind to a task is already a kind of yoke or bondage, but while having the flavor of non-freedom that way, it may be the only possible freedom, i.e. to resist the pressure of being just a pooltable mind with image balls riccochetting against the walls and one another willy nilly in a mechanistic way.


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Can't Discuss Free Will as the Definition of Will is Not Substantial [Re: redgreenvines]
    #6459465 -

the human can only do what humans are capable of doing

there a lot of options but it is still just putting puzzles together and making new and more complicated ones

most of all human activity boils down to animal drives with the few people here or there trying to pursue something higher like art or Godhood (in a tangible sense rather than philosophical), or altruism or things like that.

and some humans perhaps transcend humanity but generally it is just ant-colony rules that govern our daily lives.

the ego however has a curious role, if used properly it can have a say in how it wants the pieces put together such as "wait I don't like this, send it back" so in that sense there is a free will to imagine and then actualize the imagination.... as opposed to deciding to settle for a suit a tie and a flag and some pieces of paper.


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I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo!

....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human......
Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!

Edited by leery11 (01/14/07 05:37 PM)

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Re: Can't Discuss Free Will as the Definition of Will is Not Substantial [Re: leery11]
    #6460237 -

I dont really dig wiki too much.
I think we can define will as intent, right?
so free will means being able to control your actions and thoughts in order to achieve your desire, or if it is your desire to overcome your desires, to let it just flow??????


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God says dance with your heart
And shake free of you desire

Where theres a will theres always a way
When you get confused listen to the music play


Edited by CerebralFlower (01/14/07 08:30 PM)

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Re: Can't Discuss Free Will as the Definition of Will is Not Substantial [Re: CerebralFlower]
    #6460381 -

where do the desires come from?

there is a collective pool of them, past live karmic traces, or maybe not past lives, but karmic traces

that we just randomly hobble up when we are what we are however we became that baby

and so generally there would be like the hierarchy of needs, just basic things..... a lot of the desires that are useless come from society where breasts are colored reddish-pink (if that is what color lust is) and so everytime you see a girl you stare at her breasts and they turn you on and you suffer because you want to bone her

but really they are just pieces of skin and so there is NO charge at all on the deepest level.......

so

if we answer the Buddha's question then really I mean, most desires are meaningless, so free will is just to float around here and talk to people and do what life asks of you, while realizing that its impermanent?

the God dilemma is nice, they say, how can we have free will if God exists... and of course inversely, how can God have free will if his only job is programming everything?

But there is the line of thinking we are God, subjectively, and we only exist so that we can BE God fully REALIZED while still having the vantage point of a single ego who can paint all sorts of colors with the crayons he has, as many times as he wants perhaps, and

maybe then we realize Godhood and from then on the knowledge is always with us wherever we go and whatever ego we choose to be temporarily be in

and I would like that.

and it's quite possibly true. But I don't like the amnesia we inherit about where we came from and why its so clouded up by this reality.


--------------------
I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo!

....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human......
Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!

Edited by leery11 (01/14/07 09:09 PM)

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Re: Can't Discuss Free Will as the Definition of Will is Not Substantial [Re: CerebralFlower]
    #6460851 -

CerebralFlower said:
I dont really dig wiki too much.
I think we can define will as intent, right?
so free will means being able to control your actions and thoughts in order to achieve your desire, or if it is your desire to overcome your desires, to let it just flow??????


wiki is just a convenient consensual definition site, but you words are indicative of the problem too
we do need to come to some sense of what will is if we are going to discuss it's relative freedom.

you have it boiled down to "intent and desire", one of which
intent - might mean attitude or the aggregate of dispositions (is that just conditioning or ego formation?).
and the other
desire - might mean lack or yearning.

both of these to me are not as motivating or compelling as I expect will to be, they might be automatic formations in the self, while interest, to me suggests something more immersive or alive (alive being somehow the very mystery itself).

IMO, interest, especially applied interest translates best as what I think will is meant to convey - a concentrating of the living energy.

leery11 said:
...so

if we answer the Buddha's question then really I mean, most desires are meaningless, so free will is just to float around here and talk to people and do what life asks of you, while realizing that its impermanent?

the God dilemma is nice, they say, how can we have free will if God exists... and of course inversely, how can God have free will if his only job is programming everything?
...


this may be the core of the Free Will discussion though these words are even more vague or subject to refinement with side arguments, the bouquet of these collected words represents a fairly clear picture of mind grappling with it's place in the universe.

------I guess this is why I get impatient with the free will arguments, they seem to skip clarification of this magic-will-thing and go off postulating the place in the universe question instead, bringing in even more unclear magic elements such as god.


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Can't Discuss Free Will as the Definition of Will is Not Substantial [Re: redgreenvines]
    #6461055 -

I think our will simply leads our internal and external focus of attention.
The more we are responsible for this guidance of our attention, the more our will is free.
That may be an indirect observation and doesn't describe the roots.
Maybe the quantum universe of uncertainity has more to do with our brain activities in decision making, which allows our mind, as transmitter, to form out this 'free will' in a singular way, the complexer the brain evolves - building a virtual space of possible decisions, which can be transformed into reality by choice.
For us, it is represented as 'possibilities' (merged from the known with the unknown, yes even merged from the past with the future) with higher and lower chances in our consciousness.
We are able to have influence on these possibilities.


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Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

Edited by BlueCoyote (01/15/07 02:48 AM)

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Re: Can't Discuss Free Will as the Definition of Will is Not Substantial [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #6461295 -

I concurr with what you are saying, in the context of free will, but it does not show me "will" itself any more clearly and it introduces a term "attention" which is also hard to see, though after years of yoga and meditation I am sure I know what it is.

You are trying to say that will is that which leads attention and it could be valid, if I could reliably point to attention when using the english language with anyone (I am not sure everyone has the same idea about what attention is).

I can see interest at least I can sense it's pull, and it is a more consensual term in that anyone I speak to will understand the word "interest".

I am trying to come up with language that points to things consistently. "Will" remains elusive to that effort.


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Can't Discuss Free Will as the Definition of Will is Not Substantial [Re: redgreenvines]
    #6461976 -

yes, I wonder why 'attention' is overlooked so often. Even in psychology it is a minor subject. A synonym might be partial/specialised awareness. [But maybe I am only juggling with words here, because english is not my native language]
For sure, this leads our actions. And it is led by our 'will' [motivation/interest/intent].



I think, with closer observation, 'attention' it is the key(hole) to get a picture of what we call 'will'. We can look 'backwards' on it, of course. Then we may find the real sources/origins of it and that, what might set it 'free'.

This what might set it 'free', I tried to describe in the second part of my previous post.

I hope, I still make some sense :smile:

edit: But I think I understand the problem you point at. 'Free' is relative. And if our choice would be absolute free, it would be absolute bound to 'us' at the same time as well. Then, waht is that 'I' again ? That what stands behind that freedom ? Is it not the 'will' what defines the 'I' or vice versa ? :grin:


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

Edited by BlueCoyote (01/15/07 12:28 PM)

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Re: Can't Discuss Free Will as the Definition of Will is Not Substantial [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #6462322 -

In attempting to describe attention, I would really have to refer to
a sequence of mind moments (consciousness)in which the content of
mind moments is being refreshed while yoked to a particular set of sources (sensation/memory/cadence...)


is this what you are calling partial or specialized awareness?

for me it can be full on gestalt awareness that is yoked such that
in the next mind moment
the resulting content has been cultivated to be substantially simmilar,

a detection policy for wandering is set up
such that if drifting occurs in a subsequent moment - return to the subject of interest is assured.

can it be that "will" may be evidenced 3 ways in the matter of attention:
1. to focus attention.
2. to hold attention.
3. to resume attention.

but this can be routine too

why do I want "will" to be subverted and redefined as interest? like a multithreaded orchestration that supports investivigative intellect.

anyway, even as i review these words I can see I have a poor grasp on the idea of will but I can see automation involved at every turn.

it seems like if there is no interest or sense of heartfelt investigation there is no will,
is that aligned with your take,

or do we refer to that beast in the cave who gets all the young females as having his will - or is that not just desire maqueraded as will and believed in fear? - domination get things very twisted.

(I wander)


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Can't Discuss Free Will as the Definition of Will is Not Substantial [Re: redgreenvines]
    #6465793 -

Yeah, we are dancing around the fire here and I am terrible sorry, that I am in such a lack of words....but

what you are calling partial or specialized awareness..
Yes, I think we mean the same. Bringing the multitude of awareness into some focused, condensed attention, which seems partial or specialised in contrast to awareness.
The function itself is automatised, like in animals. We can still see it arise in humans under more or less 'extreme' conditions, like hunger.
Our focus of attention lets us see food everywhere.
Reflection (distancing) this, is a higher cognitive process, which gives us the possibility to step back from this automatism. And rise our horizon of choice :laugh:
Both, the animalistic and 'human reflective' behaviour can be seen as 'will' driven, whereby the more reflective one seems to have developed more free room for a time interrupt bubble, which makes him able to choose more 'independently' from the current circumstance - but more depending on  themselves :smile:


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
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