Free will vs Predestined Fate and your self-control

Imagine you have the 'power' of a god or god-like being. You create a being out of your own thoughts and the atoms in the air - use your imagination. This being is alive, and as you tinker with it's creation it gains a level of sentience. As you release your will from your creation, it begins to explore it's evironment completely independent of your will.

Do you have the self-control to fully and utterly release this sentient creature to it's own devices? Would you create a plan for it to follow? How and what would that plan be? Could you love this being utterly as it is your own creation, and by extension an expression of yourself?

Now for the sake of the arguement, do you believe yourself to have Free Will in this life? Are you in control of your destiny with no outside interference from a supernatural entity or being, or perhaps group of beings? If there is such a thing as Free Will, does this not naturally foil the concept of fate or destiny? Is it even possible for these two concepts to coincide peacefully with each other?

All opinions, thoughts and musings welcome.

[edit on 5/7/2009 by azurecara]

reply to post by azurecara


Interesting question.

I try to think of it this way, imagine you are sitting at a desk watching someone walk towards a table while looking in the opposite direction. You have some choices,

Pull the table out of their way preventing them from hitting it.

Alert them to the table but it might be too late or you could possibly cause something worse to happen.

Finally just let them bump into the table and in future they will always look again in turn learning for themselves.

Now imagine that with life, would you constantly interfere and allow your creation to never really learn anything because you are covering their backs all the time even if you can see whats going to happen when you look at them?

After all the guy who bumped into the table knew you were there, he just was not aware of the table and he could have asked you if there was a table before bumping into it if that makes sense.

We are here to learn after all and if we had a dictator telling us everything we would never learn which would make everything pointless.

To answer the other part of your question, I believe we have free will entirely but just like I pointed out above, a creator can see exactly where you are heading and if you ask the observer they will give you advice because by asking it is still of your own free will that you asked in the first place.



[edit on 7-5-2009 by XXXN3O]

One person could have millions of destinies. It is that persons choice which destiny he chooses.

As I understand it, there is a conflict between free will and following the laws of God.

That is, all creatures have been given the free will to do what they want, also break God's laws, but when they do they have to face the consequences of breaking those laws (i.e. karma) which limit their free will and the choices they are able to make.

So if you see it that way there is no "freedom" in the sense that we understand it. You can either do what you want and eventually become limited by karma, or you can follow God's laws and create good conditions for yourself, which gives you another type of freedom, but can feel very restricting for your self-expression, at least compared to most people in the world today.



[edit on 7-5-2009 by Summerday]

Duplicate delete


[edit on 7-5-2009 by Summerday]

Imagine you have the 'power' of a god or god-like being. You create a being out of your own thoughts and the atoms in the air - use your imagination.

Its funny really.. you are bounding it by parameters you have set based on your imagination correct?

Now maybe you can understand that what we are in is more or less the same thing.

we are a thought process of a magnitude many can not see or care to understand.. We have infinity for a reason we live inside a question

that little moment be for you say yes or no is what we live in..

and if you want to see it look at the sky .. that is your mind making a choice to yes or no

have a nice day

imagine a program that's been set up to ensure absolute destiny..
and allowing however long it takes for that destiny to be fulfilled, but that destiny IS complete unification of all that is, into one being..

while the program maintains "souls" or "nodes" .. their own free will , they have to repeat the process of experience over and over in order to evolve and reach that destiny, that predestined perfection and union.

so while there exists a definitive destiny...
it's all about the experience in how one got there.. and how many times it took them to do it.

my take on it.

-

I'll reply to your questions in approximately reverse order, azurecara, because I think my answers will be more comprehensible that way.

Do you believe yourself to have Free Will in this life?

No. I believe that all events in the universe are determined. There is no free will.

Are you in control of your destiny with no outside interference from a supernatural entity or being, or perhaps group of beings?

The supernatural does not come into it. We are the product of natural forces over which we have no control. We are puppets of genetics, history and circumstances. We think we make our own choices, but we have no choice but to choose as we do.

If there is such a thing as Free Will, does this not naturally foil the concept of fate or destiny?

No. Remember Hamlet? 'There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.' If free will existed, then a man might make free choices, only to have the outcomes subverted by God or Fate in order to restore him to his destiny.

This is the moral contained in the old tale of the Appointment at Samarra.

One day in Baghdad, a man named Ali was visited by a friend who told him, 'I am just come from the marketplace, where I saw Death at a distance, asking after you; I heard him distinctly.' Ali, much alarmed, said 'if Death is asking after me, he surely means to take me. I must flee before he catches me.' So saying, he packed his bags in a great hurry and rode to Samarra as fast as he could, although he took great care on the road and kept a sharp eye out for strangers.

When he reached Samarra two days later, he thought he had escaped; but as he emerged from the inn wherein he had taken lodgings, whom should he run into in the street outside but Death himself.

'Ah! Here you are,' said Death cheerfully. Ali trembled; his bowels turned to water.

'You here?' he stammered. 'But I heard you were in Baghdad, seeking me in the marketplace.'

'Indeed I was,' replied Death. 'I was looking for you to tell you that I would meet you here in Samarra, two days thence. But I see you had already received the message, and have courteously kept our little appointment.'

Do you have the self-control to fully and utterly release [a] sentient creature [you've created] to its own devices? Would you create a plan for it to follow? How and what would that plan be? Could you love this being utterly as it is your own creation, and by extension an expression of yourself?

The nearest analogy that can be drawn to the situation you propose is that of parents and children. In this case the answer is clear: parents can't, and shouldn't, leave children to their own devices. Some highly authoritative or ambitious ones even draw up elaborate life-plans for their offspring (who rarely, if ever, follow them).

Artists, on the other hand, are only too well accustomed to leaving the offspring of their brains in the hands of others - painful though it nearly always is.

I think we do have total free will. It's just how we use it that determines (like another person said) How we get to the end of the journey will be different and how many lifetimes it will take us will be different. For every choice we make we can see, either before or after what cause it may have. That being said we might have freewill, but we also have an inner voice telling us why or why not to do such and such...meaning you may call it God or a supernatural being but it's really only your higher self. Intuition not to do or to do something comes from our higher self also. As for our birth and death, I beleive that that is preordained. There is no way to stop yourself from being taken by death if it is indeed your time, but say you have a bad feeling that you shouldn't get on that flight one day, later you find the flight went down and everyone on board was killed. Did You defeat death? I say NO. That your higher self knew it was not your time and your work was not finished here, therefore your inner voice let you feel that tinge of uncertainty. That's how I feel. I mean after all people are killing infants. Do you think if a GOD was to interfere at any time that would be a time He would??? I mean isn't a baby's life important enough? It is, but yet, He cannot interfere because this person will have to learn by this act. If He interfered the person would not grow or learn the lessons that they need to reach completion. And they would not learn how to conquer freewill, in other words, how to NOT follow the anger/dismay/violence you want to act on and step back and see the whole picture. I don't know how exactly to explain it but just think about your child if you have one or imagine you do have one, Do you want them to be under your influence (Meaning you direct their every move) And have them not be prepared to make their own choices or do you want them to learn to make their own choices, however bad they may be; and learn how to deal with the consequences so they may grow to be responsible for their actions and learn from their mistakes? We are here to learn from our mistakes. The only way one becomes enlightened is to conquer the temptation of freewill. That's what the physical existance is all about.

we don't have free will...

we are in a construct that has rules your ego thinks you have free choice


let me ask you this.. was it your free will you was to be born will it be your free will to die?

understand that you was PUT here.. when the universe was made SO WAS YOUR PATH and your meaning

you are no special stop thinking YOU are any different to a tree.. a fly a cat a dog

you are a function YOU HAVE ALWAYS MEANT TO BE HERE.. you confuse life with your ego

and you wonder why our world is in a mess.....

reply to post by symmetricAvenger


First I said that birth and death are preordained but everthing else is freewill. Second if you want to make an intelligent retort, learn how to construct a sentence properly, YOU WAS??? it should be You WERE put here.... A cat and a dog has freewill to BTW. If it didn't then it would not be able to run away from an abusive home or travel over hundreds of miles to find a family it's known all it's life when being lost. Ok. Every creature has a soul and freewil. Even if they can't speak or construct a proper english sentence.

reply to post by Astyanax

We are the product of natural forces over which we have no control. We are puppets of genetics, history and circumstances. We think we make our own choices, but we have no choice but to choose as we do.

drag

on the other hand - I feel a whole lot better about some of the stupider stuff I've done

I mean - what choice did I have really?

:-)

sense of self destroyed - sense of self replaced - with one easy, time saving concept

sry post wldn't show up correctly

[edit on 7-5-2009 by ScRuFFy63]

sry post wldn't show up correctly



[edit on 7-5-2009 by ScRuFFy63]

Try to look at the basics. What causes "stuff that simply exists" to do the things they do?, to behave the way stuff behaves. There is obviously an unknown force behind every thing that exists. It really doesn't matter if you call it nature, god or satan. Those are all different means to the same end of finding an internal balance within yourself and externally with the rest of existence.

Of course every single atom will have its own balance.

Ex: The "god energy" balances out non-existence. Humans balance out non-concious material. Animals balance out plants. It's kind of like a conciousness list. Keep in mind I have no proof for this as it's an original thought from my head but it just appears to make sense to me.

Non-existence"god energy"(everlasting)




[edit on 7-5-2009 by ScRuFFy63]

reply to post by ldyserenity


sorry but my post was under yours i was not talking about you

i know it seems that way as my post was under yours but it was directed at the OP

or i would have hit reply ; ) "ego" hehehe

its a ___ innit

reply to post by ldyserenity


but now i am replying

If you wish to insult how i type feel free..

just shows how some people can have a narrow mind considering the universe put me and you here the thing you wish to point out is my typing skills how very funny..

do you find me less intelligent because i do not type the way "its mean to be"?

does a tree find you less intelligent because you have no clue about life itself?

and i only ask that because you seem to think that the way i talk is LESS intelligent

But i did like the nice under the radar insult.

next time try not to focus on my grammar, but focus on what i said it helps you understand

Let's keep things courteous in this thread please people. I encourage the attacking and disseminating of an idea and the debate of the merits and angles of the constructs of such an idea.

Let us not be side-tracked into debates on spelling or grammar. I'm sure we are all trying our best to convey our thoughts and opinions in the least offensive manner.

I have enjoyed reading all the replies so far and would like to say it's interesting that there appears to be a dominate leaning away from the concept of Free Will. It would seem that Free Will is something that needs must be framed, or be conditional.

Would it be fair to assume then, that Free Will is an ability we have? Could Free Will be like a muscle we could choose to exercise, by not following along with the general "plan"? I use the word "plan" as metaphoric and not literal.

reply to post by azurecara


i agree with you.. i was only putting my case forth.

this is a short post im sorry mods coz of the one linners but i was making my case only to be grilled when i wasd doing my best to say that we have no free will

How can you have free will if you was created and are infact inside something with rules

Like i pointed out "EGO" Is KEY.. my grammer and spelling may suck but im not as stupid as you may assume.. Far from it infact..