Did something I am now learning I shouldn't have done - Looked into Free Will.

[CV75]

22 hours ago, CommanderSouth said:

So, I like tech news, among my sites is ArsTechnica.  Yesterday I stumbled on to this gem (link Determinism Vs Free Will)

Got to reading it, but now my anxiety is ramping up.  Which is bad because I have GAD and Depression.  I'm on meds, but I don't like how I'm feeling.  I now can't shake the feeling of the determinist view being right.  But if that were true (which I am mentally resisting), there is no ME to begin with.  I'm just the flame alight from the candle of my body.  Thankfully in one breath, I understand that I am a spirit in a body.  Eventually they'll be united perfectly, and fill the measure of their calling, or however the saying goes.  While I GET that, I don't feel it.  I got into reading the Libet experiments which basically say about 500 milliseconds before a person was making a choice to move their hand, their brain was already ramping up for it (readiness potential).  Though on the other hand I also read that if you read that data through a different filter, you get it lining up with when participants were saying they were making the decision.

All of this is to say, I really just want to talk about ways we are meant to act, and not be acted upon.  Because it's interesting to me, after having some good breakthroughs in the last month with my testimony, I feel like I'm being hit in the innermost part of my being, that is to say, MY BEING ITSELF.  I wonder if this is the misery that Satan wants for us, he is disembodied, perhaps his anguish is not having a full sense of self.  And being denied this, wants to take it from us, if he can.  In any event, I have been thinking about the verse about being able to act, and not be acted upon.  I've been thinking about the whole crux of the plan being the ability to chose.  And that is where my fear is, that I have no ability to choose.  That I AM just reacting to stimuli, even if it is a trillion small ones.  And in that way, I am not.  So I don't expect therapy (though I hope this process is therapeutic).  But what are some thought processes you guys have when dealing with this?  

If I ponder it more, I do realize we are uniquely equipped to deal with this problem.  Our self, the intelligence that is "us" is co eternal with God, which makes sense.  It is also co eternal with truth, whatever it is.  These things being the case, our spirit has agency, it is the most fundamental gift we have, and what Satan wanted to take.  It is also in a sense, the only thing we can give God that he doesn't have.  We can hand over US to him.  

This makes sense, but I'm having a hard time "feeling so now" it's like the flavor of the jalapeño of secularism is drowning the perfect mildness of the gospel.  Ironic I can fire off all these nice gospel phrases and talk references :D. 

You asked about thought processes. Many kinds of intelligence and knowledge have been categorized through the ages until now, with more to come:

Theory of multiple intelligences - Wikipedia, Category:Knowledge - Wikipedia, Outline of knowledge - Wikipedia, Definitions of knowledge - Wikipedia

Most assuredly spiritual intelligence and knowledge are two of them, and you have experienced them. Faith is just as valid an experience and basis for knowledge as any of the others, and people argue over them only because they are biased over one school of thought or another. Generally speaking, we all use all or most forms every day, and all have their place as working models for managing the stewardship God gave us (for better or worse, depending on how we exercise our agency). We chose (hence we are here) and choose (hence we are tested) to react to stimuli, both physical and spiritual, both holy and adversarial.

Quantum theory is only the tip of the iceberg, and so is the particle of faith we exercise in Jesus Christ. Don't let anyone take that away from you.

 

 

 

[CommanderSouth]

I beginning to realize that everyone operates from assumptions.  Even if you go down to bedrock, you have an assumption, 2 in fact.

1) You exist
2) Something external to you exists independently of you. (Because I found there are people who don't believe this, but I feel those turn into causal nightmares, so I'm leaving it alone. Mostly because assumption 1 opens the door wide enough to make assumption 2 follow logically)
(IMPLIED) 3) We can know things about 1 and 2

And you move up from there.  Implicitly in 2 (and to a degree 3) is where all measurement lives.  But that's where I'm realizing, everything we do is driven by the assumption we exist.  And if we do (which it sure seems like), then something IS, or IS NOT (Opposition in all things, lest all things be one).  Since we also assume 3, it would follow that there will be evidence of X, and X exists.  But the evidence doesn't CAUSE X, it's indicative that X exists.  Which introduces the possibility or misinterpretation of X evidence.

Since this is possible, Free Will deniers can be wrong (not of malintent, but of misunderstanding).  Ergo, evaluation of evidence is needed. (Which I could argue permits a choice, and solves the whole argument anyway, but I'll resist.)

But the important thing is, we all assume things, we have to, and if those assumptions are wrong, they lead to a wrong conclusion. (See King Follet, if we go wrong for the start, it's hard to get back).

It makes me wonder, if existence itself REQUIRES choice.  Which, I'm fine with

Edited November 16, 2023 by CommanderSouth

[CommanderSouth]

This is a lot like thinking a table is solid your whole life until you realize that there are gaps in the atoms, and that if you were small enough, you could pass through.  Maybe the moral is, don't look too closely. Or better yet, at a tiny level you don't have free will (AKA CAN PASS THROUGH) but at a regular level, you do (AKA CAN NOT PASS THROUGH).

[CommanderSouth]

Another musing (spaghetti at the wall)

 

I have not came to terms with free will yet, but a thought is percolating in my mind. Similar to how I've thought before, becoming like God is becoming the I AM, it means becoming all powerful, all knowing. It comes by aligning oursleves to "truth" to what "is". So does it hurt to kick against the pricks? It does, because the pricks are what is true. Fighting truth is pointless. So we need to continue to align our will to his, this life is to work on bringing our alignment to his. It would follow that "the amt of knowledge we gain in this life benefits the next" makes sense to mean the degree to which we are "becoming true". So maybe we WON'T have free will in the end. We'll just do what God's DO. But if we do it because we chose it, then it doesn't matter, we are doing it. So Wilcox's lesson is still powerful. Whether we practice for A) or practice for B), we still practice. Perhaps that is the fundamental misunderstanding, that just because something looks or behaves deterministically doesn't mean it isn't free. So might it be with all matter. Perhaps that is Godhood. Perhaps doing the things God does BECAUSE WE WANT it, is the key. We aren't like the lower intelligences, they do because they are commanded, we will do because we desire. And God can help us change that desire. He can help us become "complete" and all pain comes from NOT yet being complete.

Knowing spirit is matter and a fullness of joy is body AND spirit united makes the difference. Like a new atom, perhaps the FULLNESS, COMPLETENESS of joy comes in changing the atom that our intelligence IS.

[CommanderSouth]

To run that idea of completeness a bit further.

Perhaps the pain is the process of not "being true" perhaps the "not true" in us is what causes pain. You often see peace for people in the most dire situations as they accept their situation.  Maybe being one with your existence is the peace.  I don't know, perhaps I'm carrying it too far, but something in there feels true.  It seems to resolve the dilemma of Godhood.  God WILL do the things God does, but on it's face that robs God of agency, but we believe he DOES have agency.  And perhaps that's exaltation, enlightenment, nirvana, whatever you call it.  Submitting your will to truth, to "God".  And then, when we are fully submitted, our being becomes one with "God" and like 2 hydrogens and one oxygen becoming water, the man, the wife, and the Lord, all become the new "God" particle. And since we now no longer do the thing an oxygen does, and we do the things water does, we are at peace.   Maybe all we are is oxygen preparing and striving to become water.  To be joined in a way we can't yet understand fully.  I want to say, comparing God's free will to ours is helpful because God is technically deterministic, but we would believe he has free will.

Interesting.  Perhaps correct, but perhaps not.  But interesting.

[zil2]

23 minutes ago, CommanderSouth said:

God WILL do the things God does, but on it's face that robs God of agency

How in the world can that even appear to rob God of agency?

Look at it this way:  A bunch of engineers learn the relevant natural laws required to build an aircraft that will reliably fly.  A pilot learns the rules that allow him to fly the aircraft well.  By acting in harmony with natural law and the design of the machine, they have attained flight.  The scientists and the pilot have first learned and then mastered the laws and rules and then accomplished something they desired.

Meanwhile, across town, some guy who wants to be able to fly rants and raves to everyone who will listen about how badly he wants to fly and how unfair it is that he should have to learn stupid natural laws or engineering or even how to operate an aircraft.  He should just be able to fly and curse God for not giving people feathers.  And people slowly stop listening and then stop associating with him because all he ever does is rant and rave - he won't put that effort into learning or acting in harmony with what's required.  Having lost all his family and friends, and doing nothing but ranting and raving, he goes crazy, jumps off a tall building, flaps his arms like mad, and eventually goes splat.

In the first instance, they accepted truth, mastered it, and soared.  In the other, they rejected truth and died.

God has mastered all truth and soars.  He invites us to come and soar with him.  To do that, we must submit to truth and then master it.

[CommanderSouth]

7 minutes ago, zil2 said:

How in the world can that even appear to rob God of agency?

Look at it this way:  A bunch of engineers learn the relevant natural laws required to build an aircraft that will reliably fly.  A pilot learns the rules that allow him to fly the aircraft well.  By acting in harmony with natural law and the design of the machine, they have attained flight.  The scientists and the pilot have first learned and then mastered the laws and rules and then accomplished something they desired.

Meanwhile, across town, some guy who wants to be able to fly rants and raves to everyone who will listen about how badly he wants to fly and how unfair it is that he should have to learn stupid natural laws or engineering or even how to operate an aircraft.  He should just be able to fly and curse God for not giving people feathers.  And people slowly stop listening and then stop associating with him because all he ever does is rant and rave - he won't put that effort into learning or acting in harmony with what's required.  Having lost all his family and friends, and doing nothing but ranting and raving, he goes crazy, jumps off a tall building, flaps his arms like mad, and eventually goes splat.

In the first instance, they accepted truth, mastered it, and soared.  In the other, they rejected truth and died.

God has mastered all truth and soars.  He invites us to come and soar with him.  To do that, we must submit to truth and then master it.

Because I am thinking of "Being God" as the flight in your example.  The entity Elohim, is currently in flight.   We call his state of flight as him "being God".  Thus for him to be God, he must remain in flight, which means he has to obey those laws that keep him aloft.  You could say he wants to, but since we know he will always be God, we also know that will CANNOT change.  Which APPEARS to rob his agency.  Though if you treat it as he WILL NOT change, the issue is a non issue.  He's doing it becaue he wants to.  If that makes sense.

[CommanderSouth]

You just have to assume now that the want never changes.

[zil2]

3 minutes ago, CommanderSouth said:

since we know he will always be God, we also know that will CANNOT change.

I submit that God can do whatever he wants to do, including, in theory, cease to be God.  But he doesn't want to.  It's as if you're saying, "unless God chooses to sin, he technically has no agency" or "...he appears to have no agency".  That's absurd.  God is demonstrating mastery of absolutely everything in the greatest demonstration of agency ever presented to us and you say:

6 minutes ago, CommanderSouth said:

Which APPEARS to rob his agency.

You don't understand agency.

[CommanderSouth]

7 minutes ago, zil2 said:

I submit that God can do whatever he wants to do, including, in theory, cease to be God.  But he doesn't want to.  It's as if you're saying, "unless God chooses to sin, he technically has no agency" or "...he appears to have no agency".  That's absurd.  God is demonstrating mastery of absolutely everything in the greatest demonstration of agency ever presented to us and you say:

You don't understand agency.

FWIW, the last sentence may be true, and may be meant with total love, but my initial response to "You don't understand agency" was a knee to the groin.  Just remember, sometimes some context can help with words (I say this with understanding, not with malice.)

In any event, you are correct.  The whole problem I am having is NOT understanding agency  Which is causing me great pain right now.

That said, I am arguing from the point that, being in flight requires submission to laws.  Another way to say where I am coming from is to say, God has basically said, I will always be in flight.  Through having said that, he has limited his choices in a sense.  He now HAS to be in flight or he is a liar.  Knowing he cannot be in flight AND a liar, it follows he will always be in flight.  And if that comes from a mastery of will to the point that he can make such a pronouncement, then that's fine.  I'm just arguing that statement is now limiting his options.

It's very much like the understanding that agency isn't "free", we can choose actions, but not consequences. Which we would need to understand also applies to God.

Maybe that is exaltation, being able to say, with intent, and certainty, I will never do wrong. And having the ability to hold your desire to that infinitely.  Then, and only then, could you be called God, in the position sense.

[zil2]

1 minute ago, CommanderSouth said:

FWIW, the last sentence may be true, and may be meant with total love, but my initial response to "You don't understand agency" was a knee to the groin.  Just remember, sometimes some context can help with words (I say this with understanding, not with malice.)

Sorry.  My words were too short. I apologize.

[Carborendum]

19 minutes ago, CommanderSouth said:

In any event, you are correct.  The whole problem I am having is NOT understanding agency  Which is causing me great pain right now.

What if we look at the opposite side of the argument?  What if there really is no such thing as choice?  What if it is all pre-programmed and there is an inevitable fate as if it were all one giant, complicated domino rally?

What would that mean?  What would change?  And what would be the necessary fundamental for that to be true?

[CommanderSouth]

14 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

What if we look at the opposite side of the argument?  What if there really is no such thing as choice?  What if it is all pre-programmed and there is an inevitable fate as if it were all one giant, complicated domino rally?

What would that mean?  What would change?  And what would be the necessary fundamental for that to be true?

Really nothing. Just my idea of what is below the surface would change and ironically, I can’t see under it anyway, so why does it matter? I have to internalize that question, which is what I’m working on.
 

The more I think about it the more, I think that there are things we don’t understand, and in that space is almost certainly where the answer to how our free will, so, works. Even still, something that came up in Enders game (xenocide) that I had to go back and listen to again is the discussion about free Will. Ender and Miro we’re having a discussion about free Will, and Ender brought up the point that he felt that everything at its basic level was intelligent matter doing what intelligent matter wants, and he says that he felt like we were made of the same stuff. He positive that we have always existed, and we have always done what we want, I like that too the views that some in the church have on intelligences to me that makes all the sense in the world, and it aligns very well with Abraham three. And it does give me some solace, some hope that those who deny free will or simply wrong.  And they could be, and I hope they are. One thing I have come to learn is that there must be opposition in all things, and that statement about everything being one wasn’t just mumbo-jumbo if there was no differentiation between things, nothing could exist. Everything exist because it’s not the same thing , and there is a powerful truth, and that’s what I’m beginning to try to grab hold of and pull myself up from there. 

[Carborendum]

42 minutes ago, CommanderSouth said:

Really nothing. Just my idea of what is below the surface would change and ironically, I can’t see under it anyway, so why does it matter? I have to internalize that question, which is what I’m working on.

Interesting. 

I tend to think there is a great deal that would be different.

[CommanderSouth]

1 hour ago, zil2 said:

I submit that God can do whatever he wants to do, including, in theory, cease to be God.  But he doesn't want to.  It's as if you're saying, "unless God chooses to sin, he technically has no agency" or "...he appears to have no agency".  That's absurd.  God is demonstrating mastery of absolutely everything in the greatest demonstration of agency ever presented to us and you say:

You don't understand agency.

It's ironic, I feel this now.  I understand you show me someone showing, demonstrating, free will, so finely tuned, so well used, it APPEARS deterministic.  Which is a feat none of us can do, and I have the gall to call it the exact opposite.  It's like someone painted a picture that even on the pixel level looks like a photograph.  It's so convincing, I tell you it's a fake.  Sorta like that.  Since it looks like a photo, it couldn't NOT be  

[CommanderSouth]

16 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Interesting. 

I tend to think there is a great deal that would be different.

 I mean, if I'm part of the rally, I don't know it.  So perhaps I get sad or confused (like I am) for a while, and then ideally get back out of it, and get back to the delusion.  Or I don't.  Nothing changes because nothing could.

For the implication to be true? I'm coming to wonder if it simply would have to be true, and not be able to be measured from the inside.
If it's from being deterministic in nature, there no cause to see.
If it's from a cause I can't yet see, there's no cause to see (yet).

Though my logic is within system being measured, since B) has happened enough, then I feel it's better for my existence to go with B).  

And then my behavior resumes with nagging questions.

[prisonchaplain]

I couldn't do what I do unless I believed in free will--even very late in the game (of life). "Whosoever will may come." All who are hungry or thirsty or both are welcome. Death bed conversions are real. The thief on the cross was real. The prodigal son--was all of us. 

Perhaps the greatest evidence of free will is Judas. Jesus knew this disciple would betray him. Jesus even said it would have been better for him if he had never been born. So, where's the free will? Jesus still chose him. Jesus still washed his feet. Jesus suffered and died so that folks like him could repent. Jesus may have known that Judas would not repent, but the invitation and possiblity was always there. 

There are secular scholars who argue that God's foreknowledge negates free will. I disagree. Often, we know what our children will do. We recognize their patterns (often because we did likewise at their age). Nevertheless, we let them make their mistakes. Most of the time we see the errors well in advance. Once in a while they surprise us and don't do what we fear they will.

Regardless, the mistakes or wise choices are theirs. God, being all-knowing, is always correct in what He knows. Nevertheless, the choices are ours. We are free.

BTW, is free will not core to LDS teaching. My understanding is that free agency is even stronger (more advanced) than free will, and that it is crucial to LDS theology. 

[CommanderSouth]

I am also realizing that there is a part of this that it isn't possible to understand.  A non causal (timeless, everything all at once) existence.  Since we exist, (which is the only thing I can measure with any certainty, and even then...) something has to exist eternally. Either WE are the non causal thing, which we can't fully understand, or we COME from a non causal thing, which we also can't fully understand.  So by virtue of existence, non causality HAS to exist at some level/plane/point.  At least the logic is sound for the next few hours

[CommanderSouth]

2 minutes ago, prisonchaplain said:

I couldn't do what I do unless I believed in free will--even very late in the game (of life). "Whosoever will may come." All who are hungry or thirsty or both are welcome. Death bed conversions are real. The thief on the cross was real. The prodigal son--was all of us. 

Perhaps the greatest evidence of free will is Judas. Jesus knew this disciple would betray him. Jesus even said it would have been better for him if he had never been born. So, where's the free will? Jesus still chose him. Jesus still washed his feet. Jesus suffered and died so that folks like him could repent. Jesus may have known that Judas would not repent, but the invitation and possiblity was always there. 

There are secular scholars who argue that God's foreknowledge negates free will. I disagree. Often, we know what our children will do. We recognize their patterns (often because we did likewise at their age). Nevertheless, we let them make their mistakes. Most of the time we see the errors well in advance. Once in a while they surprise us and don't do what we fear they will.

Regardless, the mistakes or wise choices are theirs. God, being all-knowing, is always correct in what He knows. Nevertheless, the choices are ours. We are free.

BTW, is free will not core to LDS teaching. My understanding is that free agency is even stronger (more advanced) than free will, and that it is crucial to LDS theology. 

Oh it very much is, but I'm often finding myself questioning core things to our teaching...

[LDSGator]

1 minute ago, CommanderSouth said:

very much is, but I'm often finding myself questioning core things to our teaching...

That’s a good sign bro, it means you are thinking about this stuff. 

[CommanderSouth]

7 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

That’s a good sign bro, it means you are thinking about this stuff. 

I made the mistake of getting cocky a few months ago when I had some revelations/clarity that made it much harder for me to question the church.  Devil couldn't get to the church, might as well dig the dirt out from underneath it.  I'll come out of this better I think, but I'm going to be a heck of a lot more humble  

[CommanderSouth]

I also have an inkling of an idea.  I think I know the reason we're here.  I also think I know what the veil is.

I think we're here to experience a causal, temporal existence.  I am thinking we are eternal, like God.  But unlike God, we are experiencing our temporal lives now.  We haven't finished our "probation" in time.  When we get out the other side, we'll be eternal beings who know non eternity.

And the veil?  It's time.  We can only experience now, we are disconnected from eternity.  Our causal nature is the thing that keeps us from "remembering", and perhaps remembering isn't even a good word, it's just the best word we have (which, weakness of language, and it's imprecise nature is something else that has been hitting me hard late). If we were still eternal, we'd exist like God does, and you would just be, and how could you even HAVE faith.  If you are like God, it isn't that you could reject it/need faith, you would just BE IT.  Faith ONLY exists because of time.  It ONLY exists because we can NOT BE a thing, or a thing can NOT BE (now), but can BE (later), faith requires causality, faith requires possibilities and not certainties.  Faith is what is required to know that there is something beyond you.  Faith is humility to know things that are not (YET) can be (or were).  That may be a way it's a principle of power.  It drives action.

[LDSGator]

14 minutes ago, CommanderSouth said:

I'll come out of this better I think,

I’m sure you will too my friend. 

[CommanderSouth]

Maybe the faith to tell a mountain to move hence to yonder place, is the same faith needed to say "let there be light".  That could be part of what we're working towards.  I'm hesitant to call the work of God as done "in faith", but perhaps the idea isn't too far off.  Maybe that's the thing we can only get here that prepares us to be like him.

[zil2]

1 hour ago, CommanderSouth said:

I'm hesitant to call the work of God as done "in faith"

Read Lectures on Faith - these make it clear that God does indeed work by faith, but as described in said lectures, it is a different level of faith than how we often talk of faith (often we use faith, belief, and religion interchangeably and even when faith is treated differently, it's not always the principle of power described in Lectures on Faith.)

From the first lecture:

Quote

22.We here understand, that the sacred writers say that all these things were done by faith. It was by faith that the worlds were framed. God spake, chaos heard, and worlds came into order by reason of the faith there was in Him. So with man also; he spake by faith in the name of God, and the sun stood still, the moon obeyed, mountains removed, prisons fell, lions' mouths were closed, the human heart lost its enmity, fire its violence, armies their power, the sword its terror, and death its dominion; and all this by reason of the faith which was in him.