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Determinism and Buddhism
For the past few years I've been a strong determinist. Determinists believe that all our actions or lack of actions is based on and dependent on past events and genetic makeup. Like a stack of dominos, each event causes the next to happen. Choices are given at every turn, but what we choose seems to be pre-determined, making choice an illusion.
Mindfulness seems to be a way to step out of that box and make decisions based on the present moment without influence on the past or genetic makeup.
Is mindfulness just another illusion to make us think we can make decisions free from pre-determined influences or does it grant us freedom from these chains of determinism.
Mindfulness seems to be a way to step out of that box and make decisions based on the present moment without influence on the past or genetic makeup.
Is mindfulness just another illusion to make us think we can make decisions free from pre-determined influences or does it grant us freedom from these chains of determinism.
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Comments
pre-determined seems to be the wrong term but if by that you mean "limited"; then in a sense yes, since you are not going to make fdsahjikfdwqhuke as a career.
"fdsahjikfdwqhuke" is a common career choice in planet "F143fhuiwqj".
but you have no idea of where is planet "F143fhuiwqj" is and what is "fdsahjikfdwqhuke" therefore you will not chose this as a career. you will be influenced on the past and genetic makeup.
there is no way out of it.
without the past, you wouldn't have any knowledge of anything.
and you wouldn't be able to ponder the questions you just asked.
now if and when you are enlighten this still remains true? probably but at a much lower degree. it gives you alternative choices which can be much greater choices, and even to eventually allow you to embark on a journey to discover your true self, also free yourself from suffering and the bondage of our conditioned mind.
the present interactions condition the future.
the present itself is impossible to change.
I think that determinism and free will are stories. Buddha said that the thoughts: Was I? Was I not? What was I? How was I? Will I be? Will I not be? What will I be? How will I be? Having been something in the past what will I be?
All of those thoughts are not ideas fit for attention.
Sabbasava Sutra: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.002.than.html
Many things are predetermined.
eg your IQ, your looks, your personality.
But not everything, within certain parameters, you
can choose how you live your life.
Otherwise, why bother?
I don't think of looking at it like a row of dominoes is correct though. To me that view is only looking backwards. If our actions were like walking along a beach we could look back and see a line back into the past, each step leading to the next. To assume that the path also continues ahead in the same manner isn't necessarily true, at any point in time one could take a turn away. There would still be factors that determine the change (a friend up on the road) but assuming the same continuation would be like predetermination. There are many subtle and not so subtle factors that effect each moment, I think to try to view each moment as a complex web of causation rather than a linear one is more in tune with reality.
As to mindfulness. Awarness is always only in the present. Awarness of a situation can alter the course of events. So not only can the past shape the future but the present can as well. Its not an escape from determinism but it means we're not entirely tied to the past and its not predeterminsm.
Also if you haven't already learn about the difference between determinism and fatalism.
freewill or free choice
FW=1/(number of all conditionings manifest itself from begginingless of time )
you do the math:)
As I referred to buddhas Sabassava sutra trying to figure out all of the causes is impossible. And it is not an idea fit for analysis or attention.
so one divided by infinite=0
thats how much free will you got...lol
I'd be curious what nagarjuna made of cause and effect?
with craving and attachment come this and that.
reality lacks this and that.
if this and that are not asserted then the equality of all things become obvious.
the unborn nature of all dharmas. no this, no that.
1) X and Y are not self existent
2) all phenominen have multiple causes.. Thus the entire universe causes anything... And any cause affects the entire universe..
Thus it is a Cluster Fart of dominos and not just a line. It is not totally random arisings though there exists impermanence. The arisings are not random on the contrary there are mandalas. This forum is a mandala and requires MANY bonds between us. The website, buddhism, the language, things to eat and toilet for all of us hehe, etc..
Inifinite mandalas. In the space of awareness. Awareness meets it's mother, pure reality!
This being so, it is an established way in buddha-dharma to deny that birth turns into death. Accordingly, birth is understood as no-birth. It is an unshakable teaching in Buddha's discourse that death does not turn into birth. Accordingly, death is understood as no-death.
Birth is an expression complete this moment. Death is an expression complete this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring.
-Dogen
Assume zen_world wants to test @person about free will...
z_w come up with a simple test...
I bring 3 things with me...one apple, one stone, and one book...
I put them in front of person and ask him if he can choose whatever he wants with his free will...
person says" yes he has free will and he can choose whatever he wants with no influence"..
so z_w says please do so...
person randomly chooses the "book"....and says here it is, I chose with my own free will...
z_w then says, how many options did you have
person: I had only 3 options
z_w: no you had four...you could have chosen "not to chose"
z_w: but the point is not how many choices you had, the point is that you had limited choices...
person: so?
z_w: the fact that I created the game, as soon as I created the game, I limit your choices. I created the conditions for you. Either you choose one of the 3 objects or you do not choose at all...but regardless you are in my game...
person: but I choose the book on my own free will...
z_w: even a random number generator can choose a number...is a random generator have a free will?
see the fact that I put the condition "with my game" - your unlimited free will is ended to limited four options...
You could have much more choices if I hadn't created the game at the first place...you could have done whatever you wanted to...
now imagine, in real life, how many conditions around you...conditions arising from your own mind and conditions arising from external conditions...
It would be like saying that because an apple lacks a rind an orange also does.
your mind is entangled to future and past....your room right now is your limitation.
You are in the game of surviving...when you crossing the street the car is approaching is your limitation.
The job you go is your limitation.
The girl you want is your limitation.
The suffering you want to end is your limitation.
Religious ideas you follow is your limitation.
Right and wrong is your limitation.
You are already limited inifinite times in this life.
You end up with countable amount of options.
Your mind chooses options among those countable options left for you.
countable divided by uncountable is always zero...
plus...
I dont think there is even countable options..
your mind is like a computer...you are no different than a random generator.
If you choose apple over a stone or stone over a book is meaningles...its just a random selection which is nothing to do with free will... so what is free will? no such thing...
its made up...
whatever can happen - has the potential to happen- is this...
this is happening because this is the only option...
this...is the most efficient state of nature...it is this way because it cannot be the other way.
If we have 2 options probability doesn't enter into it with 1/2 or 1/2... rather it is an individual choice.
Even if two people choose apple over orange, they have an infinite number of shades in that acceptance. For example you could like that apple for infinite reasons. Thus it is infinity/infinity
if you only look at my game as an isolated event then you are right...
but my game is not an isolated game...there were infinite number of conditions limited you until that moment.
this discussion is very theoric...there is no practical use to it...
You say our choice is only a random number generator, that seems to be the crux of your argument, the number of choices available has nothing to do with it. Randomness is the opposite of determinism. Many look to quantum uncertainty and randomness to find some kind of wiggle room to allow for choice. You've made it into a fixed universe.
I'll have to think about this some more.
something really surprised scientists about the particle wave phenomena...
I am assuming you are familiar with the double slit experiment.
When you sent photons to a single slit, the photon behaves like a particle.
When you sent photons to double slit, the photon behaves like a wave if not observed and behaves like a particle when the system is observed.
However, something very strange happens...
When you sent photons one by one, with some time intervals between each photon, they hit the screen like they are random objects. However, after you sent certain amount of photons then a pattern starts to emerge...And no matter how many times scientists make the same experiement, always the same pattern emerges.
So scientists shocked by this because it implies that somehow random individual objects creating the same deterministic pattern all the time. This is impossible.
This issue is also discussed between one of the pioneer noble price winner quantum physicts and HHDL in one of the mind and life videos...
They ask HHDL how this is possible?
And HHDL replied...because you assume cause is correlated with the effect in one way. What if effect is also impacts its own cause as well...?
The point is, random events create deterministic pattern....please contemplate on this...
The concept of free will only makes sense if we link it to freedom...
There is a difference between "random" and "free will"
Randomness has nothing to do with freedom.
Random number generator can pick a random number but we cannot talk about its freedom. It is irrelevant.
So we have to differentiate freewill from randomness...
Random selection is meaningless and doesn't relate to freedom.
A free will implies freedom in our actions...
Coming back to my game example...
I come and offer you two choices...pick A or B...you only have the following options:
pick A
pick B
pick A or B
pick A and B
pick none
you only have these 5 choices...
From micro level, you think you have freedom but you pick one of the five with random way.
But if you step back and look at the big picture, I put a condition in front of you that you cannot escape...This game limited your freedom right away by giving you only five choices that you cannot escape...I limited your freedom as soon as I request from you to pick A or B...
Hope you are following me...
If I haven't showed up at the first place and didn't ask you anything then you wouldn't be in this situation at all...Your freedom wouldn't be violated...
but in the game you only have random choices to make, which you call freedom!!!?
I wish I can find you the video but it is one of these long mind and life video that runs for hours and there are so many of them...I will try may be I can get lucky....
Pick $5
Pick $20
Pick $5 and $20
Pick none
The decision isn't so random anymore. The universe of choices available also have value to them so how can we say they are random?
Well, I'm not just going to take your word for it. Did you study quantum mechanics in school you mean or from books and the web and such, because I've been studying it for longer than that.
The random part of the double slit experiment is which slit the photon passes through. The pattern is a wave interference pattern like when two waves in the water meet each other some parts raise up higher and some parts go lower.
He explained that when this event is described in conventional terms, or according to the Sutta method, it might be said that you had a choice to kill the mosquito or to refrain, and that you chose the latter. But when it's described according to the Abhidhamma method, your abstention from killing wasn't due to choice but to the arising of kusala cetasikas (wholesome mental factors) such as moral shame and fear of wrong-doing (hiri & ottappa), and abstinence (virati), i.e., it was causally determined.
And then there are passages like this from the Dhammasangani (pp. 7-8): And the Atthasalini, pp.147-148: Incidentally, I think the Abhidhammic position accords well with what neuroscientist Sam Harris writes about the illusion of free will here, here and here; although I find the Sutta-based position more useful in the sense of motivating my practice (which itself may act as the condition for me to practice more and help give rise to mindfulness whenever recollected).
Please watch this
0:53:15 thru 0:54:15
This is very obvious...
I wonder if you still stick to your argument...obviously this is not as simple as you put forward about wave interference...
This is about indivual random events creating a deterministic pattern whether is thru wave interference or not...Wave interference is only the cause but it doesn't suggest you will get the same pattern all the time. There will be different picks and lows if individual particles are independent - which we know they act independent. But why the overall pattern is always the same...?
Please watch the video...
Ofcourse you will pick $20 because of your conditioning to material things...
In this case, you are only following your conditioning....
this is not a good example for free will:)
True, the decision is not so random, it is already deterministic:)
And if you watch 0:55:20 and onwards, you will hear this is not about wave interference...They specifically talk about that....
http://www.buddhanet.net/l1lesson.htm
One of the key features of quantum mechanics is that it IS random. Hence the different interpretations of quantum mechanics to account that randomness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics
I got A+ in quantum mechanics course at the university of michigan :om:
Spiny
Lets say there is a %20 chance each photon will land in one of 5 spots.
I I I I I
Each individual event is random but over a large sample a pattern emerges because of the probability of each one landing in any spot.
please watch the video again....this is not about indiviual photon's randomness...photons behave random individually....but altogether they create a pattern, how? please explain...
how come indepedent events can create a deterministic pattern, how?
please don't say it is probability. Unless you assume somehow they all have to obey a normal distribution or some another statistical distribution? but why a specific distribution? where is the causality?
you are missing the point?
I am not sure if you ever listen the video...
show me any example, where many independent events can cause a specific pattern?
After how many - independent events turn into deterministic?
I guess you are just arguing with me for the sake of arguing...If you really have the answer please submit it to those guys in the video, you can get a nobel price...
lost in translation....
I am not following you anymore...
why bring up $ example?
how does this help you support your own argument and disprove mine?
Quantum mechanics is well.... quantized..
I don't think you can extrapolate a pattern phenomena in QM to a person making a choice. And a separate argument is that each electron is individual and has a random probability. Einstein was not satisfied with QM because it couldn't be reconciled with relativistic theory. But relativistic AND quantum mechanics both point to a non-Newtonian and non-clockwork world. The modern physics does not support a clockwork world. 'God' plays dice.