Very useful / food for thought for this materialist/non-Buddhist.
On a philosophical level I'm of an opinion that there's no free will (in a classic sense - the world is fully deterministic, or at least fully deterministic on scales that matter to humans). But I find it a very useful and natural heuristic to use in my life and cannot imagine living (in the "functioning") sense without assuming free will: not the thrusting and teleological version but that intuition of making choices that are obviously not fully unconstrained but are still not fully illusory.
It was interesting to introspect and contemplate to what extent my emotions and thoughts feel "chosen freely": emotions obviously don't, but thoughts feel more complicated. Certainly the *current selection* of thoughts seems at least partially amenable to choice -- attention feels somewhat controllable to me even though I have an ADHD streak, so I'd assume it's even more controllable for an average human. As to thoughts understood as beliefs or values or desires, it seems very variable. On the one hand, some felt completely fixed: however much I tried I could not believe in the Christian god (source: historically I tried A LOT). Perhaps this is driven by the fact that choosing such a belief would require a complete wholesale reworking of my worldview which would be catastrophically unmanageable. Perhaps I actually could CHOOSE to believe in that god but I'm unknowingly scared of the consequences so I feel I can't. It's not impossible but it feels unlikely.
But other beliefs and values seem much more amenable to choice, again, perhaps not fully free choice but still some kind of choice. I wonder if those are beliefs that are less about structured representations of the reality (ontology, for the lack of better word) and more heuristics for behaviour: "generally acting as if". The two approaches you propose (looking at others with compassion and taking personal responsibility) seem to represent this category of beliefs. Introspecting again, I find myself assuming others usually had little choice (and I agree that in MOST - though not all - cases those that commit reprehensible acts often have the least choice) but that I have it, even though on the most abstract meta level I think free will is an illusion.
Pivoting back to "how much choice we have as to thoughts" though, in this morning's exercise (thank you again for the prompt to do it) I noticed that while most* thoughts don't seem FREELY chosen, they mostly* seem distinctly different to external circumstances and bodily states/emotions: there's a sense of them being fundamentally "mine" in ways that those other factors are not: while I'm not precisely choosing them freely in any given moment, they feel like a result of a process that's "me" and thus they FEEL "chosen", as in "selected", dynamically, overall, within that pattern ---- in a wider, overall sense. It thus feels like just of this morning, while searching for free will, I have discovered self!! Fascinating.
*I'm making this "most" caveat to distinguish between the kind of thoughts that I'm describing and what's known as "intrusive thoughts" which feel completely imposed, not chosen, and much more like physical sensations or emotions (and typically are probably *produced* by emotions).
Thanks so much for this reflection! I'd be curious to probe more deeply into the sense that thoughts are yours despite them not being entirely freely chosen. What is the feeling of them being yours feel like? Is that feeling always there or does it come and go? Have you ever had an ear worm / song stuck in your head? Does that feel like it's coming from self? Have you ever experienced a burbling up of random thoughts that seem unowned or not coming from self? Also curious about the process of the current selection of thoughts - what's that like? Is it just about turning toward or away from a stream of thought? Is it about selecting another alternative? Where does the alternative thought come from? Does it feel like that emerges from a self too?
Earworm type thoughts: not so much. Or rather they feel like emerging from a broader self that (I'm riffing here/inventing concepts for which I don't have a deep rationale, more of a vibe) a narrower self (the attention-wielder? or even the attention as a process itself?) can pick and choose from.
But — intrusive (and at times, compulsive) thoughts of horrors/atrocities feel VERY alien even though I can easily identify the genealogy of their content. But their appearing feels different. Perhaps because they are really emotions (fear/anxiety/dread) masquerading as thoughts, or appearing under a cloak of thoughts. So in this sense they feel less “mine” (congruent with self, self-syntonic?) than emotions themselves, at further remove from self.
I do realise that my processing of my emotions as something similarly “not-me” to bodily sensations is not all that common and that most people seem to identify with their emotions (felt “in their heads” with some cognitive content) more than with the, for example, pain of sprained ankle.
And the (external) sensory experiences feel somewhere half way, both obviously contingent on external stimuli & context AND “mine” (self-integrated? self-syntonic? something else self related???) in the “brain results”: I seem to identify with my seeing despite it being an obvious result of external stimuli, my (failing, sadly) eyesight and my neural architecture. Somewhere in that whole machine a ghost of what-feels-like-my-self seems to manifest too.
Great questions, thanks for encouraging my navel gazing!
Well as a Christian and mind you not a calvinist I'll try to outline my thoughts briefly I think that God gives us free will in a way he does this to toy with us to see what we do with it this free will often times we fail sometimes spectacularly. But in my mind God is the ultimate mind reader he knows everything that we are thinking he usually doesn't interfere sometimes he does I think that's something that a lot of people have maybe forgotten or been oblivious to my God is both caring and remote and he's especially remote to the majority of humankind which leads them often nowadays towards atheism but back to free will we have it but also in the sense that God according to me is eternally reading our minds that will is not so free God lets bad people do bad things because that's the way of the world only rarely do I think that he intervenes Himself anyhow that's just my opinion best of luck to you take care
Very useful / food for thought for this materialist/non-Buddhist.
On a philosophical level I'm of an opinion that there's no free will (in a classic sense - the world is fully deterministic, or at least fully deterministic on scales that matter to humans). But I find it a very useful and natural heuristic to use in my life and cannot imagine living (in the "functioning") sense without assuming free will: not the thrusting and teleological version but that intuition of making choices that are obviously not fully unconstrained but are still not fully illusory.
It was interesting to introspect and contemplate to what extent my emotions and thoughts feel "chosen freely": emotions obviously don't, but thoughts feel more complicated. Certainly the *current selection* of thoughts seems at least partially amenable to choice -- attention feels somewhat controllable to me even though I have an ADHD streak, so I'd assume it's even more controllable for an average human. As to thoughts understood as beliefs or values or desires, it seems very variable. On the one hand, some felt completely fixed: however much I tried I could not believe in the Christian god (source: historically I tried A LOT). Perhaps this is driven by the fact that choosing such a belief would require a complete wholesale reworking of my worldview which would be catastrophically unmanageable. Perhaps I actually could CHOOSE to believe in that god but I'm unknowingly scared of the consequences so I feel I can't. It's not impossible but it feels unlikely.
But other beliefs and values seem much more amenable to choice, again, perhaps not fully free choice but still some kind of choice. I wonder if those are beliefs that are less about structured representations of the reality (ontology, for the lack of better word) and more heuristics for behaviour: "generally acting as if". The two approaches you propose (looking at others with compassion and taking personal responsibility) seem to represent this category of beliefs. Introspecting again, I find myself assuming others usually had little choice (and I agree that in MOST - though not all - cases those that commit reprehensible acts often have the least choice) but that I have it, even though on the most abstract meta level I think free will is an illusion.
Pivoting back to "how much choice we have as to thoughts" though, in this morning's exercise (thank you again for the prompt to do it) I noticed that while most* thoughts don't seem FREELY chosen, they mostly* seem distinctly different to external circumstances and bodily states/emotions: there's a sense of them being fundamentally "mine" in ways that those other factors are not: while I'm not precisely choosing them freely in any given moment, they feel like a result of a process that's "me" and thus they FEEL "chosen", as in "selected", dynamically, overall, within that pattern ---- in a wider, overall sense. It thus feels like just of this morning, while searching for free will, I have discovered self!! Fascinating.
*I'm making this "most" caveat to distinguish between the kind of thoughts that I'm describing and what's known as "intrusive thoughts" which feel completely imposed, not chosen, and much more like physical sensations or emotions (and typically are probably *produced* by emotions).
Thanks so much for this reflection! I'd be curious to probe more deeply into the sense that thoughts are yours despite them not being entirely freely chosen. What is the feeling of them being yours feel like? Is that feeling always there or does it come and go? Have you ever had an ear worm / song stuck in your head? Does that feel like it's coming from self? Have you ever experienced a burbling up of random thoughts that seem unowned or not coming from self? Also curious about the process of the current selection of thoughts - what's that like? Is it just about turning toward or away from a stream of thought? Is it about selecting another alternative? Where does the alternative thought come from? Does it feel like that emerges from a self too?
Earworm type thoughts: not so much. Or rather they feel like emerging from a broader self that (I'm riffing here/inventing concepts for which I don't have a deep rationale, more of a vibe) a narrower self (the attention-wielder? or even the attention as a process itself?) can pick and choose from.
But — intrusive (and at times, compulsive) thoughts of horrors/atrocities feel VERY alien even though I can easily identify the genealogy of their content. But their appearing feels different. Perhaps because they are really emotions (fear/anxiety/dread) masquerading as thoughts, or appearing under a cloak of thoughts. So in this sense they feel less “mine” (congruent with self, self-syntonic?) than emotions themselves, at further remove from self.
I do realise that my processing of my emotions as something similarly “not-me” to bodily sensations is not all that common and that most people seem to identify with their emotions (felt “in their heads” with some cognitive content) more than with the, for example, pain of sprained ankle.
And the (external) sensory experiences feel somewhere half way, both obviously contingent on external stimuli & context AND “mine” (self-integrated? self-syntonic? something else self related???) in the “brain results”: I seem to identify with my seeing despite it being an obvious result of external stimuli, my (failing, sadly) eyesight and my neural architecture. Somewhere in that whole machine a ghost of what-feels-like-my-self seems to manifest too.
Great questions, thanks for encouraging my navel gazing!
Well as a Christian and mind you not a calvinist I'll try to outline my thoughts briefly I think that God gives us free will in a way he does this to toy with us to see what we do with it this free will often times we fail sometimes spectacularly. But in my mind God is the ultimate mind reader he knows everything that we are thinking he usually doesn't interfere sometimes he does I think that's something that a lot of people have maybe forgotten or been oblivious to my God is both caring and remote and he's especially remote to the majority of humankind which leads them often nowadays towards atheism but back to free will we have it but also in the sense that God according to me is eternally reading our minds that will is not so free God lets bad people do bad things because that's the way of the world only rarely do I think that he intervenes Himself anyhow that's just my opinion best of luck to you take care