Free Will 2 (Evolution)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, July 05, 2012, 23:16 (4522 days ago) @ romansh

romansh, 
> > It's Dennett's version of free will: You don't choose what bubbles up from below, but something allows you to say yes or no. And that something can choose for example, to simply sit, do nothing, and observe. THAT is the conscious agent.
> 
> While I think I understand this is an attractive proposition. I am not convinced that either state (conscious or unconscious) can be described as consciousness. My computer, plants in my garden sit and do nothing - is this consciousness?
> -Don't know. What I do know, is that I can say no to an impulse. -> The problem of compatibilism, it helps us to turn a blind eye to dependent origination (the Buddhist concept) and the concept of causa sui.
> -I don't think it turns a blind eye at all. I'm living proof of that. Remember what I said earlier--just because I can *at times* sit still and ignore impulses, doesn't mean that the majority of the time I'm fully "in control" either. The "goal" again, of meditation, is to get beyond the point where our minds are constantly firing off flak, and reach that state of "here and now." That's the first step. -As for "Causa sui..."-"The causa sui is the best self-contradiction that has been conceived so far, it is a sort of rape and perversion of logic; but the extravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and frightfully with just this nonsense.
...
Suppose someone were thus to see through the boorish simplicity of this celebrated concept of "free will" and put it out of his head altogther, I beg of him to carry his "enlightenment" a step further, and also put out of his head the contrary of this monstrous conception of "free will": I mean "unfree will," which amounts to a misuse of cause and effect. One should not wrongly reify "cause" and "effect," as the natural scientists do ... according to the prevailing mechanical doltishness which makes the cause press and push until it "effects" its end; one should use "cause" and "effect" only as pure concepts, that is to say, as conventional fictions for the purpose of designation and communication--not for explanation. In the "in-itself" there is nothing of "causal connections" of "necessity" or of "psychological non-freedom"; there the effect does not follow the cause, there is no rule of "law." 
...
The "unfree will" is mythology; in real life it is only a matter of strong and weak wills.
" --Nietzsche, BGE, section 21--...
> To be honest, I would argue that you are not the sole beholder of zen and its meaning. As Buddha pundits point out, Buddha points to the way, but it has to be 'your' way. As far as I am concerned Blackmore is on a parallel path to you. And I am on mine.
> -Absolutely. Again, I base my views on her from watching perhaps 2 online lectures. I fully accept that this by no means can encompass even a simple person's philosophy. -
> > Compared to what I've received under instruction, Blackmore is too far to one side. There are parts of will that are deterministic, and parts of will that are choice.
> 
> Can I suggest you read her book, Ten Zen Questions (if you have not already). It is short and an easy read. 
> -My book list certainly grows with age! -> Her analysis of free will is deterministic, I agree. But indeterminism also leads to a no self, and my will is not independent of indeterminism either.
> 
The core Buddhist truth here is that free-will cannot be an absolute thing. That was what I attempted to communicate earlier. It seems we're more alike than I thought, but I *am* used to defensive thinking. Forgive me!

--
\"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.\"