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Post by Nitaidas on Jun 14, 2011 13:27:31 GMT -6
Here is an interesting discussion of free will. It is an important area to consider, because it lays at the very core of the vidhi and raga distinction. Do both presuppose it? What sense does a vidhi or nishedha make if there is no free will? And raga? Maybe raga is the opposite. We cannot do anything but love Krsna when we see him. Do we have free will in that case, or are we just drawn to him without any choice? What do you think? Anyway, we must try to see it from both sides and this discussion gives us a chance to do that. Here.
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Post by Nitaidas on Jun 28, 2011 9:50:29 GMT -6
Here is another interesting discussion of this question with some fascinating facts about people who regularly commit anti-social acts. Jerry keeps us well fed with these things. Here.
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Post by vkaul1 on Jul 2, 2011 17:28:40 GMT -6
Nitai ji. I was meaning to write on this topic, but I was very busy. I have discussed this topic to death before without any conclusion. There are many issues involved here. Let me start: 1) What exactly is free will? Does free will mean that given the same external environmental input and the internal brain/mind body states, a different decision will be taken at different times. If yes, how will that free will be really free? Does randomness in the outcome leave us with a meaningful idea of free will. 2) You can also take an example of a person who is an alcohol addict and explain the situation with determinism. However, considering a human is just a complex input output system with the organic body/brain being the "transfer function" and external environment being the input, we can modify the output (a person takes to alcohol or not) by providing overwhelming information to the brain to overturn the decision to take alcohol. Generally it has to be a combination of reading magazines that impact the "voluntary" actions of the individual's brain (if there is any thing as voluntary but you get the point) and some treatment like smoking cessation drugs that play with the chemical secretions in the brain that trigger the urges. Perhaps you can just speculate that some people have "memes" and they can never recover in Dawkins language from their body/brain inheritance even if environment has input that tries to overturn the current output of the "transfer function.". 3) Lastly, there is a tension between free will and preserving the omniscience of God. If god knows all the actions in advance, what exactly is that free will. A solution that people came up with was en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/ Schopenhauer said "Man is free to do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills" The Compatibilist calls this limited freedom 'free will'. A not so convincing answer that theists all across the spectrum give is here I am copying a small section from there. Still I think the answer is less than satisfactory. Is it a proble that we make the same decision given the same state of the external environment and our body/brain? Would you want it to be otherwise? www.comereason.org/phil_qstn/phi038.asp 1. A being with free will, given two options A and B, can freely choose between A and B. 2. God is omniscient (all-knowing). 3. God knows I will choose A. 4. God cannot be wrong, since an omniscient being cannot have false knowledge. 5. From 3 and 4, I will choose A and cannot choose B. 6. From 1 and 5, omniscience and free will cannot co-exist.
Read more: www.comereason.org/phil_qstn/phi038.asp#ixzz1QzcIWQd0 Thanks for writing. This is a great question as it shows how even those who appeal to logic can have biases that blind them. Let's examine this argument and see if it follows logically.
Premises 1 and 2 in your outline above are the main premises to the argument and are not disputed. The Christian worldview argues that every human being is a free moral agent and is capable of making choices simply by exercising their will, not under compulsion or because of instinct. Also, it is a long held doctrine of Christianity that God is all-knowing. The Bible says that God knows "the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10)." For omniscience to be truly knowledgeable it must be correct knowledge, so premise number 4 is also granted.
However, point number 5 is where the logic falters. Those who argue in this manner make the mistake of thinking that because God possesses knowledge about a specific matter, then he has influenced it. That does not follow at all. Just because God can foresee which choice you will make, it does not mean you couldn't still freely choose the other option.
Let me give you an example. I have a five year old son. If I were to leave a chocolate chip cookie on the table about a hour before dinner time and my son was to walk by and see it, I know that he would pick up the cookie and eat it. I did not force him to make that decision. In fact, I don't even have to be in the room at all. I think I know my son well enough, though, to tell you that if I come back into the kitchen the cookie will be gone. His act was made completely free of my influence, but I knew what his actions would be.
In examining the argument, the assumption is made in premise 3 that because God knows I will choose A somehow denies me the choice of B. That is the premise that Christianity rejects. Omniscience and free will are not incompatible and it is a non-sequitor to claim otherwise.
4) Lastly if we can find some room in QM, we can say that our understanding of matter (matter itself is a loaded complex word because electrons can be best described only mathematically) is not complete. Therefore, we can't find a material deterministic formulation of the future at the sub-atomic level. Perhaps you can also see this video by Taleb on the uncertainities in our knowledge fora.tv/2008/02/04/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb_A_Crazier_Future . So we can perhaps have room for a more subtle understanding of mind/brain that we are not aware of and even Harris is moving in that direction. Still instead of finding determinism through brain states + environment, we may find determinism through brain+"subtle unknown state that will be discovered in future" + environment input. Or maybe we never will be know. But we should not be frightened of not knowing in Feynman's words. It maybe that we may not find the answer and it will be like an onion with many layers we are sick and tired of looking at. Three good excerpts from these thinkers. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkhBcLk_8f0 (Feynman) www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac33dOAgqus (Dawkins) www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lm6pEhykhs (Carl Sagan) Sorry for the grammar in the post. I have been very busy, but still wanted to write something because you had started this interesting post. Leave you with a quote, " It is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that are wrong."
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Post by vkaul1 on Jul 6, 2011 11:40:01 GMT -6
Nitai ji was waiting for your comments on the thread. Do write when you have time.
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Post by Nitaidas on Jul 6, 2011 12:04:50 GMT -6
Nitai ji was waiting for your comments on the thread. Do write when you have time. I will try, my friend. My time is a little short these days because of hopefully temporary family obligations but I will read what you have posted and try to formulate my ideas on the question. I read an interesting book by Daniel Dennett a couple of years back when I was in England. It was called Free Will Evolves and I remember being more or less convinced that something like Free Will appears to exist but that it is a function of the complexity of the systems we operate in and though one cannot predict what someone will do it is not free will in the true sense of the term. That kind of Free Will is an illusion. But let me look at your posting more closely and see if there is some small way I can contribute. Meanwhile, have you by any chance read that book by Dennett?
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Post by Nitaidas on Jul 10, 2011 11:17:41 GMT -6
Another interesting discussion by two thoughtful people, one a scientist and the other an ex-Anglican priest, about Free Will. An exposition of two sides of the issue. Read them both and let's hear which you think comes closest to the truth and why. Here.
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Post by vkaul1 on Jul 10, 2011 13:21:49 GMT -6
I have heard Dennet's talks and I think he has some good points. Still, like Sam Harris www.samharris.org/blog/item/whats-the-point-of-transcendence/ said at the end of the article we cannot be sure. Another point to be noted is that in one sense Vedanta only admits free will for the isvara in the true sense. Because God knows the future and he knows what a certain jiva will "choose" in a given circumstance in the infinite future, in one sense he knows people who will stay in samsara. So madhva doctrine takes this point further and classifies the souls according to the pre-determined future (from the perspective of isvara). It sounds bad but complete omniscience actually kills free will of the soul. And then there is tension between omniscience, omnipotence, all good god and free will of the soul. A perennial problem. If God liberates everyone without discrimination, then free will of the soul won't matter. If he doesn't, he is not all good as he allows the souls to suffer in spite of being omnipotent and powerful enough to stop suffering. Anyway he knows future completely, so it is hard to know what free will means. Anadi (Beginnless) karma and creation is a good kind of cop-out from the problem. Just some thoughts on the most intriguing issue of free will. I will go through the above article. Meanwhile, you can share your thoughts.
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Post by Nitaidas on Jul 11, 2011 12:46:46 GMT -6
Nitaidasji Ok, let me have a stab at this. Nitaidasji you seem to forget your GV teachings or did you not come across the teaching on free will in GVism. Since you link to Coyne's you think I am shaken by his determinist stand. In fact he is right; he only explained it in the way of science. Determinism is also the position of GVism. I'm not sure about the IGM. If they have christian influence then maybe to them the jiva has true free will. My gurubhai Advaitadas quoted Sri Visvanath as thus: the jiva is anadi "beginningless conditioned" and therefore the ultimate reality is deterministic. Satyanarayan das asserted that free will is just an illusion. Let me explain it this way: That we "ourselves" make our world. That is the implication of the QM observer concept. My understanding is that the jiva makes his world through the working of his karma and his nature guna. But even in QM many scientists say that ultimately QM is deterministic. I will have to research on more details to explain that. For the meantime let me state my understanding below. The siddhanta or concept of anadi "beginingless conditioned" which was spoken by Sri Visvanath meant that the ultimate nature of reality is deterministic. Our free will is just an illusion. My understanding is this. We can choose within the potentialities constrained by our nature in working with the law of karma or put it another way, we are constrained by the set of potentialities set about by Krishna. What is that verse in the Gita. Everyone follows my path in all respects ..... and I will reward them accordingly. I don't think there is any real evidence that CV accepts any kind of strict determinism. Even in your own comments here you recognize that choices are limited but never completely absent. If there were no choice or no free will, then there would be no reason for Krsna to say something like: sarva-dharmAn parityajya mAm ekaM zaraNaM vraja. Without choice, such a command is pointless. No one would be able to follow it since their choices were already determined. Being conditioned and not having a choice are not the same thing. Conditioning is merely a limiting of choices. So I don't think you have understood what Visvanatha was saying there properly. Now, I don't know Satyanarayana meant, but if he thinks that CV buys some form of determinism, then he is wrong. Free will never means absolute free will. It merely means being able to choose between two or more options and that the jiva has, limited though it may be. according to CV I think it is you who never learned your CV dogma, not my forgetting.
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Post by Ekantin on Jul 11, 2011 21:43:36 GMT -6
Thanks Vkaul, for pointing out Sam Harris' series of recent articles on the subject of free will. Generally it is a topic I've always shied away from as I always found those free will vs. determinism debates to be quite complex and demanding of a lot of attention, but I was impressed with Harris' clarity. Morality without "Free Will"Free Will (And Why You Still Don't Have It)You Do Not Choose What You ChooseNowadays I'm finding the subject interesting, especially that if it is true that free will is actually an illusion, what does this mean for real-life and real-world events? In some courtrooms, the "my brain made me do it" argument is being used, so this is one area where the implications of the 'No Free Will' argument can be quite worrying.
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Post by vkaul1 on Jul 12, 2011 6:27:33 GMT -6
Nitaidasji Ok, let me have a stab at this. Nitaidasji you seem to forget your GV teachings or did you not come across the teaching on free will in GVism. Since you link to Coyne's you think I am shaken by his determinist stand. In fact he is right; he only explained it in the way of science. Determinism is also the position of GVism. I'm not sure about the IGM. If they have christian influence then maybe to them the jiva has true free will. My gurubhai Advaitadas quoted Sri Visvanath as thus: the jiva is anadi "beginningless conditioned" and therefore the ultimate reality is deterministic. Satyanarayan das asserted that free will is just an illusion. Let me explain it this way: That we "ourselves" make our world. That is the implication of the QM observer concept. My understanding is that the jiva makes his world through the working of his karma and his nature guna. But even in QM many scientists say that ultimately QM is deterministic. I will have to research on more details to explain that. For the meantime let me state my understanding below. The siddhanta or concept of anadi "beginingless conditioned" which was spoken by Sri Visvanath meant that the ultimate nature of reality is deterministic. Our free will is just an illusion. My understanding is this. We can choose within the potentialities constrained by our nature in working with the law of karma or put it another way, we are constrained by the set of potentialities set about by Krishna. What is that verse in the Gita. Everyone follows my path in all respects ..... and I will reward them accordingly. I don't think there is any real evidence that CV accepts any kind of strict determinism. Even in your own comments here you recognize that choices are limited but never completely absent. If there were no choice or no free will, then there would be no reason for Krsna to say something like: sarva-dharmAn parityajya mAm ekaM zaraNaM vraja. Without choice, such a command is pointless. No one would be able to follow it since their choices were already determined. Being conditioned and not having a choice are not the same thing. Conditioning is merely a limiting of choices. So I don't think you have understood what Visvanatha was saying there properly. Now, I don't know Satyanarayana meant, but if he thinks that CV buys some form of determinism, then he is wrong. Free will never means absolute free will. It merely means being able to choose between two or more options and that the jiva has, limited though it may be. according to CV I think it is you who never learned your CV dogma, not my forgetting. I think we need to understand this idea of free will in a deep way now like you have pointed out before and we can see the articles Ekantin has pointed out above by Sam Harris. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism Do you agree with this idea of Compatibilism? I have forwarded some of my inquiries to Henry Stapp and I will let you know if and when I get a response from him
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Post by vkaul1 on Jul 13, 2011 21:40:44 GMT -6
Ok so you are not a panentheist, Malati ji, then what are you? CV is very much panentheistic, unless we also open our possibility to atheistic CV that Nitai ji wants.
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Post by cvsaragrahi on Jul 20, 2011 10:40:17 GMT -6
For God there is no God, so, He is an atheist. If energy and energetic are the same, yet different, then Radha-Krishna are both atheists. The Jiva, being part of Radha-Krishna, can also be an atheist [and get away with it], as soon as the part-whole distinction is vanished by the intensity of love. If one loves Radha-Krishna fully, they are not seen as Goddess/God but just the object of love. In this case, that jiva is an atheist too. Also, God is within the object, God is outside the object and God is the object, so, there is some kind of panentheistic pantheism going on, which would abolish all considerations of religion as delusion, making everything atheistic at the root. How can there be free will if Radha-Krishna is the supreme Author of all pastime? Fee will would be more like "apparent free will" since the words free will are an oxymoron?
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Post by Nitaidas on Jul 22, 2011 10:39:06 GMT -6
For God there is no God, so, He is an atheist. If energy and energetic are the same, yet different, then Radha-Krishna are both atheists. The Jiva, being part of Radha-Krishna, can also be an atheist [and get away with it], as soon as the part-whole distinction is vanished by the intensity of love. If one loves Radha-Krishna fully, they are not seen as Goddess/God but just the object of love. In this case, that jiva is an atheist too. Also, God is within the object, God is outside the object and God is the object, so, there is some kind of panentheistic pantheism going on, which would abolish all considerations of religion as delusion, making everything atheistic at the root. How can there be free will if Radha-Krishna is the supreme Author of all pastime? Fee will would be more like "apparent free will" since the words free will are an oxymoron? Yes, this is close to my way of thinking about the issue, cvsaragrahi. You are maybe the first one to get it. We could call it operational atheism and CV is the only tradition I know of that recognizes it. Perhaps there is something of the same flavor in Hasidism. It is hard to tell, but there seems to be a great intimacy between the tzadikim and God that resembles madhurya-bhava in some ways. It is operational atheism because ontologically we the jivas are still parts of this greater whole we call Krsna and though we are parts we can never be the whole. That is the meaning of bhakti, the participation of the part in the whole. In this point of view, theism is a mental disease that does and has done irreparable harm to human beings along with the religions that theism has spawned. Concepts like God and Deva and even Supreme Person are just mass confusions that have caused more hatred and violence in the history of mankind than any other set of ideas. They are leftovers from humankind's childhood and we should put them away like our childish toys. No one knows what they mean anyway. People just brandish them about as if they were obviously meaningful. As I said before, theism is a mental disease and what is worse creates real psychological damage in people. It is more dangerous than tumors in the brain. At least tumors can be removed relatively easily. If I ever meet Krsna I will go up to him and give him a big hug and kiss. I would not throw myself down at his feet and grovel. Does anyone think he wants to see that? What kind of a monster would he have to be to prefer that to a big hug and kiss? I don't know if I follow your last statement, however. Is Free Will an example of an oxymoron? I don't see it. Perhaps you could explain it better. Anyway, free will is a difficult subject. I think it is obvious that CV embraces free will in some form, but then there is that puzzling yadRcchayA (by chance) that seems to stand at the beginning of the development of bhakti. It is by chance that someone meets a sadhu and bhakti is passed on or rubbed off on that person. If it all begins by chance then there is no way to choose to cultivate bhakti. One can, of course, pretend that one is omniscient and say Krsna chose me or that person, but that is the chatter of fools. They don't know.
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Post by Nitaidas on Jul 23, 2011 10:07:34 GMT -6
Thank you, Malatidi. I could not have done a better job of illustrating the absolute derangement of theism if I tried. It is as if we are working together on this.
You mean to say that you cannot love Krsna unless you believe him to be God (whatever that may mean to you)? One needs a reason to love Krsna? Whatever happened to raga, the spontaneous attraction to someone without regard for who or what he (or she) is? Your theism is keeping you from loving Krsna.
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Post by Nitaidas on Jul 23, 2011 10:22:23 GMT -6
I meant to post this a few days back when it went up at WEIT. More food for thought on the question of free will. Here.Any reflections?
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