A Question Regarding Free Will

Jason R

"

Sam Harris is a great, great modern rationalist thinker and I love him to bits. His recent book Waking Up is quite amazing. Apart from being a top drawer rationalist, scientist and philosopher, he's done a lot of "seeking" with gurus in India and Tibet, culminating in his meeting one of the main Dzogchen guys and finishing it. His stance of persuading rationalists and atheists not to throw out the baby of meditation practices with the bathwater of religion (even though he's one of the main bathwater-thrower-outers of recent times) is very brave in the context of his rationalist fellows.

HOWEVER, on this matter of free-will, he's a bit off the mark. There's an extremely cogent response to his position by another great philosopher, Daniel C. Dennett (it shows you how honest a thinker Harris is that he's reprinted that critique on his own website here)."

Thank you for this informative reply. Yes, I agree, I really like what he has to say in a lot of areas. Especially his ideas regarding organized religions. I feel we need more people speaking out like this.

Gnosomai Emauton

Hey Jason,

Thanks for bringing up one of my own current demons. I've been wrestling with this one for awhile and, despite all the arguments made above, keep coming back to the point of your quandary. Since I'm still "over there", let me throw into the pool the reasoning that gets me there to see if it adds anything.

It seems like every response above retains the concept of choice which, I think, is the crux of your own misgivings in the original post. It's this "choice" that I can't get behind either. Here's why. Despite Takamba's seemingly sensible description of the process of choosing whether to write or not to write, that process of "choice" is not something that we can isolate in the physical world. Take it down to the simplest levels of which we're aware and this becomes obvious. Introduce an oxygen molecule to 2 hydrogen molecules in the presence of a spark and those three molecules will split in half and re-bond to result in two water molecules. There is no "choice" involved here. The makeup of our universe -- otherwise known as the laws of physics -- determine that this will be the outcome. Pushing that further, there isn't even choice as to which hydrogen atoms the now free oxygen atoms will bond with: they will necessarily attract those closest in proximity.

This example is very close to Jim's gravitation example. There are immutable forces that define reality at every level. Right now, we have classified them as four distinct forces -- gravity, electro-magnetism, strong nuclear, & weak nuclear -- but as we've already found overlap between the nuclear forces and electro-magnetism at the extremes of the scales, it's not too much of a stretch to classify them all as different expressions of the same force. Attraction. This is what our universe is built on. The force of Attraction, sometimes referred to as Love. (insert obvious Liber L quote here)

gurugeorge's robot example is a really nice analogy except that it gives the robot "choice" which robots don't have. They have specific programming, based on questions of proximity and attraction, that guides them to "choose" whether to grab the yellow ball or the red ball. But this isn't a "choice" as we commonly use the term. This is the result of a mathematical equation based on data intake from the physical environment around them. It is more complex than the oxygen/hydrogen attraction, but it isn't any less determined.

This increase in complexity grows exponentially as we climb the evolutionary tree of life but, as far as I can tell, "choice", as we understand the term, is not something that actually exists. I can say that I chose to begin this sentence with an "I" rather than a "We" but, in actuality, an untold number of cause and effect transactions led to the chemical interactions in my brain which caused my fingers to hit those keys on the keyboard. The thing I think of as "I" is not somehow separate from that necessary chain.

HOWEVER...

It seems to me that the problem here is not that we are suddenly devoid of choice and free will -- capitalized or not -- but that we ever thought we had it in the first place. We have built up this conception of reality that somehow posits us as independent actors who could, somehow, have a "choice"-like effect on that stuff out there. It's this that gurugeorge points to when he suggests that the robot's inner deterministic machinery "is to some extent sealed off, and independent of the world machinery it's making choices against." But this is a construct of language not supported by physical reality: nothing is, in any way, sealed off. All is One. "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together." The chemical reactions of the water molecules inside my brain follow exactly the same rules as the water molecules in the ocean.

It is this conception that there is any sort of separation which is at the heart of the illusion of Maya.

There's a great instruction from somewhere or other (I don't have it in front of me at the moment so you'll just have to trust me that it's not originally mine) that we don't have this thing commonly referred to as "free will" or "choice" as generally understood but that we have to act as if we do in order to do the Work effectively enough to alter our being enough to reach the point where we no longer need to believe that we have these things but can, instead, live in the free flowing Will of the universe. We need to make certain choices and choose certain paths in order to get us to the place where we can truly, honestly, viscerally know that "we" are not, in fact, choosing anything.

Up until a few months ago, all of this was an intellectual exercise for me which, based on the wording of your original post, it reads like it is for you as well (feel free to correct me if that's wrong). Recent meditations on the ubiquity of sunlight and starlight in everything we know and everything we are have helped to start pushing that out of the mental plane and into the visceral. Our minds are extremely complex "moist computers"; and just like computers, they rely on the deterministic laws of reality to continue bonding carbon atoms to oxygen atoms in order to effect the change of one neuro-transmitter into another as determined by some prior cause.

I'd have to agree with Harris on that point. We don't know where that choice came from because its ultimate cause predates us by billions of years... if there is an "ultimate cause" at all.

Jason R

Gnosomai Emauton,

Hello! Wow, wonderful! I truly appreciate your post, because it put into words what I miserably couldn't! This is exactly what I was trying to say. I have been struggling with the same ideas, and I am glad to see it spelled out so perfectly. Thank you! Now I will go over it a few times and try to absorb it lol. Then re read everyone's posts and see what I am left with. My brain takes time to get to it all!

I truly appreciate everyone's input. I feel it really does help give food for thought and understanding the True Will in relation to Thelema.

Fr Seraphis

@Jim Eshelman said

"Yes, True Will has little or nothing to do with free will as usually expressed, and has almost nothing to do with a personality's choices.
.....
One can take this ride happily or unhappily. Thelema counsels taking it happily (joyously, ecstatically). This is rarely done by the personality taking the reins to force a direction. It is nearly always done by the personality discovering and acknowledging the true motion of a star through existence and then consciously conforming its choices to that actuality."

Agreed.

Well said, Jim.

Inri

gurugeorge

@Gnosomai Emauton said

"
gurugeorge's robot example is a really nice analogy except that it gives the robot "choice" which robots don't have. They have specific programming, based on questions of proximity and attraction, that guides them to "choose" whether to grab the yellow ball or the red ball. But this isn't a "choice" as we commonly use the term. This is the result of a mathematical equation based on data intake from the physical environment around them. It is more complex than the oxygen/hydrogen attraction, but it isn't any less determined."

Wrt "programming" - both the robot and us are programmed to make some choice (selection among alternative possible actions), but the choice we make isn't itself programmed, even when it's the result of a deterministic process in the cognitive machinery. The difference is only in degree of sophistication (and of course in the not too distant future, we probably will be able to make robots that have equally sophisticated mechanisms as we do, and are conscious, deliberative, self-aware, etc.).

We simply have two types of deterministic mechanisms by which both the silicon robot and us meaty robots select between a range of possible things to do next. You can either call that process of selection "not real choice", or accept that "choice" is as good a word for both processes as any (and reserve the scare quotes for the less sophisticated form of selection). It's actually just semantics: in both cases, the process of selection from alternatives is a real process, which is deterministic within itself, in which the selection isn't determined by the world (the world outside the "skin boundary" of the entity), but by the cognitive machinery of the entity.

This is compatibilism: yes, both the goings-on in the world outside the selecting entity, and the goings-on inside the cognitive machinery of the entity, are determined, but they are different kinds and levels of determinism that are involved, and the one bundle of exquisitely fine deterministic goings-on (the cognitive machinery) can help the selecting entity avoid certain larger, cruder forms of determinism, such as bricks aimed at their cognitive machinery. Whether the selection is made to duck or not to duck, it will be a deterministic process that makes the selection; whether the brick hits the cognitive machinery or not, it will be a deterministic process either way. Either the entity will duck or not, either the brick will hit or not (fatalism) and given omniscient knowledge of conditions, of both the world state and the cognitive machinery state, we would know which will happen (determinism). But neither we, nor the entity, have such knowledge - we (and the entity) can only make an estimate, using our respective cognitive machineries (which are deterministic processes), based on scant knowledge.

Gnosomai Emauton

I would agree with you that it is semantics but I'd say that it's exactly those semantics that are at the heart of this issue. I didn't intend my quotes to be of the scary variety but simply to highlight a word for which we have a general definition in English that I don't see as realistically defensible.

To expand on your example:

@gurugeorge said

"Wrt "programming" - both the robot and us are programmed to make some choice (selection among alternative possible actions), but the choice we make isn't itself programmed, even when it's the result of a deterministic process in the cognitive machinery."

I don't see this statement as fully supported by reality, except as a semantic spook. Let's say we have a robot that is programmed to select a red ball from a bin of red and yellow balls. Semantically, there is some truth in the statement: "The robot chooses a red ball." However, though we've simplified the English description to, "the robot is programmed to select a red ball," there is actually more going on in the programming. Most robots are programmed to perform at peak efficiency so most robots will be programmed to select the first red ball their sensors hit. But perhaps, for fun, our robot has been programmed to select the third one it senses. Or to separate all of the balls into two piles based on color and then to filter through all the red ones until it finds the heaviest. Whatever the criteria in its finer levels of programming, the specific red ball that it is going to "choose" out of the bin is not a "choice" as is commonly meant in English but is, rather, the result of a mathematical equation of unassailable exactitude.

"But wait," I hear a voice in the back of the room yell out, "the robot has no control or influence on how the balls were originally arranged in the bin. Surely that level of external randomness influences this transaction in some way. This might lead the robot to choose the red granite ball rather than the red plastic ball because random chance placed the granite ball at the top of the heap."

Alas, as is demonstrated by Jim's example of water running down a hillside and mine of the unification of oxygen and hydrogen, these processes are equally determined by the laws of nature and follow equally programmed rules.

On my own thread exploring these issues, you said the following and I found it to be right on the mark:

<a class="postlink-local" href="http://heruraha.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13996&p=96586#p96586">viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13996&p=96586#p96586</a>

@gurugeorge said

"UNLESS the internal magical theory is correct and there are ways, as-yet-uncanvassed-by-science, but known as a rough and ready art by magicians, to influence or alter determinism as we know it. As I'm in a rationalist phase, I doubt the possibility of that, but even if it were the case, I don't see how that wouldn't be just a deeper understanding of determinism really, still some kind of law-governed flowing of stuff, those "laws" being as above said, a description of the stuff's free wandering (looked at from a higher point of view)."

This thing we call choice is a semantic construct. It's something our minds, as programmed by language, convince us we have the ability to do but, really, it's just describing the results of deterministic processes. And, when I use that term, I understand it to mean processes that are programmed by the laws of physics. Unless, as you say above, there is a way to step outside of the laws of physics in order to perturb them, I don't see any way to support the belief that we can make choices that aren't necessary effects of prior causes. In contrast to your "the process of selection from alternatives is a real process, which is deterministic within itself, in which the selection isn't determined by the world (the world outside the "skin boundary" of the entity), but by the cognitive machinery of the entity," I would say that the selection is determined by the world both inside and outside the skin boundary because that boundary is just as much a construct as anything else that language has created.

Your final line above sums it up very nicely and succinctly. We can only make estimates based on scant knowledge. It is our storytelling about those estimates which we call "choice". It is the realization that we don't actually have the volition that we've always thought we have but that we are, in fact, stars progressing along our necessary course, following our True Will, in alignment with The True Will because there is no other way for us to be, that dissolves the veils of Maya and unites us, consciously, with the Universal Will.

I think.

gurugeorge

@Gnosomai Emauton said

"Let's say we have a robot that is programmed to select a red ball from a bin of red and yellow balls. Semantically, there is some truth in the statement: "The robot chooses a red ball." However, though we've simplified the English description to, "the robot is programmed to select a red ball," [...] "

No we haven't - well, it depends on the relative sophistication of the programming.

Suppose a chess computer beats a player with a specific move x. The computer was programmed to "play chess", it was programmed to "win at chess"; but was it, in being so programmed, programmed to make that specific move x at that specific time? (Was it necessary, for it to be true to say the program was programmed to "play chess", that every move it makes be programmed by an external entity, i.e. the programmer?)

Clearly, the programmer had no such specific goal in mind as "on Tuesday, 11th August, you will make move x in the game of chess vs. Ms so-and-so, thereby fulfilling the goal of your programming and beating her".

Now, obviously there's a range of sophistication possible here: at one end, simple programming, look-up tables, etc., at the other end, the extreme sophistication of entities like us (and the robots we'll be able to create) which can think for themselves, "on the hoof", as it were. The difference is in the modelling - the better and more sophisticated the world/self model, the more it can be said that any given move is a choice arising out of the merits and demerits of that model, and not out of any "canned" response. (Think of videogames - previously, the death throes of an monster would be programmed as a small, fixed sprite animation, nowadays, there is physics programming, which models the impact of your bullet on the monster, and makes it behave more a real monster might under the same circumstances; different each time.)

So it's the same with the determinism (programming) that drives us. We are programmed, determined, to "make the best selection out of possible options that we can", based on scant knowledge. But that's an abstract, high level description (like "programmed to play chess"). That doesn't mean specific action x at specific time y is programmed into us (determined) - **even though the machinery that makes the selection is deterministic machinery. **

The machine still has to make *its own *calculation, and make its own move - its own choice, and the action it makes based on its calculation is the action that drives its motion, its motion is not driven by any external source, nor by any particular example of determinism, other than the internal deterministic process of the cognitive machinery. And beyond some relevant threshold of sophistication, it really is choice, and not "choice". i.e. it's not something cute that merely looks like it's an on-the-hoof calculation by the robot, but is actually more specifically programmed - it genuinely is an on-the-hoof calculation by the robot, and the choice it makes might be something totally un-envisaged by the programmer. Progress in robotics is partly a balancing act between keeping the machine under control and keeping it independent enough of the programmer's control that it can still make good decisions under its own steam.

Yes, these processes depend on mathematics and on the relatively stable rule-following of nature (e.g. the substance of which the thing is composed), but that doesn't mean that those processes are reaching past your own decision making process and making your every move for you, any more than the programmer who programs the computer to "play chess" is thereby reaching through the computer's decisions and making it make x specific move on y specific day.

Perhaps another way of looking at it would be this: real choice, real freedom, are things that make sense in a context of other entities potentially being able to control your actions. It is my choice as opposed to the guy with the gun pointed at my head, that I do x.

It seemed like this merely "economic" or "social" sense of freedom wasn't enough - and it certainly wouldn't be enough to ground any of those sorts of highfalutin' senses of "Free Will" and "Freedom" and "Choice" that are not measured against potential opposition, potential other-control. But actually, on the contrary, there is no such kind of Free Will, Choice, etc., but there is free will, choice, etc., which stand as terms relative to other entities, whether the chooser is being buffeted around by other entities, or controlled by other entities: this is the only sense in which the term does have meaning and isn't just free-wheeling semantics.

Gnosomai Emauton

First off, I just want to say that I'm loving this discussion. Every time I delve into the mindspace to grapple with new information from another response, it tickles just the right sections of the amygdalae.

@gurugeorge said

"Suppose a chess computer beats a player with a specific move x. The computer was programmed to "play chess", it was programmed to "win at chess"; but was it, in being so programmed, programmed to make that specific move x at that specific time? (Was it necessary, for it to be true to say the program was programmed to "play chess", that every move it makes be programmed by an external entity, i.e. the programmer?)"

No, looked at that way, it wasn't programmed to make that specific move at that specific time, but setting that as your metric for proof misses what programming is and how it can be used as an analogy for reality. Because the computer is programmed to "win at chess", if it encounters a board with an option for checkmate, it will make that move. Likewise, if it is presented with a board with a possibility to checkmate in two, it will make that move. Extend this process backward along the cause-effect chain and you'll start to see how we arrive at a particular move at a particular moment in time.

If we set a computer against a person, we as observers won't be able to predict the end of the game because we, as observers, don't have the means to know the person's programming. However, if we set two computers to play against each other, we could do just that. This would not, however, be as simple as knowing the particular algorithm that each computer is using to evaluate the board in order to select its next move, it would also require knowing what means it is using to run its "random number generator" - which is never random, just highly complex. Also, we'd need to know how many moves ahead each of them are programmed to look in their evaluation of the best current move. We'd need to know their processing power and memory capacity and ambient temperature in order to calculate the time they would require to process each move.

All of these -- and many more -- though not coded as binary either-or decisions by the programmer, are a part of the computer's programming. Even the choice of which computer to set it against as its opponent is a question of programming. If we were able to feed all of these variables into an even larger computer, that computer could calculate for us exactly which moves would be made by both of our competing computers and precisely the time it would take each of them to do it.

Looked at that way, the answer becomes: Yes, the computer was programmed in such a way that it would make that specific move at that specific time.

"Clearly, the programmer had no such specific goal in mind as "on Tuesday, 11th August, you will make move x in the game of chess vs. Ms so-and-so, thereby fulfilling the goal of your programming and beating her"."

Clearly. Nor did the universe need to have it in mind that, at 3:09pm on Sunday, September 6th, a spark would be introduced to a vessel of O2 and H2 thus causing oxygen atom "Ollie" to attract hydrogen atoms "Harriet" and "Harry" into the holy threesome we call a water molecule. Nonetheless, the programming of the universe dictates that, when that spark was fired and Ollie was torn from his brother Omar in the electric armageddon, he would necessarily hook up with the two hydrogen atoms in closest proximity.

"Now, obviously there's a range of sophistication possible here: at one end, simple programming, look-up tables, etc., at the other end, the extreme sophistication of entities like us (and the robots we'll be able to create) which can think for themselves, "on the hoof", as it were."

This appears to be where our models differ. If I'm reading you correctly, you envision some invisible line, on our side of which we can "think for ourselves", and on the other side of which transactions between two discrete bits of reality are dictated by simple programming. Obviously there are gradations along the way but, ultimately, this model requires some line where volition enters into the equation. That line is usually drawn between humans and everything else but I don't find that presumption to be tenable.

Where I see a problem with this is that I see the fundamental level of programming of all of reality affecting every bit of the All equally. From Above to Below and back again, every bit of universe, of Ain Soph, of Maya, of Prana, of Tao, of Prima Materia, of Whatever; every bit of it must follow this fundamental level of programming and at every level, no matter how sophisticated it appears to us, every action can be distilled back to that fundamental level of programming.

The human mind-body matrix is massively complex and constantly changing as new atoms are added to replace others that have fallen away. Even if it weren't, by definition we can never know the complete contents of our own mind because that knowledge would have to somehow fit within our mind which would expand the boundaries, etc. etc. But we can analyze the world around us and, following the hermetic law of correspondence, apply our observations to the thing that is too big for us to wrap our minds around. If we start at the level of the water molecule and slowly work our way up the ladder of complexity -- first to crystals, then to organic molecules, then DNA, then cellular life -- can we find a point where the law of attraction displayed by the water molecule is over-ridden by volition? Or do we instead see that, as more and more of those individual expressions of attraction occur in a system, it becomes too much for our observer brains to track and so we label it as this free-flowing thing called "life" which looks to us to make choices based on its surroundings when, in fact, each individual point within the mass is as deterministically programmed to do what its doing as the individual oxygen atom was?

Before we've even reached multi-celled organisms, the systems are too complex for us to process. However, by looking at the fundamentals we can see that the binary programming at the base level is what's causing the results we witness. Conway's Game of Life gives us a beautiful demonstration of this.

"Yes, these processes depend on mathematics and on the relatively stable rule-following of nature (e.g. the substance of which the thing is composed), but that doesn't mean that those processes are reaching past your own decision making process and making your every move for you, any more than the programmer who programs the computer to "play chess" is thereby reaching through the computer's decisions and making it make x specific move on y specific day."

I'd go a step farther. I'd say that nature is, by definition, exactly stable at mathematics. It never fails. Mathematics is the programming. There aren't decisions to make; there is only one eternal equation that is solving itself.

"Perhaps another way of looking at it would be this: real choice, real freedom, are things that make sense in a context of other entities potentially being able to control your actions. It is my choice as opposed to the guy with the gun pointed at my head, that I do x."

Within that context, I'd agree. And I'd guess that that's what the quote I vaguely remembered about acting as if we have free will is pointing towards (it was Paul Foster Case as well, btw). But it seems to me that that context is the veil of illusion that we are attempting to wipe away. That it is getting to the other side of that belief that my choice is somehow separate from the guy with the gun that is the work. Unite subject and object (self and gun-threat) until both disappear.

oldfriend56

Great discussion, haven't read through all of the replies yet so I may be stating something someone else already noted. Free Will of the materialists and True Will of Thelema are not necessarily trying to occupy the same philosophical space. They are entirely different concepts. 'True Will' implies a universal intention expressed at the level of the atomic - and is teleological. It does not need a 'free will' for it to exist, nor does it even need a choice between a 'true will' and a 'false will' for it to be 'free will'.

Its not compatible in any way with the 'free will' concept used by materialists to try and debunk dualistic models of consciousness which it inherited from Christianity and Judaism and the choice between Good and evil.

Crowley compared true will as the equivalency of bidding the stars to shine, for it is their will to shine light. In this regard, stars of no no choice but to do their will. They do not choose between shining light and say, baking donuts or weaving baskets.

Free will as used by Sam Harris is also a philosophically unusable idea inherent with its own flaws. Even Dan Dennett chief architect of the materialist argument refutes materialists who trash on free will. www.samharris.org/blog/item/reflections-on-free-will

Sam Harris , as articulate and intelligent as he is - is still fundamentally assuming the brain is the generator of consciousness and he remains philosophically consistent with that idea, including the dismissal of free will altogether.

So even if Harris is closer to true about free will and the brain, it does not contradict or refute philosophical thelema on will at all, for easily we could say that, yes, we are purely robotic mindless robots with an illusion of free will and choice until we discover our true will, and do nothing but that.

Cheers!

Hermitas

Yes, what he said.

Jason R

I really enjoy this, you all have some great insights.

It has been my idea for a while now, that everyone is doing their True Will. Is it correct then to say that it is impossible to not accomplish one's True Will? What about the "Black Brothers", and the cat of slime of the Abyss?

If one fails, was that their True Will? This is the part where I am confused. It would seem to me that the Book of the Law, and the idea behind Thelema is to liberate the individual, to give them freedom, and to enlighten etc etc. If we cannot help where we are pulled along by this greater Will, then how can we ever say anyone has failed? This is why I assume the BOTL says "There is success". Likewise, how about those that the book warns against? For example the fill/kill debate? All these start to become sort of lost in the shuffle of we are all just going along, and so why the worry?

Saeptus

This is just what my Lotus is telling me since I live without nourishment from my peers. Nor do I have any experience besides my own experiences. I have a novice and second-hand understanding of the labels and debates.

Discussion is also part of Will. I know there is a danger of confusing external and internal, but it can't be helped, part of the process. Wrong or Right each side should learn something. Whatever takes you to the next step of understanding (Light) I suppose. Which is the point of debate in the mind or with others. More like wrestling than worrying. The Free Will/Fate debate is just another of these wranglings. It may be that we are biologically bound to fate but we will resist admitting it until the very end... Why not?

Ultimately the question isn't why we debate with others but about the specifics on why we debate with ourselves. This has been an interesting discussion.

True Will is more of your Will after you get most of your impurities together and balanced (removing personal restraints). Which takes devotion and thorough analysis of personal Karma. If a person isn't close enough to this point then they would fall back to cast blame on some other thing or person ect. until the next alignment can occur. So Will and True Will are just a matter of adeptship.

Would it be true to say that Black Brothers have a major fear based blind that also the external environment and others around them would support? And that such would be necessary in certain circumstances, just like Severity is for the Work. Every possibility in the universe has a certain utility along the line.

Thank you as always.

oldfriend56

@Jason R said

"I really enjoy this, you all have some great insights.

It has been my idea for a while now, that everyone is doing their True Will. Is it correct then to say that it is impossible to not accomplish one's True Will? What about the "Black Brothers", and the cat of slime of the Abyss?
"

I'm not sure if 'doing one's true will' and being aware of one's true will are the same. I could see that someone with relatively poor levels of awareness or corrupted ideas could be fooled by nothing more than their own magick.

If one becomes aware of the 'continuity of existence' - then ultimately yes our true will is the continuity of existence so yes we are all performing our true wills - and if one finds themselves spending an aeon or two in a pile of sludge because they deluded themselves to their own intentions that does not circumvent their own true will to exist.

Jason R

@ldfriend56 said

"
@Jason R said
"I really enjoy this, you all have some great insights.

It has been my idea for a while now, that everyone is doing their True Will. Is it correct then to say that it is impossible to not accomplish one's True Will? What about the "Black Brothers", and the cat of slime of the Abyss?
"

I'm not sure if 'doing one's true will' and being aware of one's true will are the same. I could see that someone with relatively poor levels of awareness or corrupted ideas could be fooled by nothing more than their own magick.

If one becomes aware of the 'continuity of existence' - then ultimately yes our true will is the continuity of existence so yes we are all performing our true wills - and if one finds themselves spending an aeon or two in a pile of sludge because they deluded themselves to their own intentions that does not circumvent their own true will to exist."

I am still not sure, after going over this a while now, if it makes sense.

I think it is pretty evident that we honestly have no true control over the source of our conscious thoughts. This can be demonstrated by trying to explain the process behind any random thought, and how one arrived at it. If this is the case, saying things like "...they deluded themselves" doesn't make sense - because obviously you have no choice in the matter. You either are deluded beyond your control or not. Therefore, the idea that one can consciously, and willfully take up the Great Work, and succeed - has to be false. If you succeed, it wasn't truly because of your conscious choice, and if you fail, well - it wasn't under your control as well.

If we simply look around at various people we meet, or those around the world, I think it is painfully obvious that some simply would never be able to do this work, even if they did have true free will. In the end, the only conclusion I can see, is that everyone is simply flowing along this river called life, and moving according to some grand picture, without any possible control whatsoever. The only real control is something that is much higher perhaps and not at all personal.

Those who achieve any type of self mastery or 'True Will' - do so because something greater pushed them there. Or, perhaps there is no personal True Will at all. Maybe the BOL is simply one declaration, that tells us what is happening, that we are "to do" "Thou" "Will" period. We all MUST do it, and never fail at doing it. The task of finding this is an illusion, and some simply are a part of a current beyond their choosing that takes them down this Thelemic road.

Anonymous

@Jason R said

"Those who achieve any type of self mastery or 'True Will' - do so because something greater pushed them there."

More or less repeating: the something greater is that which we truly are.

You're seeing things from the bottom-up, but it's top-down. (Or, if you prefer, you're seeing it from outside-in, but it's from the inside-out.)

Takamba

I rarely involve myself in this mystical jargon business. The bottom line is that the answer is highly dependent on where you are at the time you read my words. What I mean is, you are correct. There is a portion of conditions concerning where you are at the moment that will determine what "it all means to you," and what you will become after that. Yet, it's a truth (referring to Jim's demonstrations of "truth vs fact") that it will mean something to you only specific to you if I say it.

So deal with it. (That's my advice. You are who you are and you are where you are at, and it will mean what it means, and none of it is wrong for you here now. There. I said it.)

oldfriend56

@Jason R said

"
I am still not sure, after going over this a while now, if it makes sense.

I think it is pretty evident that we honestly have no true control over the source of our conscious thoughts."

maybe, I'm not sure - however conscious intention is something we have control over. We either have a conscious intention that is in harmony with the universe, or a conscious intention not in harmony with the universe. Or maybe some combination of both!

"

This can be demonstrated by trying to explain the process behind any random thought, and how one arrived at it. If this is the case, saying things like "...they deluded themselves" doesn't make sense - because obviously you have no choice in the matter. You either are deluded beyond your control or not. Therefore, the idea that one can consciously, and willfully take up the Great Work, and succeed - has to be false. If you succeed, it wasn't truly because of your conscious choice, and if you fail, well - it wasn't under your control as well. "

'thoughts' and 'intention' are not identical. I have dark thoughts or impulsive thoughts that come to me while I can observer them and discard them, or execute on them - as my conscious choice. However, if I am clear on my intention, and set my intention with my whole being - its interesting to note that my thoughts also shift.

"If we simply look around at various people we meet, or those around the world, I think it is painfully obvious that some simply would never be able to do this work, even if they did have true free will. In the end, the only conclusion I can see, is that everyone is simply flowing along this river called life, and moving according to some grand picture, without any possible control whatsoever. The only real control is something that is much higher perhaps and not at all personal. "

maybe. I don't know. There is hope and help for everyone - and perhaps the true will of a small handful of individuals to help increase awareness for those people - and all of us.

"Those who achieve any type of self mastery or 'True Will' - do so because something greater pushed them there. Or, perhaps there is no personal True Will at all. Maybe the BOL is simply one declaration, that tells us what is happening, that we are "to do" "Thou" "Will" period. We all MUST do it, and never fail at doing it. The task of finding this is an illusion, and some simply are a part of a current beyond their choosing that takes them down this Thelemic road."

True Will is not discovered in the mind nor is it a thought in the mind. True Will is a state of being and alignment that is consistent with the harmony of the universe. 'It shall be suddenly easy to do this' is often a sign that one is in a state of their True Will.

Your questions seem to poke at 'why the fall of humanity from a state of grace of true will?' and that's a valid philosophical question. Why do we HAVE to discover our true will while stars don't? Why would anyone have a true will to exist in the slums of India, poor, starving and blind? Do we have to re-disover our true will every friggin time we re-incarnate? jeezus mary and joseph how many abyss' do we have to cross , one in each lifetime??

All valid questions. I don't have any answers for them and found it is easier to discover one's true will than to answer those questions about everyone else's.

Cheers!

gurugeorge

@Gnosomai Emauton said

"
This appears to be where our models differ. If I'm reading you correctly, you envision some invisible line, on our side of which we can "think for ourselves", and on the other side of which transactions between two discrete bits of reality are dictated by simple programming. Obviously there are gradations along the way but, ultimately, this model requires some line where volition enters into the equation. That line is usually drawn between humans and everything else but I don't find that presumption to be tenable.

Where I see a problem with this is that I see the fundamental level of programming of all of reality affecting every bit of the All equally. "

This is a great discussion that I meant at one time to respond to then other things intervened - apologies!

In the interim I had some thoughts (Lord, please forgive me!).

I think what I'm getting at is that this kind of "everything affecting everything equally" is a bit breathless - purple even

In fact, what you have is pockets of relatively independent determinism. While it's the same laws operating on the same types of building blocks inside your skin bundle as the laws and building blocks operative in !!%^plok's chitin bundle at the other end of the Milky Way (our two species probably being the only ones inhabiting this particular galaxy, if we follow both Master Drake and Saint Fermi), and while (as AC says somewhere) there may be some tiny gravitational effect from your body to his, practically speaking, there's no deterministic causal chain that has any important effect. All the important chains are things in !!%^plok's vicinity relative to him (i.e. the bundle of bodymind machinery we label "!!%^plok"), and in your vicinity relative to you ("your" body/mind machinery, that labelled publicly "Gnosomai Emauton").

And actually it's not much different from you sitting on that side of the world and me sitting on this one. Our only interaction is through the medium of this "aperiodic crystal" (Schrodinger's prediction of DNA, as I'm sure you're aware ) that we call language. And here we start to see a more effective causal chain and a possibility of noticeable influence. But it's still not got much meat on the bone.

If we get into eyeball/vocal range, then the causal chains really start to potentially have a very noticeable influence that can change what's going on in our respective deterministic pockets. Then you're starting to talk about a causally coupled pair and being able to predict both our behaviours in relation to each other (as with your two computers).

And I think at the end of the day, that's all that's meant by free will - the actual free will that objectively exists, and is worth wanting, and defending. And it's all the term actually referred to when it functioned effectively (e.g. in jurisprudence) even when people thought it referred to the highfalutin' philosophical concept. It's this relative independence of our respective deterministic pockets, which at a practical mano-a-mano level we (or rather that sub-portion of our machinery dedicated to such things) defend from both gross, pushing-about-type interference, and subtler manipulations that might override those portions of our respective machineries responsible for navigating a path through an obstacle-filled world.

(All this of course without any idea that "me", "I", etc., are anything other than convenient markers pointing to a pocket process as if it were a singular entity - notional or narrative "centres of gravity", as Dennett says.)

Jason R

"I am certainly of opinion that genius can be acquired, or, in the alternative, that it is an almost universal possession. Its rarity may be attributed to the crushing influence of a corrupted society. It is rare to meet a youth without high ideals, generous thoughts, a sense of holiness, of his own importance, which, being interpreted, is, of his own identity with God. Three years in the world, and he is a bank clerk or even a government official. Only those who intuitively understand from early boyhood that they must stand out, and who have the incredible courage and endurance to do so in the face of all that tyranny, callousness, and the scorn of inferiors can do; only these arrive at manhood uncontaminated." - AC

Taking a "top down" view, and seeing each of us as the greater, then to paraphrase Takamba "we are what we are". Nothing is "acquired", one can't say he can "work on himself, and attain genius" if he is pinned to the ground being what the greater has planned for him regardless. It becomes useless to tell anyone they can do this or that ritual to obtain change, if that change is already part of the plan and whole. The work is nonsense if there is no true "from down here" control over ones decisions and "True Will." Looking at the above quote from AC, we see him talking about the career choices etc., however, if what we are truly saying is that we are simply who we are, and nothing can be done unless that up there (who we truly are) allows it, then it is a fools errand. Again, this would mean we already have "success" no matter what happens. We ALL must be doing our True Will, if who we are is the greater aspect of ourselves. If I have no real control over the hidden mechanics of forming my decisions then who do we blame or praise for progress or failure? There couldn't be failure if the greater was the force behind all these decisions, and we are nothing but pawns. Magic seemed to me to be about "causing" change to conform to the will. How is this possible then? How do we conform anything if we are "looking down" from above? If what we are is not from the bottom up, then why do we even TRY to perform magic to create "change"? We could attain many of the things we are looking to use magic for by other means, or perhaps, we wouldn't need magic at all if the universe truly wanted us to have them. I am failing to see now the necessity of "magic" at all.

Anonymous

@Jason R said

"Magic seemed to me to be about "causing" change to conform to the will. How is this possible then?"

The change is caused within the conditional (limited) existence. The same existence that contains the illusion of choice.

"How do we conform anything if we are "looking down" from above?"

By being omnipotent.

"If what we are is not from the bottom up, then why do we even TRY to perform magic to create "change"?"

"If Will stops and cries Why, invoking Because, then Will stops & does nought.
If Power asks why, then is Power weakness.
Also reason is a lie; for there is a factor infinite & unknown; & all their words are skew-wise."

"We could attain many of the things we are looking to use magic for by other means, or perhaps, we wouldn't need magic at all if the universe truly wanted us to have them. I am failing to see now the necessity of "magic" at all."

I'm not sure what you mean by "magic." That definition is important.