JosephM
Well-Known Member
Hi Chris,
Yes. We indeed do have choices and the understanding of its limitations does help us empathize with others. That was the point in gaining a clearer understanding. Thanks for your comments.
JM
Last edited:
Free Choice or Chioce by Evolution of Consciousness?
- Thread starter JosephM
- Start date
Hi Chris,
Yes. We indeed do have choices and the understanding of its limitations does help us empathize with others. That was the point in gaining a clearer understanding. Thanks for your comments.
JM
JosephM
Well-Known Member
Hi Caimanson,
Thanks for your comments. However, I'd like to look at it as more of a discussion and stimulation rather than debate. There are no winners or losers in this thread. Hopefully everyone can learn or get a clearer understanding including me. I especially enjoyed your comment concerning the comparison to the lab rat.
JM
JosephM
Well-Known Member
Paladin
Purchased Bewilderment
May I please play the poet in this version of Mindwalk?
It would seem, or so it may only appear to this addled brain that the difficulty always must lie in top-downers discussing things with bottom-uppers.
In two dimensions there lies confusion, and even more in three, but add a fourth, imagine a fifth and what we no longer understand becomes quite crystal.
Resistance and Barriers can only mean the Universe awaits a resounding "Yes!" but for now, and only for some it has become the Koan for our frustrated meditation.
Peace
It would seem, or so it may only appear to this addled brain that the difficulty always must lie in top-downers discussing things with bottom-uppers.
In two dimensions there lies confusion, and even more in three, but add a fourth, imagine a fifth and what we no longer understand becomes quite crystal.
Resistance and Barriers can only mean the Universe awaits a resounding "Yes!" but for now, and only for some it has become the Koan for our frustrated meditation.
Peace
C
cyberpi
Guest
I had responded to the "choice is an illusion" belief. For the rest, I am in agreement. I think of it more as knowing only the person you've taken every step with. I take the extremes of a grandparent and a child, thinking of how the child looks at the grandparent and how the grandparent looks at the child. Then when you consider two people the same age who were dealt different cards (genes, parents, environment) and travelled different steps, each can be like a child and a grandparent at the same time to each other... or not.
I think the 'choice' or the 'will' in Faith needs to be hilighted above 'believe' and 'trust' for the very reason of this thread. I think it has been lost. I'd like to respond to the questions on this thread later... right now I wanted to try a different approach:
If a person with age says to a child, "Would you like us to do (a), (b), or (c)?" Then I submit that Faith has been placed in the child. What this means to me is that for that moment in time something of the child's life is written or determined by the child. Something comes out of the child that did not go in. The options (a), (b), and (c) were selected and came externally to the child from the adult. But then something came out of the child... a decision. Whatever the belief of where that decision comes from: whether the child mentally flipped a coin in his/her mind, or a gene in the child made the decision, or an environment fully programmed the child's decision ahead of time, or that the person asking the question somehow programmed the outcome, or that the child just turned to someone else and asked them, or that a child is some magical soul unknowingly driving a car that just looks like a human body... I leave that all for debate or timid conversation. But regardless of that answer, my question here is do people recognize that a choice is somehow special, that being given a choice by the world is special, and that giving others in the world a choice is special? By special I mean that it is something of value. Not just something different or unique from person to person, but something perhaps more important than the food a person has to eat.
Yesterday I talked with a child in tears crying because somebody made a decision for her a couple of years ago that effected her life. Basically the child wanted to turn back time and change something. If choice is important to a child, and to a grandparent, maybe that says something about this evolution of consciousness concept. Or maybe this 7 year old had already evolved. I submit that a person can live a life being fully programmed by the environment by never really employing his/her will to choose, but then the other extreme is that a person can live demanding that he/she always gets his/her way by wanting to make all the choices.
I think the 'choice' or the 'will' in Faith needs to be hilighted above 'believe' and 'trust' for the very reason of this thread. I think it has been lost. I'd like to respond to the questions on this thread later... right now I wanted to try a different approach:
If a person with age says to a child, "Would you like us to do (a), (b), or (c)?" Then I submit that Faith has been placed in the child. What this means to me is that for that moment in time something of the child's life is written or determined by the child. Something comes out of the child that did not go in. The options (a), (b), and (c) were selected and came externally to the child from the adult. But then something came out of the child... a decision. Whatever the belief of where that decision comes from: whether the child mentally flipped a coin in his/her mind, or a gene in the child made the decision, or an environment fully programmed the child's decision ahead of time, or that the person asking the question somehow programmed the outcome, or that the child just turned to someone else and asked them, or that a child is some magical soul unknowingly driving a car that just looks like a human body... I leave that all for debate or timid conversation. But regardless of that answer, my question here is do people recognize that a choice is somehow special, that being given a choice by the world is special, and that giving others in the world a choice is special? By special I mean that it is something of value. Not just something different or unique from person to person, but something perhaps more important than the food a person has to eat.
Yesterday I talked with a child in tears crying because somebody made a decision for her a couple of years ago that effected her life. Basically the child wanted to turn back time and change something. If choice is important to a child, and to a grandparent, maybe that says something about this evolution of consciousness concept. Or maybe this 7 year old had already evolved. I submit that a person can live a life being fully programmed by the environment by never really employing his/her will to choose, but then the other extreme is that a person can live demanding that he/she always gets his/her way by wanting to make all the choices.
No. Not really thank you. But I do like your tenacity.
Love in Christ,
JM
Hi,
Not dialogue, but a barrier then.
I'm confident I'm not going to figure anything out on this basis.
s.
It would seem, or so it may only appear to this addled brain that the difficulty always must lie in top-downers discussing things with bottom-uppers.
In two dimensions there lies confusion, and even more in three, but add a fourth, imagine a fifth and what we no longer understand becomes quite crystal.
Resistance and Barriers can only mean the Universe awaits a resounding "Yes!" but for now, and only for some it has become the Koan for our frustrated meditation.
Peace
Hi,
Yes, from this thread I am mostly getting just an addled brain. Just one example: top-downers and bottom-uppers!!!??? I'm not sure I'd like to be described as either of them!
s.
Francis king
Well-Known Member
there are two truths-
that which has the qualities of truth (samvrttisatyam), but which by inference, is not the whole truth, and then there is that truth which is beyond the question of truth (paramarthamsatya)...
nothing in life is free, so why should will, or choice, be different? people don't choose to be born into poverty, somebody somewhere makes that choice for them. With the best will in the world if you have no legs, u will never play in the premier league. If your mum and dad are junkies and u grow up in a childrens home, just like everyone else, you can dream your great dreams, but you're less likely to reach ur true potential, or acheive those dreams, than Sebastian who went to Eton and who spends his summers in San Tropez...
you can only make choices from the options you are presented with... the fewer your options, the more limited ur choices... it is only when you evolve, intellectually, that you can "see beyond" the meagre lot you have been given, realise that u can transcend these bonds, and then u can move onto, for instance, supporting the football team of choice, rather than blindly support the same team as ur dad, and his dad b4 him...
and yet- not everyone has the sophisticated level of reasoning needed to be able to comprehend how society and civilisation has moulded them, each part, since childhood, before and beyond... they are not all historians with a penchance for comparative psychology, they cannot see how ensnared they are, by unwritten rules and rituals, will not acknowledge how impressed they have been by the great ideas, artworks, entertainments they have been exposed to, they do not know how very little they have that truely belongs to them, as they are too caught up in living for such introspection...
that which has the qualities of truth (samvrttisatyam), but which by inference, is not the whole truth, and then there is that truth which is beyond the question of truth (paramarthamsatya)...
nothing in life is free, so why should will, or choice, be different? people don't choose to be born into poverty, somebody somewhere makes that choice for them. With the best will in the world if you have no legs, u will never play in the premier league. If your mum and dad are junkies and u grow up in a childrens home, just like everyone else, you can dream your great dreams, but you're less likely to reach ur true potential, or acheive those dreams, than Sebastian who went to Eton and who spends his summers in San Tropez...
you can only make choices from the options you are presented with... the fewer your options, the more limited ur choices... it is only when you evolve, intellectually, that you can "see beyond" the meagre lot you have been given, realise that u can transcend these bonds, and then u can move onto, for instance, supporting the football team of choice, rather than blindly support the same team as ur dad, and his dad b4 him...
and yet- not everyone has the sophisticated level of reasoning needed to be able to comprehend how society and civilisation has moulded them, each part, since childhood, before and beyond... they are not all historians with a penchance for comparative psychology, they cannot see how ensnared they are, by unwritten rules and rituals, will not acknowledge how impressed they have been by the great ideas, artworks, entertainments they have been exposed to, they do not know how very little they have that truely belongs to them, as they are too caught up in living for such introspection...
JosephM
Well-Known Member
Yes. I for one do. And it is not 'choice' that is the illusion from this world perspective but 'free choice'. As I wrote in the first post.
" All choices then are bound by the level of consciousness and understanding that exists at the time of choice. Only a fully enlightened or awakened being with full understanding of context would have free choice but then it disappears as choice. This is because choice itself is a non-existent reality.
The non-existent reality is only from the view of enlightenment because there exists no such thing to choose. Subject and Object are One. How can there be a choice where there is no other or thing to choose. Such is the nature of completeness and such is the undescrible changeless nature of God/Reality.
I really liked your whole post but felt only the need to respond to your question.
Love in Christ,
JM
JosephM
Well-Known Member
Hi Snoopy,
Merely disregard that portion of that post comment as error. If one could put numbers or labels on individuals, they would have no meaning to God or reality since there is no such thing as one being 'better' or 'higher' than another. Whether, an eye, an ear, a mouth the feet, the head, it makes no difference as they are a required part of the whole. Personally, I am a bottom-upper and proud of it..
"Really"?.... No. Just a Man sometimes. No more.. no less.JM
Paladin
Purchased Bewilderment
Well Snoopy, you might be one, or the other or sometimes both
These are just examples of how people tend to perceive things. There are those who see or rather must see the whole or big picture and then break it down into its parts. These usually see that the Whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Then still others tend to build up to a conclusion or their vision of the Whole by carefully understanding the minute parts, organizing the data, categorizing concepts.
There is no good or bad, or better than less than just a different way of processing. When we communicate without being aware of the different processes conflict arises which serves only to waste time, and cause hard feelings. Thereby the reference in my little poem.
C
cyberpi
Guest
I view my free choice or free-will this way:
If I were bound up, gagged, starved, tortured, sleep deprived, threatened impending doom, or offered massive bribes... I still see that I have free choice. My choices may become extremely limited by the actions of others, the world, or my own prior choices, but I see what little is left as a free choice. Why is it free? It was gifted to me... I have no knowledge of paying for any of this life. I don't even know how to pay except possibly to share it with others. But I know who gave me choices.
When I throw a switch, like an electrical switch, I had a choice not to throw the switch. The size and magnitude of what I switched does NOT diminish or add to that ability to throw the switch. So I do NOT equate power and free choice. I do NOT equate the magnitude and the choice.
If there is a neuron in my brain that was not under my power, and it ultimately sent the signal to throw the switch, then I do not even consider that a choice. So I also do NOT equate external factors with choice.
Does choice here have consequences? Absolutely, but I do not consider that to remove from the choice. If it does then I am a slave to it. If I am just adapting to fit an environment then the environment is controlling me. Does the environment control me? Absolutely. I don't reject that, but as I said I do NOT consider that to be the choice. I further consider that things like gifts, love, forgiveness, patience, etc... require having a choice.
Does an adult having greater knowledge, wisdom, or information have greater choices? Sure, but scrolling back to what I first said, I do not equate the range of options with the free-choice. The brain and body is limited... there is a limited amount of information that it can see and deal with in a given period of time.
So that is what I've come to see and the words that I attach to them. I am certainly not requiring that anyone adopt them, but I do seem to see some things differently.
If I were bound up, gagged, starved, tortured, sleep deprived, threatened impending doom, or offered massive bribes... I still see that I have free choice. My choices may become extremely limited by the actions of others, the world, or my own prior choices, but I see what little is left as a free choice. Why is it free? It was gifted to me... I have no knowledge of paying for any of this life. I don't even know how to pay except possibly to share it with others. But I know who gave me choices.
When I throw a switch, like an electrical switch, I had a choice not to throw the switch. The size and magnitude of what I switched does NOT diminish or add to that ability to throw the switch. So I do NOT equate power and free choice. I do NOT equate the magnitude and the choice.
If there is a neuron in my brain that was not under my power, and it ultimately sent the signal to throw the switch, then I do not even consider that a choice. So I also do NOT equate external factors with choice.
Does choice here have consequences? Absolutely, but I do not consider that to remove from the choice. If it does then I am a slave to it. If I am just adapting to fit an environment then the environment is controlling me. Does the environment control me? Absolutely. I don't reject that, but as I said I do NOT consider that to be the choice. I further consider that things like gifts, love, forgiveness, patience, etc... require having a choice.
Does an adult having greater knowledge, wisdom, or information have greater choices? Sure, but scrolling back to what I first said, I do not equate the range of options with the free-choice. The brain and body is limited... there is a limited amount of information that it can see and deal with in a given period of time.
So that is what I've come to see and the words that I attach to them. I am certainly not requiring that anyone adopt them, but I do seem to see some things differently.
JosephM
Well-Known Member
OK cyberpi,
If you insist you have 'free choice' and not just 'choice' who am I to take it from your reality. Here is what my dictionary says:
free (fr
adj. fre·er, fre·est 1. Not imprisoned or enslaved; being at liberty.
To that I would ask:
If you are not imprisoned in your body and mind then can you break free and see the world as it really is?
If you have free choice, Can you tell your thoughts to stop right now? Can you even stop them for 1 solid minute without a single thought at your 'free' will?
You say you see your choice as limited (restricted/not free ) by others or your prior choices but you insist it is free because it was gifted to you. Are you making a funny?
I ask this because you say you have no knowledge of paying for this life as if choice is free yet you pay for it everyday. Each choice in life you make has consequences. That is your payment for choice. If choice was free, it would have no consequences for payment. In truth, surrender leads to freedom, choice has led you to bondage. Surrender that which you thought you had but didn't and you will be free. But these words I speak now are deep and as of out of a mouth of a fool. Yet you will understand them and do even now though you insist you do not.
Yet in conclusion I will leave you to your game and the melodrama of it all and concede for your sake that you have what you say. Free Choice and Free Will.
Love in Christ,
JM
Hi Paladin,
Thanks for that. I found this Science & Theology News - Bottom-up Thinking in Science and Religion
which includes "I call this latter approach to reality, which seeks to move upwards from experience to understanding, bottom-up thinking."
Would it therefore be reasonable to say that bottom-up thinking is analogous to empiricism (perception favoured over thinking) and top-down thinking analogous to rationalism (thinking favoured over perception). Just a thought (not a perception).
s.
Paladin
Purchased Bewilderment
You Know Snoopy, I'm not really sure about that. My gut feeling is that it might be the other way around. I tend to be a whole picture type of person, and my Myers-Briggs type suggests I lean more toward perceiving than thinking though as for that when I tested out it was almost 50/50. Incidentally the MBTI shows I'm an INFP
Peace
C
cyberpi
Guest
That is the definition I was using. That portion of molecules or neurons not imprisoned or enslaved is free and it is my choice to move them around as I wish. It was given to me and not taken away. That is free-will. When I drive a car I do not envision that I am trapped on the ground because of the car. The car enables me, and I did not design it.free (fr)
adj. fre·er, fre·est 1. Not imprisoned or enslaved; being at liberty.
I think God knows whatever I see, and whatever you see.
Yes... you can too and I highly recommend it. A very long time ago an engineer gave me a GSR biofeedback that he built for a C-64 and he wanted me to look at writing some software for it. So I tried it, and got into it, and realized that meditation is all about willfully thinking about nothing so that you can willfully focus entirely on something. I highly recommend biofeedback or meditation. Of course there is brain activity that is out of my control... except by more drastic measures. But I can stop using that which is the free-will.
I see that you and I do have a difference over what patience or sacrifice means, as well as choice.
If I were to ask you what your favorite drink is and then I give you a glass that is half full of it and half full of clean air, what will you think?
1. Is the glass half full?
2. Is the glass half empty?
3. Am I just trying to win something like a debate?
4. Am I trying to control you?
5. Am I trying to be nice so that I can go to heaven?
6. Am I trying to enslave you or place you in debt?
7. Am I stingy for only giving half?
8. Have I been indoctrinated into societal or religious beliefs to give?
9. Have I got a random gene that loves controversy?
10. Am I a fool to give and not recieve?
11. Do I expect a repayment?
12. Do you think that someone in Ethiopia is not recieving it instead?
13. Do I give only because someone else gave me something?
14. Am I giving nothing because I did not make the glass or the drink?
15. Did I have a free-choice whether to give anything?
16. Would you choose to accept the gift as a gift?
I'd like to run an experiment: What is your favorite drink, or something in the $100 range that you would like to have? Will you place the Faith in me to give you a gift? Then send me your address in a PM and I'll send it to you. My goal is to gain experience with something or for you to gain experience. Call it evolution if you like. I wish to learn something about choice and Faith. My part is the easy part... isn't it. Why is that? It is your choice! Are you going to place Faith in me to give you something that you like? The choice is yours. I have no choice until you give me one.
JosephM
Well-Known Member
Hello Cyberpi,
I apologize for my last post. Obviously it brought me something I do not want to see.
Love in Christ,
JM
I apologize for my last post. Obviously it brought me something I do not want to see.
Love in Christ,
JM
C
cyberpi
Guest
JM:
Absolutely nothing to apologize over whatsoever. I find your viewpoint interesting and I suggested something rather uncommon. The thing I was wanting to experiment with is not the trust, but the choice. Since I'm a stranger that doesn't work, but I find that most everyone is a stranger to the thoughts of others... often even those who are closest.
Another thing I think is worth doing is to just give choices to young children (and family). A game I've played a couple of times is to get in a car to go for a trip and let the children make the decisions of where to go and where to turn. They become the explorers. It gives them great excitement and it can be fun to see where they go with it. If I'm the one driving I am in control but giving them the choices so that they are in control. To the child the choices are also free... they don't think about the opportunity cost. I see it as different than just playing with the kids or giving them things... I think of it as giving them greater power of decision in a bounded but free fashion.
I imagine people here give each other gifts at holidays and there are many decisions (choices) through employment and economic transactions. I recognize though that in most of my day to day activities and situations I have been in that I have formerly resorted to society fed beliefs of leadership, politics, employment, parenting, or other roles. I have always been conscious of who was making the choices or decisions, but I had not seen it as a gift between people. So if I were right that I am the free-will, I still recognize that it is possible to live in a way without giving each other choices... or to just not consider it that way.
Absolutely nothing to apologize over whatsoever. I find your viewpoint interesting and I suggested something rather uncommon. The thing I was wanting to experiment with is not the trust, but the choice. Since I'm a stranger that doesn't work, but I find that most everyone is a stranger to the thoughts of others... often even those who are closest.
Another thing I think is worth doing is to just give choices to young children (and family). A game I've played a couple of times is to get in a car to go for a trip and let the children make the decisions of where to go and where to turn. They become the explorers. It gives them great excitement and it can be fun to see where they go with it. If I'm the one driving I am in control but giving them the choices so that they are in control. To the child the choices are also free... they don't think about the opportunity cost. I see it as different than just playing with the kids or giving them things... I think of it as giving them greater power of decision in a bounded but free fashion.
I imagine people here give each other gifts at holidays and there are many decisions (choices) through employment and economic transactions. I recognize though that in most of my day to day activities and situations I have been in that I have formerly resorted to society fed beliefs of leadership, politics, employment, parenting, or other roles. I have always been conscious of who was making the choices or decisions, but I had not seen it as a gift between people. So if I were right that I am the free-will, I still recognize that it is possible to live in a way without giving each other choices... or to just not consider it that way.
Hi,
When you say not sure about that, do you mean empiricism & rationalism? If so, the entry on empiricism in Wiki seems to broadly suggest this:
"In philosophy generally, empiricism is a theory of knowledge emphasizing the role of experience.
As a historical matter, philosophical empiricism is commonly contrasted with the philosophical school of thought known as "rationalism" which, in very broad terms, asserts that much knowledge is attributable to reason independently of the senses."
Whatever.
On your related note (?) of MB Types; I dug mine out and found we're in the same quadrant: I'm an INTP - for what it's worth! - Thinking AND Perceiving! There's value for money. It was done a while ago so I don't know how stable it's supposed to be over time. (Or what validity it has!). Oh grief, there I go analysing...
s.
Paladin
Purchased Bewilderment
Re: Free Choice or Choice by Evolution of Consciousness?
Hmmm... And how does this make you feel?
I think your spirit of inquiry will probably lead you to the answer, but as for me it seems an a priori kind of knowledge would be prevalent in a "Top-downer" with the a posteriori being the "Bottom-upper" Those in the forum, more knowledgeable than I might be able to tell us for sure. Where is Abagado Del diablo when you need him!
Hi,
When you say not sure about that, do you mean empiricism & rationalism? If so, the entry on empiricism in Wiki seems to broadly suggest this:
"In philosophy generally, empiricism is a theory of knowledge emphasizing the role of experience.
As a historical matter, philosophical empiricism is commonly contrasted with the philosophical school of thought known as "rationalism" which, in very broad terms, asserts that much knowledge is attributable to reason independently of the senses."
Whatever.
On your related note (?) of MB Types; I dug mine out and found we're in the same quadrant: I'm an INTP - for what it's worth! - Thinking AND Perceiving! There's value for money. It was done a while ago so I don't know how stable it's supposed to be over time. (Or what validity it has!). Oh grief, there I go analysing...
s.
Hmmm... And how does this make you feel?
I think your spirit of inquiry will probably lead you to the answer, but as for me it seems an a priori kind of knowledge would be prevalent in a "Top-downer" with the a posteriori being the "Bottom-upper" Those in the forum, more knowledgeable than I might be able to tell us for sure. Where is Abagado Del diablo when you need him!