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@SpinyNorman said:
There was an idea in science that if you could predict the state of all possible variables you could predict an outcome. And then somebody came up with Chaos Theory.
It's just ignorance of the variables concerned from the effect of the butterfly's wings to everything else. It doesn't mean the weather is random.
Dice are not random either; there's causes and conditions for the results they give.
As I said earlier, science says that only some things at the quantum level are truly random, but that maybe that's because they don't understand it yet.
It's just ignorance of the variables concerned from the effect of the butterfly's wings to everything else.
No, that isn't what Chaos Theory means. It means that even when you know all the variables you cannot reliably predict the outcome.
This applies at the quantum level too - you cannot talk about predictable states or positions, only about probabilities.
It's weird and counter intuitive but that's what the science is telling us.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
Oh goody! looks like it's time for one of my headaches!!
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
@Tosh said:
It then goes on to show an experiment that true randomness happens at the quantum level.
This is what it says:
Einstein and many others believed that the randomness of things like radioactive decay, photons going through polarizers, and other bizarre quantum effects could be explained and predicted if only we knew the “hidden variables” involved. Not surprisingly, this became known as “hidden variable theory”, and it turns out to be wrong.
The same applies to complex systems like the weather.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
I had another response but went and confused myself.
I know the feeling.
@Tosh said:
I don't know if we live in a deterministic universe. It bends my brain just thinking about it.
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personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
Deciding whether the universe is random or deterministic seems to me to fall into the "we don't really know" category atm. Philosophically, and in the macroscopic world, it makes sense that everything has causes and conditions, however at the quantum level there appears to be true randomness.
Maybe there is some sort of two truths going on here where conventional reality acts deterministically and ultimate reality acts randomly... or not like that at all.
Whether we have conscious free will or not it is still 'me' making decisions, so in the end
@person said:
Deciding whether the universe is random or deterministic seems to me to fall into the "we don't really know" category atm.
Maybe there's also a third category where it's not totally deterministic, but neither is it indeterministic either; we could call it the Middle Way?
I heard from somewhere that the truth is normally to be found in some subtle area between the extremes of thought.
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
Middle way and two truths seems to be the same notion and there must be a way macro and micro unify so you're both making sense there as far as I can tell.
I would figure that to some extent there is determinism but trying to nail it down is like chasing the horizon. I think in certain instances there are a few ways something can unfold.
Even if we could predict the effects of all causes, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is predetermined.
That does bring something else up though... if the universe is ultimately deterministic wouldn't that mean there would have to be a first cause? If all effects can be predicted then all causes must be set.
It's weird because it seems that some of us say determinism negates DO while others say determinism posits DO.
Like what @Tosh said,
That feeling that we make choices might be an illusion. @DhammaDragon you said it would be a karmic disaster if this was the case. Well maybe that's why an enlightened person is free from it.
When your in the shower do you think to yourself, grab the soap. Wash my underarm etc. it just happens. We quickly label it. Of course that's me doing that. Obvious right?
Well the ego is a load of Buddhist/psychological nonsense for many people.
When I go to bed at night, I am not body/mind anymore.
Experientially I am not there. My body/mind can still get out of bed and open the fridge yet I wasnt aware that happened.
A choice was made but I wasn't there.
We so quickly dismiss these things as obvious.
But try look into it. In deep sleep, where is that sense of I? It's not there. So how can we be the body mind. I only know it's still there when I wake up. Feeling of I returns
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
edited January 2015
@ourself First Causes are another can of worms altogether! How can there be such a thing, if it itself would need to be preceded by something else causing it? We know of nothing that's an uncaused cause... even Christians positing God doesn't make any sense. Like where did he come from what was he doing for an eternity before creating the universe? Even energy always existing is simpler, but doesn't solve the problem of why there's something instead of nothing. We don't know how, or even if, things "started". Nothing really makes sense at all, however we slice it. Reality is probably weirder than we can even imagine at this point!
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
That's why I highly doubt the universe is completely deterministic.
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
edited January 2015
@ourself said:
That's why I highly doubt the universe is completely deterministic.
Who knows. Whether it's deterministic or not still doesn't answer the question of how it started (or if it started), or why. So many questions, aaaaaaaaaah! Pondering these things can just be so much suffering, but the way I deal with it is to be skeptical of positive claims people make... that they haven't justified. Other than that, I've done some thinking, and "I don't know". That's where I leave it, and go back to real life. The past shouldn't carry that much weight of burden on my shoulders, especially when there's no way to know.
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personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
Regarding a first cause, there really is no reason that I've come across to say that the great 'something' had to begin at all, it could simply have always been.
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
edited January 2015
@person Regarding a first cause, there's no reason to suppose such a thing could exist anyway. "First Cause" is a stopgap that we've placed (some of us) to stop an infinite regress, because we can't imagine something not starting. Ironically we say first causes didn't have to start! HA! See we're all screwed up in this question. I think it's partly solved by ceasing to treat the universe as a "thing", because it's only things that start, persist and cease. The universe is the totality of all transient things; not really a thing itself, any more than a human body.
Still, questions questions questions. No answers. Not good ones anyway.
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
I don't believe in nothing so it's difficult to imagine that there could ever have been no potential for anything at all.
Even if there was a "before" anything, there still must have been the potential for everything.
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
edited January 2015
Something exists now. Logically something can't come from nothing (we're not talking quantum fluctuations, but true "nothing"). Therefore, something always existed. That's my shortcut anyway. We shouldn't still be thinking something came from true-nothing, because that's incoherent.
Christians bring up that argument against atheists, saying we think something came from nothing. Personally I think energy has always existed. Often it gets turned around, and I ask them where they think God came from. Oh he always existed? Okay, then what did he make the universe with? You don't create new things without pre-existing materials. None of the something-from-nothing ideas pan out. Even this new-fangled multiverse theory doesn't create a first cause, it just pushes the cause one step back and makes you ask "well where did that come from? how did that start?".
So I'd have to say "something" has primacy. Existence has primacy. Non-existence only applies to transient forms in the formless ocean we call the universe. Still no clue why!
The universe is expanding we do know this. This infers that if we go backwards it would have to have a starting point. But who can say really.
There's probably more then one universe anyway. Haha.
The centre of the universe is always you though. I say you are the cause of the universe. And the universe caused you.
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
edited January 2015
@Earthninja Yep the universe is expanding, hence it was smaller. However that doesn't necessarily mean it ever got as small as scientists think it did. They extrapolated backwards using what they knew/know, but then had to introduce "inflation" to make it make sense. It's possible they got it wrong. They still don't know what dark matter and dark energy actually are, or how they play out in the grand scheme of things.
I'm real "iffy" on the Big Bang as is currently understood, even though I generally trust Science (the methodology, the work, not as an authority to trust blindly). I trust more in the things we have more evidence for, and wait patiently to see how our understanding changes in the years and decades to come. Hopefully I'll be around for that!
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
I think it was me that said it would be a karmic disaster but not just if it were the case but if we acted like it's the case.
Buddha never said we don't exist or that our actions are not our own. In the Upajjhattana Sutta he says that we are the owner of our actions, heir to our actions, born of our actions, related through our actions and have our actions as arbitrator. Whatever we do, for good or evil, to that we will fall heir.
That sounds like the free will of beings that exist.
The Upajjhattana Sutta can be found at access to insight
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
edited January 2015
Also, don't forget guys... The big bang is likely just another function of the universe especially if we can agree it must have had a cause.
There could be as many anomalies expanding in the universe as there are stars within this anomaly (big bang)
@ourself yes I understand that, but being on the receiving end of actions doesn't mean fundamentally you chose to do them.
If we think of ourselves as the body/mind complex then yes it's true.
But if you are not the body mind complex. Then you didn't choose to do anything.
Im just trying to understand reality that's all.
I'm going to stir the pot a little but we don't actually know if Buddha said that...
He wasn't alive when it was written so we can only hope the people who wrote these down had a great memory and no agenda.
I might have a gander at the suttas. I probably should read em atleast once haha.
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
Yes, well, we could say that about the 4 noble truths as well.
Doesn't make it make less sense.
Does it really make sense that we are not really responsible for our own actions or that we don't exist?
For it to all be an illusion there has to be one to confuse. For it to be delusion, one must be deluded.
Not self points to non-permanence, not non-existence. That is nihilism.
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personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
@Earthninja said:
yes I understand that, but being on the receiving end of actions doesn't mean fundamentally you chose to do them.
If we think of ourselves as the body/mind complex then yes it's true.
But if you are not the body mind complex. Then you didn't choose to do anything.
I'm struggling with how to respond to you here. But I think you are somewhat conflating no self on an ultimate level with no self on a conventional level. IOW just because we can't find an "I" doesn't mean choices aren't being made. IOOW the you that makes choices IS the mind/body complex, it just doesn't have any sort of existence apart from them like our mind normally conceives it.
@person that's exactly what I mean. sorry if it didn't come across that way.
@ourself I never once said we don't exist. I am talking on an ultimate level just to clarify.
Annica is impermanent. Anatta is non self. Non self being not an entity behind things.
I pick up my phone. Exactly what is the I that picked up the phone? It's a ghost. An imputation.
The thought arose and the body responded. There is no separate entity that is the body/mind. This is emptiness.
Conventionally of course something that existed picked up the phone! I don't dispute that.
There is something that falls for the illusion. Exactly what it is or why I'm yet to find out. Maybe it's the ego that suffers itself. Don't know.
The four noble truths are true. I've tested it haha.
Thanks for your insights. What a journey hey.
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
Thanks for clarifying that because I have heard the argument for non-existence before and it stuns me to be honest... I'm always like, "How could something be tricked into thinking it exists if it doesn't exist?"
Do we have the freedom to make choices? yes.
but our choices are influenced by our personality, culture,
education etc.
Your present situation is determined by your past karma.
No, i am not talking about your past lives.
i am talking about what you did 2 seconds ago.
also what you did 2 years ago, and what you did 20 years ago.
Earthninja Yep the universe is expanding, hence it was smaller. However that doesn't necessarily mean it ever got as small as scientists think it did. They extrapolated backwards using what they knew/know, but then had to introduce "inflation" to make it make sense. It's possible they got it wrong. They still don't know what dark matter and dark energy actually are, or how they play out in the grand scheme of things.
@Toraldris said:
Christians bring up that argument against atheists, saying we think something came from nothing. Personally I think energy has always existed. Often it gets turned around, and I ask them where they think God came from. Oh he always existed? Okay, then what did he make the universe with? You don't create new things without pre-existing materials. None of the something-from-nothing ideas pan out. Even this new-fangled multiverse theory doesn't create a first cause, it just pushes the cause one step back and makes you ask "well where did that come from? how did that start?".
We can't assume space, time, or even cause and effect "prior" to the big bang, and we have no language to describe it. So the first cause argument is probably a non-argument anyway. It might well be that there has always been "something", a bit like Buddhist cosmology suggests.
If you propose that God has always existed then you can propose that "reality" has always existed too.
@cook99 said:
Do we have the freedom to make choices? yes.
but our choices are influenced by our personality, culture,
education etc.
Yes, and as previously discussed our choices also look to have a large unconscious element.
But if free will really didn't exist it would make a nonsense of Right Effort, among other things.
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
@SpinyNorman Yeah I think it's already a logical necessity that "something" existed, at least until we discover something can come from nothing (again, not Lawrence Krauss's quantum vacuum version of nothing, but true nothing).
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
@SpinyNorman said:
But if free will really didn't exist it would make a nonsense of Right Effort, among other things.
This is where I think it's valid to question... does Buddhism have a teaching called "Free Will", or is this something we're imposing on it? Free Will seems more a Western Philosophy / Christianity type question to me. It seems completely out of context to talk about it in Buddhism without actually defining what it means, and where it fits in with the Dharma. I've heard that Intention is the key to karma, but it's not called Free Intention. Just Intention. Okay I'm going to get a shower now; later!
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
Ah much better! I'm not saying we don't have free will, I'm just saying free will hasn't been defined. What is it that's free? Who has free will? It always comes back to how masters prod students to recognize that they're self-making, and attributing to self that which is not-self. I can't help but not be able to explain it better; I'm no master, I'm barely an apprentice novice, but I know it's important to recognize.
To be honest I think the whole "free will" thing is somewhere between a red herring and a straw man.
Talking about intention makes much more sense.
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
edited January 2015
@SpinyNorman Agreed! It's back to asking where the candle flame goes when it's blown out... and fighting over annihilationism or eternalism, when neither is the case.
I think asking these questions have a place. It's not just semantics.
Have you tried to locate the ego? Or feeling of self?
Not just talking about it. If you approach these topics intellectually it's not going to make sense.
Because the mind has a lot to say about it.
What I'm talking about is beyond mind. You can't use the mind to investigate . You have to use it to answer but not the investigation.
If you try look for the one who has intention or the chooser something happens. You can't use your mind(intellectual) to look. Because that too is a phenomenon.
It doesn't have to make sense. Because the mind wants to makes sense.
Have any of you guys tried to find the chooser of choices? Not intellectually but through direct inquiry.
@SpinyNorman I've heard a great quote in reference to "right effort"
"The person seeking enlightenment will be burned in the seeking"
In the beginning you have to put in effort as the truth seeker, in the end you realise you were never that. So while we think we have choices we make them. Not sure if this is true for the actual reality of things.
Buddha can't talk about ultimate reality to somebody who hasn't experienced it. He is going to put in place a path to follow.
I think it was Sri Raman Maharshi who said" I was knocking for that door to open, when it opened I realised I was on the inside"
No wonder @federica is headache dukkad . . . if there is such a condition . . .
Some points to ponder . . .
Trees use time travel - it is physically impossible (allegedly) for photosynthesis to be 95% efficient, as done by leaves on trees. Fortunately trees don't know this and to stop the energy loss of going through the leaf and losing energy they use quantum tunnelling. In effect and illogically photons arrive before they have left . . . http://hplusmagazine.com/2009/06/01/spooky-world-quantum-biology/
Free will is only possible in a limited or evolving God universe. A God that can travel through time and space, start big bangs in other branes of the multiverse may seem pretty cool to us 'barely above monkeys' but it ain't much to five dimensional and beyond beings. Sorry guys even Buddhas are just beginners.
Good jokes are real illusions . . .
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
I just got done listening to the latest episode of The Atheist Experience (900), and a caller brought up free will. I thought that was quite fortuitous timing. Anyway they brought up cases where the connecting tissue in the mid-brain is severed in hospital patients, and they go on to have two separate personalities. In one oft-cited case, one side of the brain was an atheist and the other theist. I'm not sure what point to make with that, but it's interesting to consider.
In one oft-cited case, one side of the brain was an atheist and the other theist.
Agnostics are like that.
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Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
edited January 2015
I really don't believe in true agnosticism. If you don't believe, and don't think you can know, you're really an agnostic atheist that's uncomfortable with the atheist part. That's not to say I tell people not to call themselves agnostic... I just don't believe that term is conveying where they are to the satisfaction of anyone listening. Do people claim to be agnostic about Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monsters, Leprechauns and Fairies? No, because they're not afraid of repercussions. The very term was born in a time when repercussions were a big deal (much bigger than now).
I'm an agnostic atheist myself, but I'm not claiming certainty either. I don't know of any evidence for any gods currently, and recognize that there's little chance of evidence against the existence of non-existent entities. So the positive claims have utterly failed to convince me. I'm not afraid of the atheist word, though I'd say Buddhist and Humanist are better descriptors (since atheist only says I don't believe in any gods).
@Toraldris said:
I really don't believe in true agnosticism.
I think it's probably quite rare. Most people seem to have a view, even if it's not clearly expressed.
It's "gnostic" that I really struggle with, I mean how anyone really know? People do have mystical experiences but those can be interpreted in any number of ways.
But returning to the OP, I guess all we can do is to be as mindful as possible of why and how we make the choices we do.
Comments
It's just ignorance of the variables concerned from the effect of the butterfly's wings to everything else. It doesn't mean the weather is random.
Dice are not random either; there's causes and conditions for the results they give.
As I said earlier, science says that only some things at the quantum level are truly random, but that maybe that's because they don't understand it yet.
It's just ignorance of the variables concerned from the effect of the butterfly's wings to everything else.
No, that isn't what Chaos Theory means. It means that even when you know all the variables you cannot reliably predict the outcome.
This applies at the quantum level too - you cannot talk about predictable states or positions, only about probabilities.
It's weird and counter intuitive but that's what the science is telling us.
Oh goody! looks like it's time for one of my headaches!!
Don't worry, nobody really understands this stuff, even the boffins.
Does that mean dependant arising is out of the window?
Or is this a kind of 'self centred' view of a human kind? We can't predict the outcome because we're not smart enough, therefore it's random?
From my limited understanding the only things that are truly random are things at the quantum level:
http://www.askamathematician.com/2009/12/q-do-physicists-really-believe-in-true-randomness/
It then goes on to show an experiment that true randomness happens at the quantum level.
Is the hubby getting frisky?
I dunno... hang on, I'll ask.....
I had another response but went and confused myself.
This is what it says:
Einstein and many others believed that the randomness of things like radioactive decay, photons going through polarizers, and other bizarre quantum effects could be explained and predicted if only we knew the “hidden variables” involved. Not surprisingly, this became known as “hidden variable theory”, and it turns out to be wrong.
The same applies to complex systems like the weather.
>
I'm extremely glad I'm not the only one.
@SpinyNorman, that's what I've been saying; true randomness only happens - as far science understands it - at the quantum level.
Dice, the weather - these things are not random in the true sense of the word.
Here's a good essay by Hawkins, if you'r interested enough to read it (who explains Einstein's position):
http://www.hawking.org.uk/does-god-play-dice.html
If you're not, just check out the summary.
I know the feeling.
Deciding whether the universe is random or deterministic seems to me to fall into the "we don't really know" category atm. Philosophically, and in the macroscopic world, it makes sense that everything has causes and conditions, however at the quantum level there appears to be true randomness.
Maybe there is some sort of two truths going on here where conventional reality acts deterministically and ultimate reality acts randomly... or not like that at all.
Whether we have conscious free will or not it is still 'me' making decisions, so in the end
Maybe there's also a third category where it's not totally deterministic, but neither is it indeterministic either; we could call it the Middle Way?
I heard from somewhere that the truth is normally to be found in some subtle area between the extremes of thought.
Middle way and two truths seems to be the same notion and there must be a way macro and micro unify so you're both making sense there as far as I can tell.
I would figure that to some extent there is determinism but trying to nail it down is like chasing the horizon. I think in certain instances there are a few ways something can unfold.
Even if we could predict the effects of all causes, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is predetermined.
That does bring something else up though... if the universe is ultimately deterministic wouldn't that mean there would have to be a first cause? If all effects can be predicted then all causes must be set.
It's weird because it seems that some of us say determinism negates DO while others say determinism posits DO.
That feeling that we make choices might be an illusion.
@DhammaDragon you said it would be a karmic disaster if this was the case. Well maybe that's why an enlightened person is free from it.
When your in the shower do you think to yourself, grab the soap. Wash my underarm etc. it just happens. We quickly label it. Of course that's me doing that. Obvious right?
Well the ego is a load of Buddhist/psychological nonsense for many people.
When I go to bed at night, I am not body/mind anymore.
Experientially I am not there. My body/mind can still get out of bed and open the fridge yet I wasnt aware that happened.
A choice was made but I wasn't there.
We so quickly dismiss these things as obvious.
But try look into it. In deep sleep, where is that sense of I? It's not there. So how can we be the body mind. I only know it's still there when I wake up. Feeling of I returns
@ourself First Causes are another can of worms altogether! How can there be such a thing, if it itself would need to be preceded by something else causing it? We know of nothing that's an uncaused cause... even Christians positing God doesn't make any sense. Like where did he come from what was he doing for an eternity before creating the universe? Even energy always existing is simpler, but doesn't solve the problem of why there's something instead of nothing. We don't know how, or even if, things "started". Nothing really makes sense at all, however we slice it. Reality is probably weirder than we can even imagine at this point!
That's why I highly doubt the universe is completely deterministic.
Who knows. Whether it's deterministic or not still doesn't answer the question of how it started (or if it started), or why. So many questions, aaaaaaaaaah!
Pondering these things can just be so much suffering, but the way I deal with it is to be skeptical of positive claims people make... that they haven't justified. Other than that, I've done some thinking, and "I don't know". That's where I leave it, and go back to real life. The past shouldn't carry that much weight of burden on my shoulders, especially when there's no way to know.
Regarding a first cause, there really is no reason that I've come across to say that the great 'something' had to begin at all, it could simply have always been.
@person Regarding a first cause, there's no reason to suppose such a thing could exist anyway. "First Cause" is a stopgap that we've placed (some of us) to stop an infinite regress, because we can't imagine something not starting. Ironically we say first causes didn't have to start! HA! See we're all screwed up in this question. I think it's partly solved by ceasing to treat the universe as a "thing", because it's only things that start, persist and cease. The universe is the totality of all transient things; not really a thing itself, any more than a human body.
Still, questions questions questions. No answers. Not good ones anyway.
Even if there was a "before" anything, there still must have been the potential for everything.
Something exists now. Logically something can't come from nothing (we're not talking quantum fluctuations, but true "nothing"). Therefore, something always existed. That's my shortcut anyway. We shouldn't still be thinking something came from true-nothing, because that's incoherent.
Christians bring up that argument against atheists, saying we think something came from nothing. Personally I think energy has always existed. Often it gets turned around, and I ask them where they think God came from. Oh he always existed? Okay, then what did he make the universe with? You don't create new things without pre-existing materials. None of the something-from-nothing ideas pan out.
Even this new-fangled multiverse theory doesn't create a first cause, it just pushes the cause one step back and makes you ask "well where did that come from? how did that start?".
So I'd have to say "something" has primacy. Existence has primacy. Non-existence only applies to transient forms in the formless ocean we call the universe. Still no clue why!
There's probably more then one universe anyway. Haha.
The centre of the universe is always you though. I say you are the cause of the universe. And the universe caused you.
@Earthninja Yep the universe is expanding, hence it was smaller. However that doesn't necessarily mean it ever got as small as scientists think it did. They extrapolated backwards using what they knew/know, but then had to introduce "inflation" to make it make sense. It's possible they got it wrong. They still don't know what dark matter and dark energy actually are, or how they play out in the grand scheme of things.
I'm real "iffy" on the Big Bang as is currently understood, even though I generally trust Science (the methodology, the work, not as an authority to trust blindly). I trust more in the things we have more evidence for, and wait patiently to see how our understanding changes in the years and decades to come. Hopefully I'll be around for that!
I think it was me that said it would be a karmic disaster but not just if it were the case but if we acted like it's the case.
Buddha never said we don't exist or that our actions are not our own. In the Upajjhattana Sutta he says that we are the owner of our actions, heir to our actions, born of our actions, related through our actions and have our actions as arbitrator. Whatever we do, for good or evil, to that we will fall heir.
That sounds like the free will of beings that exist.
The Upajjhattana Sutta can be found at access to insight
There could be as many anomalies expanding in the universe as there are stars within this anomaly (big bang)
If we think of ourselves as the body/mind complex then yes it's true.
But if you are not the body mind complex. Then you didn't choose to do anything.
Im just trying to understand reality that's all.
I'm going to stir the pot a little but we don't actually know if Buddha said that...
He wasn't alive when it was written so we can only hope the people who wrote these down had a great memory and no agenda.
I might have a gander at the suttas. I probably should read em atleast once haha.
Yes, well, we could say that about the 4 noble truths as well.
Doesn't make it make less sense.
Does it really make sense that we are not really responsible for our own actions or that we don't exist?
For it to all be an illusion there has to be one to confuse. For it to be delusion, one must be deluded.
Not self points to non-permanence, not non-existence. That is nihilism.
I'm struggling with how to respond to you here. But I think you are somewhat conflating no self on an ultimate level with no self on a conventional level. IOW just because we can't find an "I" doesn't mean choices aren't being made. IOOW the you that makes choices IS the mind/body complex, it just doesn't have any sort of existence apart from them like our mind normally conceives it.
@ourself I never once said we don't exist. I am talking on an ultimate level just to clarify.
Annica is impermanent. Anatta is non self. Non self being not an entity behind things.
I pick up my phone. Exactly what is the I that picked up the phone? It's a ghost. An imputation.
The thought arose and the body responded. There is no separate entity that is the body/mind. This is emptiness.
Conventionally of course something that existed picked up the phone! I don't dispute that.
There is something that falls for the illusion. Exactly what it is or why I'm yet to find out. Maybe it's the ego that suffers itself. Don't know.
The four noble truths are true. I've tested it haha.
Thanks for your insights. What a journey hey.
Thanks for clarifying that because I have heard the argument for non-existence before and it stuns me to be honest... I'm always like, "How could something be tricked into thinking it exists if it doesn't exist?"
Separation is the illusion, not being here.
Do we have the freedom to make choices? yes.
but our choices are influenced by our personality, culture,
education etc.
Your present situation is determined by your past karma.
No, i am not talking about your past lives.
i am talking about what you did 2 seconds ago.
also what you did 2 years ago, and what you did 20 years ago.
@Toraldris said:
There is a lot of stuff which is still poorly understood, though I think the evidence does point strongly towards big bang being correct.
This for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background
We can't assume space, time, or even cause and effect "prior" to the big bang, and we have no language to describe it. So the first cause argument is probably a non-argument anyway. It might well be that there has always been "something", a bit like Buddhist cosmology suggests.
If you propose that God has always existed then you can propose that "reality" has always existed too.
Yes, and as previously discussed our choices also look to have a large unconscious element.
But if free will really didn't exist it would make a nonsense of Right Effort, among other things.
@SpinyNorman Yeah I think it's already a logical necessity that "something" existed, at least until we discover something can come from nothing (again, not Lawrence Krauss's quantum vacuum version of nothing, but true nothing).
This is where I think it's valid to question... does Buddhism have a teaching called "Free Will", or is this something we're imposing on it? Free Will seems more a Western Philosophy / Christianity type question to me. It seems completely out of context to talk about it in Buddhism without actually defining what it means, and where it fits in with the Dharma. I've heard that Intention is the key to karma, but it's not called Free Intention. Just Intention. Okay I'm going to get a shower now; later!
Ah much better! I'm not saying we don't have free will, I'm just saying free will hasn't been defined. What is it that's free? Who has free will? It always comes back to how masters prod students to recognize that they're self-making, and attributing to self that which is not-self. I can't help but not be able to explain it better; I'm no master, I'm barely an apprentice novice, but I know it's important to recognize.
To be honest I think the whole "free will" thing is somewhere between a red herring and a straw man.
Talking about intention makes much more sense.
@SpinyNorman Agreed! It's back to asking where the candle flame goes when it's blown out... and fighting over annihilationism or eternalism, when neither is the case.
"We are stardust, we are golden..."
Have you tried to locate the ego? Or feeling of self?
Not just talking about it. If you approach these topics intellectually it's not going to make sense.
Because the mind has a lot to say about it.
What I'm talking about is beyond mind. You can't use the mind to investigate . You have to use it to answer but not the investigation.
If you try look for the one who has intention or the chooser something happens. You can't use your mind(intellectual) to look. Because that too is a phenomenon.
It doesn't have to make sense. Because the mind wants to makes sense.
Have any of you guys tried to find the chooser of choices? Not intellectually but through direct inquiry.
@SpinyNorman I've heard a great quote in reference to "right effort"
"The person seeking enlightenment will be burned in the seeking"
In the beginning you have to put in effort as the truth seeker, in the end you realise you were never that. So while we think we have choices we make them. Not sure if this is true for the actual reality of things.
Buddha can't talk about ultimate reality to somebody who hasn't experienced it. He is going to put in place a path to follow.
I think it was Sri Raman Maharshi who said" I was knocking for that door to open, when it opened I realised I was on the inside"
The mind is all we have. If you mean we can't use thought to investigate, then yes I would agree.
No wonder @federica is headache dukkad . . . if there is such a condition . . .
Some points to ponder . . .
Trees use time travel - it is physically impossible (allegedly) for photosynthesis to be 95% efficient, as done by leaves on trees. Fortunately trees don't know this and to stop the energy loss of going through the leaf and losing energy they use quantum tunnelling. In effect and illogically photons arrive before they have left . . .
http://hplusmagazine.com/2009/06/01/spooky-world-quantum-biology/
Free will is only possible in a limited or evolving God universe. A God that can travel through time and space, start big bangs in other branes of the multiverse may seem pretty cool to us 'barely above monkeys' but it ain't much to five dimensional and beyond beings. Sorry guys even Buddhas are just beginners.
Good jokes are real illusions . . .
I just got done listening to the latest episode of The Atheist Experience (900), and a caller brought up free will. I thought that was quite fortuitous timing.
Anyway they brought up cases where the connecting tissue in the mid-brain is severed in hospital patients, and they go on to have two separate personalities. In one oft-cited case, one side of the brain was an atheist and the other theist. I'm not sure what point to make with that, but it's interesting to consider.
In one oft-cited case, one side of the brain was an atheist and the other theist.
Agnostics are like that.
I really don't believe in true agnosticism. If you don't believe, and don't think you can know, you're really an agnostic atheist that's uncomfortable with the atheist part.
That's not to say I tell people not to call themselves agnostic... I just don't believe that term is conveying where they are to the satisfaction of anyone listening. Do people claim to be agnostic about Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monsters, Leprechauns and Fairies? No, because they're not afraid of repercussions. The very term was born in a time when repercussions were a big deal (much bigger than now).
I'm an agnostic atheist myself, but I'm not claiming certainty either. I don't know of any evidence for any gods currently, and recognize that there's little chance of evidence against the existence of non-existent entities. So the positive claims have utterly failed to convince me. I'm not afraid of the atheist word, though I'd say Buddhist and Humanist are better descriptors (since atheist only says I don't believe in any gods).
I think it's probably quite rare. Most people seem to have a view, even if it's not clearly expressed.
It's "gnostic" that I really struggle with, I mean how anyone really know? People do have mystical experiences but those can be interpreted in any number of ways.
But returning to the OP, I guess all we can do is to be as mindful as possible of why and how we make the choices we do.