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Is life deterministic or libertarian?
DaftChris
Spiritually conflicted. Not of this world. Veteran
in Philosophy
Basically, do we truly have free will or is our life determined by our surroundings and circumstances?
Personally, I think our lives are more deterministic. Of course we can choose to do what we want to do, but ultimately our surroundings determine whether or not our choice is "correct" or not.
Let me use an example:
You wake up early to make it to a big, important meeting. You get in your car and head out onto the interstate. About half an hour later you are involved in a massive pile up and are severely injured. You made the choice to leave early, but you couldn't control the pileup from happening. As a result, you were involved in said pile up. like wise, if you made the choice to leave around your regular time, you would have missed the wreck, but you would have been late.
We can make our own choices, but our surrounding circumstances, in the end, dictate what happens to us.
Personally, I think our lives are more deterministic. Of course we can choose to do what we want to do, but ultimately our surroundings determine whether or not our choice is "correct" or not.
Let me use an example:
You wake up early to make it to a big, important meeting. You get in your car and head out onto the interstate. About half an hour later you are involved in a massive pile up and are severely injured. You made the choice to leave early, but you couldn't control the pileup from happening. As a result, you were involved in said pile up. like wise, if you made the choice to leave around your regular time, you would have missed the wreck, but you would have been late.
We can make our own choices, but our surrounding circumstances, in the end, dictate what happens to us.
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In my mind the mental process of decision making is deterministic. I don't think this means events are set in stone though. To me the Buddhist view is that the pure nature of the mind/awareness only exists in the present and the Buddhist view is that the mind and body support each other like two reeds standing against one another to produce consciousness.
So take for example the decision to choose cake or fresh fruit for dessert. One's craving may naturally arise when the senses come into contact with the choice dependent upon biology and memory. If we lack awareness we merely follow our craving. Each of us has a certain level of awareness of our mental arisings, which can be trained through meditation. If we become aware of our craving occuring without instinctively reacting to it the knowledge of eating cake enters into the causal stream and will give rise to other thoughts about the health benefits of eating fruit vs. cake or any other pertinant knowledge.
This is where volition (cetana) comes into play and my understanding gets fuzzy. Volition is likened to a foreman who energizes and directs the other mental factors while also being considered a conditional mental factor. So one of the choices wins out and volition empowers that one to give us the energy to carry it out.
My take on free will is still a work in progress so take it with a grain of salt. Long story short I think there is a choice between libertarian free will and linear determinism where the present moment (aka awareness) adds lubrication and flexibility to a deterministic macroscopic universe.
The probablistic universe of QM adds another twist that also adds some room for flexibility.
which will, in effect, change one's circumstances
yes, we have free-will, but i don't think anyone would believe that it is so easy to spot without practice.
There would have to be something unmovable in us setting things in motion; a God-creator of decisions. This something has not yet been found.
What we do find is the brain which is a complicated organ, a lot more complicated than it appears to us in our conscious experience of it.
The brain does a lot of its decision making outside the purview of our conscious experience and so we get the wrong impression that we actually can make decisions out of the blue: that we have a say in the matter; that we have a free will.
The way I see it our most fundamental mistake is ”Cogito ergo sum”. The thinking appears to come from “me”.
It doesn’t. The thinking is a non-personal process in the brain. There is no thinker; no outsider who is in control of it.
The thinking is an inside job. The process has stealthy origins in our unconscious brain activity.
It is camouflaged with the illusion of a “me” who is making all these decisions.
The question is why and how exactly this happens; which is “the hard problem of consciousness”.
Another aspect maybe is that our decision making is such a complex process that we cannot predict the outcome very well. We cannot predict the weather very well; but that doesn’t mean the weather has a will of its own.
If like me, you cant explain or define what it would even be, then perhaps one would not wish to state anything about free-will as if it was a fact, na?
http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/comment/305054/
http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/comment/277893/
http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/comment/164898/
Sam Harris (a neuroscientist) gives a good talk on 'free will' here:
He (from memory; I've not watched this in a while) says that free will doesn't exist either.
I like these discussions also; I'm a recovered alcoholic and I remember trying time and time again to not drink, yet I always ended up drinking; until I was shown how to create the causes and conditions which mean I don't need to drink anymore.
By "Stochastic" I mean totally random. I am not sure if the Buddha talks about this. No. I am saying I don't know what "free will" means:p Well this is where the goodness emerges from the pondering, then:)
Actually pratityasamutpada is a profoundly simple term. It just means that conditioned phenomena are arisings/compositions from the non-arising unconditioned absolute, like a rope is made from muñja grass or a clay pot is made from clay.
Taking mind and body as separate results in a 'me' that is opposed to bad things and craving good things. Because it is in fact not under the consciousness control this results in frustration.
Actually pratityasamutpada is a profoundly simple term. It just means that conditioned phenomena are arisings/compositions from the non-arising unconditioned absolute, like a rope is made from muñja grass or a clay pot is made from clay.
Thanks. Is one of these the 12 Niddanas and one actutual DO as in "This happens that happens..."?
From both my TB practice and experience as a Catholic practitioner I find a choice definition the most useful definition of free will to work with.
Practice involves becoming aware of our choices and invariabily leads to the recognition of a greater range of choices and responses to events rather than narrowing them, in my experience.
Having the ability to predict how things will eventuate involves clarity of the specific causes and conditions involved and knowledge of the patterned responses of individuals.
As a result, you were involved in said pile up. like wise, if you made the choice to leave around your regular time, you would have missed the wreck, but you would have been late.
[You left early because the meeting was important. You did not want to be late. If it was an ordinary day you would not have to make that "choice"]
Choices were made based on prior causes and conditions or circumstances. The so called "freedom" we get is similar to the choice we are given when an armed robber says to us,"Your money or your life?"
So your quote, @seeker242, is not very much of a middle position, because it needs to drag in a very obscure extreme.
It is simply claiming free will without much explanation to support it.
In fact saying that "everything happens by way of cause and effect” is what I would lable as deterministic.
I would like to add that “deterministic” is not the same as predictable.
And even if free will ultimately is an illusion, it is what we have to work with. All we can do is act upon our decisions.
So the future is set each time we make a decision to change it.
It is not an insignificant thing that Thickpaper has studied freewill for long time and cannot decide what it is. This suggests to me a sound analysis. On close examination freewill is indististinguishable from determinism, or at least the distinction is meaningless.
But in the end it may be necessary to go back to the whole idea of action and agency to sort the freewill problem out. If we believe that we act, that we are an independent active agent, then the problem is probably intractible.