Obviously free will isn’t limitless, those very things you mentioned will place a limit on what course of action we can take. But, even in the most desperate of circumstances, there are usually more than one routes we can choose to take and which one we go for will have wildly different outcomes, in some cases accounting for the difference between life and death.
The very basis of evolution via natural selection is that organisms that make the right choices survive and pass on their genes via offspring, whereas those that don’t, perish. Free will is what brought us here, due to the choices of the millions of biological ancestors we had. We are the offspring of those that made the right choices and the ones that didn’t just died off.
I know life is complicated and it has its challenges but doesn’t this defeat the purpose of free will if we only have a limited amount of actions we can take because of the circumstances that exist outside of our control?
Don’t get me wrong because I think we have the ability to experience free will to a degree but that means giving things like fear, laws, morality and society the finger but that doesn’t change how limited we really are.
free will != freedom from consequence, the same way free speech != freedom from consequence.
i’d say free will, like most things, is relative.
if you’re in a prison cell, you have the free will to think however you wish. but you don’t have the freedom to act however you wish, in that environment.
we all have many deeply ingrained beliefs about what is possible, probable, and achievable. and those beliefs try and keep our ego safe by reacting with fear and doubt when challenged.
ultimately imo, free will is the freedom to simply think of those possibilities and probabilities as achievable. thoughts are foundational to our personal experience of the material world.
like, going back to my hypothetical of saying i have the free will (or do I?) to pilot a cross-atlantic flight tonight. free will isn’t an all-access pass to instant gratification. but with enough dedication and persistence i don’t think that’s an unachievable goal. and i don’t even necessarily mean in the sense of – well, i have the free will to sign up for aviation school, spend years studying, get my pilot’s licence, and then pilot a flight. i mean if you had mastered “free will”, you could waltz onto an airplane, fly a plane to another continent, and walk away without any consequence, through a series of bizarre coincidences.
but that’s probably because my personal paradigm is very deeply entrenched in Law of Assumption. I’m sure others with different worldviews would have vastly different opinions than i.
It is hypocritical, but… alot of things are… history would tell us that “freedom” (free will, freedom to practice our religion, freedom from slavery etc etc etc) is only granted to those strong or cunning enough to take it.
So free will and the LHPcan be interpereted as the individuals free will, v.s. the collective will.
Side note: some people commented that “free will” means opposing various things ment to control us. I.e. the law… most of these things are created by more then one person and are an external force (what i call the collective will). Hell our moralities are usually taight to us by our parents… you morally think stealing is wrong because it was taight to you…
While yes, ultimately free will would generally be assumed as opposing these forces, outright opposition isnt always nessisary… you dont have to make a big deal or where a neon sign to tell people that you’re stealing to enact free will, the act in and of itself is enough to justify that you have the free will to oppose the collective… and that’s really all free will is, the ability to oppose… hell the ability to realize that you’re opposing is enough to show free will, just the act of knowing you are “willfully” capable of stealing/opposing the collective means you have free will
I think it is. We live in a dynamic world where every action brings us to a result. The result can be considered ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but it will be there nevertheless. I believe that there are limitless possibilities so to me ‘free will’ is the awareness of one’s choice and readiness to face its consequences, pleasant or not.
People choose to be fearful, offended and miserable but in my opinion, it has very little to do with free will. Sounds controversial, lol. But if you look at free will in the context of ‘awareness’, it makes more sense. We are influenced by a lot of things since the very moment we are born: religion, government, culture, traditions, family – just to name a few of them. And a lot of people pick up on those imposed dogmas and behavioral patterns, especially victim behavior (which is now heavily advertised around the globe). So is it impossible for a person to start taking responsibility for their actions? No, it isn’t. But it’s immensely difficult for many people so they subconsciously choose to stay as they are (and they also face the consequences of this choice and keep believing that they don’t deserve it). I hope I got my point across.
No, that is the very nature of existence, there are only so many dimensions you can move in, and thus only so many options. We can only really move in three dimensions and even the third one is largely theoretical, since we live mostly on the planet’s surface and don’t fly around regularly. We are also stuck in the fourth dimension, which is time, helplessly moving along in one direction, at a steady pace as if we were hurtling down a river, representing time.
All living things are constrained by the limits of the material universe. When you move out of the physical (this happens upon enlightenment, at least for a brief moment) and into the limitless, boundless void, expanding into infinity, such limitations no longer exist. But, even in the physical, there are always options that you are given by outside forces and often ones that you make for yourself, which nobody else can see.
But, I will concede that most people rarely exercise their free will and move along a pre-determined path, barely straying from what society’s expectations have placed on them.
I have a different opinion than a lot of people here on this. Instead of believing that this small portion of ourselves (our egos) is actually in charge, I think it’s more like the higher self version has sat the toddler on their knee and let them holding the steering wheel, then course corrects to prevent a lasting accident.
What does that say about the higher Self though, given that most people and certainly most organisms end up with a car crash of a life?
No, the signs would indicate that the ego (Eidolon) is firmly in charge and given free reign, the higher Self (Daemon) can only give suggestions, clues, visions, dreams, gentle nudges, but ultimately the ego is free to fuck it up as much as it likes.
If you believe these things can tell a person what their fate is with the utmost precision then whatever source you’re tapping into has already determined what a person is supposed to do and be. If you can’t escape fate then free will doesn’t exist. It’s an illusion.
With a certain degree of introspection a person can come to the conclusion that they’re hardwired to do certain things.
If you don’t liberate yourself from these animalistic tendencies are you acting with free will? Or is free will just having the ability to make choices no matter what the circumstances are?
I think people, including myself break the free will of others all day long just by manipulating the conversation in our favor, and without using magic, so do as thou will. Magic is just another tool in the manipulators tool box and I don’t care too much about free will of others, maybe I would if love magic was on my agenda- but only because I’d always wonder at the back of my mind, if any of it was real or if it was all conjured by my skills, either with implanting thoughts or the love magic.
So idk I’m the wrong person to tag for this. I don’t believe in Karma the way the rest of you seem to, I think consequence is not a negative word all on it’s own- that every action basically has a reaction- good or bad does not need to be based on the original action.
Seems like all I use magic for is protection, or petty wants in life like brand new playstations and cheesecake so. I’ll probably check myself out here I don’t consider free will at all when working, and work by my morals, not the worlds or anyone elses.
As far as can someone hinder their own free will with fear, probably. I mean the person who never tries anything is making a choice, but whether or not it’s the right one is truly never anyone else place to say, unless that person matters to them
My only concern with the matter is we’re all hardwired to do certain things. If we’re making decisions based on what we’re programed to do then I think there’s little room for free will. The other thing I have a problem with is outside factors such as suffering. If we spend our whole lives avoiding it then we’re not living up to our true potential. This involves doing nothing as well. So I think we choose to make these decisions because we’re under duress. A person can’t have free will if their thought process is clouded by duress because duress causes a fight or flight response.
My only comment, is that that in this grand quest of yours in which you reveal most of the world as npcs you’re falling into just about the same trap, and don’t even realize it. Yeah some people get to go blindly through life, but not all and your awfully limiting in how you view it from what I’ve seen- so much in fact I tend to skip over, sorry.
To each their own however, is how I tend to see it
is free will just having the ability to make choices no matter what the circumstances are?
as i see it, yes.
the biggest problem with “free will” is that it is inconceivable to us. we have free will, always had it, don’t know any different, so it’s a foreign concept to humans. without us losing our free will, we are unable to truely comprehend and experience it.
how can one know joy without sadness? or heartbreak without love?
physical pain without a body? light and color without eye sight? i mean, you can explain ALL day to a blind man what color and light is like, but having never experienced first hand, they can only pretend to understand and will never fully really know what the color “blue” is.
What is the higher self to you? Most people I come across think the higher self is some kind of demiurge. It’s been said that the higher self determines what kind of life we’re going to live before we’re born in order for us to learn some kind of lesson. If this is the case then our life is determined by fate. We can’t have free will if some higher being determines our fate for us.
Also if we’re the product of something that’s all knowing then I can’t see how free will exists because it knows everything that’s in the past past, present and future when it created you.
I don’t consider free will at all when working, and work by my morals, not the worlds or anyone elses.