Evolution, Science & Religion (Evolution)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, June 30, 2012, 03:44 (4528 days ago) @ romansh

What is your definition of free will? 
> It is sufficiently broad as to eliminate such things.
> 
> > Buddhism rejects the idea that we have unfettered free will. Specifically, more often than not we're not exercising it, even when we think we are. 
> 
> Unfettered free will, so we have fettered free will? Is that like being a little bit pregnant?
> -The common notion in western thought, a myth in fact, is that we're free to do as we please. This is the notion of free will that Buddhism rejects.-Consider someone with an IQ of 80. How likely is it, that this person is going to be a famous physicist? She might want to be, but no amount of will is going to make you push beyond a handicap like that. -That's a good analogy for what Buddhism is trying to say. -> You said here
> >> Not exactly. Sort of true.
> >> 
> >> It's not that eastern thought rejects free will, but it rejects the notion that the actor is in itself, a dependent, non-contingent thing. Our ego binds us and tricks us into thoughts of true independence.
> I read this as eastern thought accepting free will at least to some degree.
>-It accepts free will, but not, as I said above, in the western sense. A small quote from Nietzsche: "A thought comes when IT wills!"-Buddhist training teaches you to become an observer of your own mind. It trains your volition.-Free will is a muscle in Buddhism, meditation is how you learn to exercise it. 
 
> > Our egos tend to wrap all this up into discrete, concrete things, and it is Buddhism's perspective that these things are precisely--not concrete.
> 
> There is nothing wrong with my ego Matt. It is big and active. -I'm using ego in a more technical sense. I think the ego in Buddhism more closely maps to Freud's "id." At any rate, as I said above, when I learned exactly how little of what I did was volitional, when I learned how much I was ruled by my passions, it was THAT that I found scary. I felt less in control of myself. I'm still not, but I'm getting better. -> 
> > What are you passionate about? Why? The answer to Buddhism's half-rejection to free will lies within the honest answers to those questions. 
> 
> It is the half acceptance where I find the dissonance Matt.-Maybye... hopefully... hammered home?-> 
> > When you realize exactly how much unconscious will drives you, it is scary. At least it was for me. 
> 
> I agree that some find this scary - but when we understand it can be no otherway, then that becomes interesting for me. -Obviously I share your interest, but the only thing I can probably relate to you is that meditation feels like waking yourself up while in a dream within a dream. You become aware that you're dreaming, try to wake up, but perhaps barely realize that you're still not awake. There's techniques though to help mitigate this inevitability, and supposedly there was a man who accomplished it 2500 years ago...
 
> I have read three of Campbell's books Power of Myth, Pathways to Bliss and Myths to Live By. The first two were his last (Bliss is a collection of lectures published posthumously). I found them an easy read - essentially a summary of his views. 
> -I started reading "The hero with 1000 faces," and had to set it down. It is a DENSE read. I needed to learn more mythology. -> > Its no different than the near simultaneous invention of Chinese and arabic algebras. 
> 
> Are you sure there are not some as yet unrecognized common seeds?
I'm agnostic. I'm not sure of anything! -> 
> > Though his roots were in... murky waters, Campbell's analysis is quite thought provoking... but to me it seems more a generalization of story archetypes than necessarily, a single, common story.
> 
> Yes - I think we all take away a reflection of ourselves in Campbell's works/-I own the "Power of Myth". Maybe I should tackle that before "1000 faces."

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"