This is something people often say to me: "If you look at the double slit experiment and the quantum eraser experiment, you see that determinism is an old classical physics idea that has been superseded. The observer determines reality. Therefore, free will exists."
And my response:
Quantum physics cannot show that determinism is wrong. That is
impossible, because there is no way to prove that randomness exists (even Bell's Theorem may in fact indicate superdeterminism despite the general understanding of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem#Superdeterminism). We
don't know if there is a better way of expressing quantum physics aside
from probabilities. So far, our formulas work based on probability. But
in the future, we could have more exact math.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory
And even if randomness were somehow the case, that still would not allow
for free will, which is logically impossible regardless of what physics
you may think you know. If your choices are generated at random, is
that what you call free will? Information Philosophy has an interesting take on this, showing how it is *possible* that randomness co-exists with determinism, such that creativity comes randomly out of some infinite pool of possibility, and is then narrowed down deterministically. In this way, there is indeterminism, in the sense that the future can never be known, yet causality is not broken. "Free will" is redefined as "freedom, then (determined) will" or "free/will." According to Buddhism, the future can be known, so I'm not sure that this I-Phi stuff has any merit apart from being a theoretically interesting proposition.
The observer effect has nothing to do with free will, either. In fact,
the observer doesn't need to be a human. It can be an instrument (and it
is, always--no experiment on quantum physics is done without
instruments, and those observing instruments cannot observe without also
influencing the behavior of that which they are observing, just as your
eye cannot perceive a photon without capturing it from the scene).
You are positing something that is neither random, nor deterministic. So
what is it? What makes "free will" tick? Why choose one thing over
another thing? You say it is very subtle. But if it is too subtle for
even you to understand, perhaps it is just a simple delusion. So far,
nobody has been able to give any logical argument or even been able to
define free will logically. If you can do that, you might win a Nobel
Prize.
P.S. Please see my post on determinism vs dependent origination.
Also see my post on whether consciousness can create conditions instead of vice versa.
Showing posts with label free will. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free will. Show all posts
Sunday, 8 March 2015
Monday, 16 February 2015
Determinism vs. Dependent Origination
[quote]Are you clear here that there is no guiding?[/quote]Everything is guided but no guider.
Or, nothing is guided, because guiding implies that things can happen differently than they do if not for the guidance. Is a flower guided toward the sun? What guides it? The sun? DNA? We could say, yes, the sun and DNA guide the flower's growth. Or we could say that the growth is inseparable from its conditions, there's no split in reality.
Determinism to most people implies causation, which implies causes separate from results. Dependent origination shows that there are causes & conditions, but those causes & conditions are not separate from the things they influence. In a sense, they *are* those things. Only by later designating one thing to be a condition, and another thing to be a result, can we split reality up into linear time and subject/object consciousness.
My understanding of dependent origination is that of maybe a first-grader in public school. If you want a scholarly understanding, I suggest you read Nagarjuna. However, Nagarjuna is not just a scholar but also aims at breaking the mind almost koan-like. So logicians would probably not agree with much of what he is saying.
Sunday, 4 January 2015
The unfortunate misunderstanding of Buddha's teaching on Karma & Free Will
Namaste friends!
Today I'd like to go over what I perceive to be a very widely held misunderstanding regarding the nature of reality: specifically, free will. Even many buddhists (for example, Thanissaro Bikkhu and the editor of Accesstoinsight.org, the largest archive of English translations of the Pali cannon online), do not seem to understand that free will does not exist.
First, a cautionary note: no free will does not mean you don't need to practice to awaken. Please see this post on pathologies of insight. If what is done does not matter in terms of future outcomes, then there is no dependent causation, everything must be random. That is nonsensical.
Now, let's remind ourselves what Buddha's primary teaching was: dependent origination, or in Pali, pratityasamutpada. Here is the Dalai Lama's etymological definition:
Here's a quote from Thanissaro Bikkhu:
But this reasoning misses that the "new input" into the system is a result of previous inputs. There is no such thing as a "new input" which is outside of the web of causes & conditions. Also, although it may be true that the past is somehow shaped by the present and the future, it is not true in any practical sense. One could say that our thoughts about the past determine the past "for us." But regardless of what we think of the past, it still happened the way it happened to produce the present circumstances. If this were not the case, then it would make no sense to do practice to awaken, as Buddha said, because practicing a skill relies on the assumption of the linearity of time. If somehow it were true that our future abilities determined how we practiced to develop those abilities, it still would not matter in terms of the way we approach practice. We would still have to approach practice pragmatically with a linear perspective in order to have any hope of developing skills.
Indeed, in higher dimensions, I have seen that time is an illusion. However, people often see this and then think that it means practice is meaningless. Remember, you are reading this now in linear time, even if from a higher dimension everything happens all at once. To get to that transcendent perspective, we, paradoxically, have to take actions within this linear time dimension. Also, remember that just because time is an illusion does not mean that free will exists! It doesn't matter whether time is linear or not. If everything actually happens all at once, that still leaves no room for free will. If the present influences the past & future, that still leaves no room for free will.
Although free will does not exist (in fact it is not even a logical concept that can be said to either exist nor not exist), one still must follow the moral guidance of something like the eightfold path to increase their chances of waking up from the dream of free will & identity. If we just go about our daily lives as before, satisfying our selfish desires at the expense of others, we are unlikely gain equanimity & dispassion for the world. Without dispassion & equanimity there is not much chance for liberation from samsara. But the eightfold path is a mundane teaching (which can lead to better rebirths or conditions here), which then must be superseded by the transcendent teaching of no free will, nobody here, everything already perfect, in order for a "being" to be released from samsara. As Buddha said, all of his teachings eventually must be left at the shore in order to cross the great divide between samsara and nibbana (nirvana).
Oh, dispassion is another misunderstood word. Many people think that when I talk about dispassion, I'm saying you should be like a rock. No emotions. Then of course nobody will want to be near you.
Actually, whatever emotions come up are fine. The point is not to block emotions, but rather to see thru them & to realize they are not your emotions. You can still be loving to your family, but realize that this love is not yours, this family is not yours, nobody is here, and everything is always happening perfectly according to natural laws. Indeed, Buddha taught that one should develop compassion even as one develops dispassion. Compassion is needed on the path to letting go. And with letting go, one attains the great peace and freedom from which true transcendental love (agape, metta) and compassion (karuna) spring forth.
Lest you be unconvinced by "my" pedestrian brain, please peruse the excellent book, Free Will by neuroscientist & Buddhist practitioner Sam Harris (or check his youtube videos on the subject). His book Waking Up (free first chapter online) is also excellent and possibly a better use of your time, as it includes insights from his book on free will, as well as giving sage advice on awakening, while acknowledging that he himself has only had glimpses of it (as is the case for myself as well up to this point).
If you are wondering which awakened Buddhist masters support "my" position, the only one I know of for sure in my limited readings is Ajahn Brahm. He is quite explicit that you have no free choice. And he is one of the most highly regarded masters today in Theravada Buddhism. Strangely, Brahm only makes passing mention of this key point in his book, Meditation, Bliss, and Beyond, as he prefers to teach people to enter the states of meditative absorption known as jhana. I can see why he prefers jhana, although he admits it does not directly lead to liberation, but it certainly does remove doubt about the possibility of liberation. And I can vouch for his instructions to achieve it: following them, I achieved first jhana in a week (really one day of intense practice while I was sick). It is infinitely better than sex, as he advertises!
---
Now, I will be the first to admit that my understanding of dependent origination is at a kindergarten level compared to the likes of Nagarjuna. So perhaps in some sense there is neither free will nor is everything determined by conditions (since according to Nagarjuna, conditions are dependently designated based upon results). If you would like to study Nagarjuna, and then get back to me on what you learn, I'd love to hear it.
Today I'd like to go over what I perceive to be a very widely held misunderstanding regarding the nature of reality: specifically, free will. Even many buddhists (for example, Thanissaro Bikkhu and the editor of Accesstoinsight.org, the largest archive of English translations of the Pali cannon online), do not seem to understand that free will does not exist.
First, a cautionary note: no free will does not mean you don't need to practice to awaken. Please see this post on pathologies of insight. If what is done does not matter in terms of future outcomes, then there is no dependent causation, everything must be random. That is nonsensical.
Now, let's remind ourselves what Buddha's primary teaching was: dependent origination, or in Pali, pratityasamutpada. Here is the Dalai Lama's etymological definition:
- "Dependent-arising [origination, NOT arising!] is the general philosophy of all Buddhist systems even though many different interpretations are found among these systems. In Sanskrit the word for dependent-arising is pratityasamutpada. The word pratitya has three different meanings–meeting, relying, and depending–but all three, in terms of their basic import, mean dependence.Samutpada means arising. Hence, the meaning of pratityasamutpada is that which arises in dependence upon conditions, in reliance upon conditions, through the force of conditions. On a subtle level, it is explained as the main reason why phenomena are empty of inherent existence." Dalai Lama (1992) p.35, The Meaning of Life, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins, Wisdom
Here's a quote from Thanissaro Bikkhu:
- ...one of the many things the Buddha discovered in the course of his awakening was that causality is not linear. The experience of the present is shaped both by actions in the present and by actions in the past. Actions in the present shape both the present and the future. The results of past and present actions continually interact. Thus there is always room for new input into the system, which gives scope for free will.[1]
But this reasoning misses that the "new input" into the system is a result of previous inputs. There is no such thing as a "new input" which is outside of the web of causes & conditions. Also, although it may be true that the past is somehow shaped by the present and the future, it is not true in any practical sense. One could say that our thoughts about the past determine the past "for us." But regardless of what we think of the past, it still happened the way it happened to produce the present circumstances. If this were not the case, then it would make no sense to do practice to awaken, as Buddha said, because practicing a skill relies on the assumption of the linearity of time. If somehow it were true that our future abilities determined how we practiced to develop those abilities, it still would not matter in terms of the way we approach practice. We would still have to approach practice pragmatically with a linear perspective in order to have any hope of developing skills.
Indeed, in higher dimensions, I have seen that time is an illusion. However, people often see this and then think that it means practice is meaningless. Remember, you are reading this now in linear time, even if from a higher dimension everything happens all at once. To get to that transcendent perspective, we, paradoxically, have to take actions within this linear time dimension. Also, remember that just because time is an illusion does not mean that free will exists! It doesn't matter whether time is linear or not. If everything actually happens all at once, that still leaves no room for free will. If the present influences the past & future, that still leaves no room for free will.
Although free will does not exist (in fact it is not even a logical concept that can be said to either exist nor not exist), one still must follow the moral guidance of something like the eightfold path to increase their chances of waking up from the dream of free will & identity. If we just go about our daily lives as before, satisfying our selfish desires at the expense of others, we are unlikely gain equanimity & dispassion for the world. Without dispassion & equanimity there is not much chance for liberation from samsara. But the eightfold path is a mundane teaching (which can lead to better rebirths or conditions here), which then must be superseded by the transcendent teaching of no free will, nobody here, everything already perfect, in order for a "being" to be released from samsara. As Buddha said, all of his teachings eventually must be left at the shore in order to cross the great divide between samsara and nibbana (nirvana).
Oh, dispassion is another misunderstood word. Many people think that when I talk about dispassion, I'm saying you should be like a rock. No emotions. Then of course nobody will want to be near you.
Actually, whatever emotions come up are fine. The point is not to block emotions, but rather to see thru them & to realize they are not your emotions. You can still be loving to your family, but realize that this love is not yours, this family is not yours, nobody is here, and everything is always happening perfectly according to natural laws. Indeed, Buddha taught that one should develop compassion even as one develops dispassion. Compassion is needed on the path to letting go. And with letting go, one attains the great peace and freedom from which true transcendental love (agape, metta) and compassion (karuna) spring forth.
Lest you be unconvinced by "my" pedestrian brain, please peruse the excellent book, Free Will by neuroscientist & Buddhist practitioner Sam Harris (or check his youtube videos on the subject). His book Waking Up (free first chapter online) is also excellent and possibly a better use of your time, as it includes insights from his book on free will, as well as giving sage advice on awakening, while acknowledging that he himself has only had glimpses of it (as is the case for myself as well up to this point).
If you are wondering which awakened Buddhist masters support "my" position, the only one I know of for sure in my limited readings is Ajahn Brahm. He is quite explicit that you have no free choice. And he is one of the most highly regarded masters today in Theravada Buddhism. Strangely, Brahm only makes passing mention of this key point in his book, Meditation, Bliss, and Beyond, as he prefers to teach people to enter the states of meditative absorption known as jhana. I can see why he prefers jhana, although he admits it does not directly lead to liberation, but it certainly does remove doubt about the possibility of liberation. And I can vouch for his instructions to achieve it: following them, I achieved first jhana in a week (really one day of intense practice while I was sick). It is infinitely better than sex, as he advertises!
---
Now, I will be the first to admit that my understanding of dependent origination is at a kindergarten level compared to the likes of Nagarjuna. So perhaps in some sense there is neither free will nor is everything determined by conditions (since according to Nagarjuna, conditions are dependently designated based upon results). If you would like to study Nagarjuna, and then get back to me on what you learn, I'd love to hear it.
Friday, 12 December 2014
Cosmic Consciousness in 2-3 hours? Awakening to no-self automatic perfection.
Namaste friends!
First, definition of terms: cosmic consciousness is the awareness of the entire universe all at once. However, I have found that there are different levels of identification in this state. The goal is to have no identity whatsoever, since as we will discuss, it is illusory. However, due to habits of mind, some traces of identity may seep into this state and disrupt the perfection. Be mindful of that, because with each insight comes the possibility for stagnation due to the incredible apparent level of truth it brings, as explained here.
Now, before you can try to have the experience:
First, you must have a solid intellectual grasp of the nature of reality. You must understand that free will is a delusion. Why is it? Because everything happens perfectly according to natural laws, automatically. Nowhere can science nor logic find a place for autonomous agents which are able to act outside of the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, and so forth. Even if there is some metaphysical universe, it too would operate on laws. Without laws there is only chaos. Try to simply define what free will means--you will see that you can't define it in a way that makes sense.
So this human brain has evolved to imagine that it is somehow separate from reality and in control of reality to some extent, but just enough to frustrate itself almost constantly due to things not being as they "should" be.
In fact, of course, everything is always functioning perfectly according to natural laws. Just from this small perspective it seems otherwise. So the task is to be mindful of the automatically perfect nature of reality and let go of the habit of thinking in terms of "I", "me", "mine." These concepts are created by the brain/mind and do not exist outside of that context.
A good mantra is: "Perfectly automatic, automatically perfect." Repeat that in "your" head all day long and deeply penetrate it.
Now, if you continue to do that, you will eventually disappear entirely from the universe. Actually, that's not true, because you never were here to begin with except, again, as a concept. But this sensation of "you"ness will be gone. Just universe left. It may take time, but it happens automatically just like everything else. Do not worry about it. Just keep mindful of the nature of reality.
If you are not perfectly clear now that there is nobody here in this automatic display, STOP reading at this point and ask for free help from those who have wisdom over at LiberationUnleashed.com
Before I go on about the cosmic consciousness trick, let me give you this caveat: One problem with psychedelics and even cosmic consciousness is that the states produced are so far away from our everyday experience that it makes liberation seem something very difficult to achieve permanently. That is why Buddha tried to show people how to stop suffering right here, right now, in the midst of ordinary everyday life and perception. His advice to Bahiya is exemplary of that.
---------------
And now here's the trick to blast into cosmic consciousness:
The mind's habits are particularly easy to break in a dream state or inbetween waking and dreaming.
So, wake up around 3am (assuming you normally wake at 6am or 7am) and sit up comfortably while you meditate on your breath for a few hours. Just notice the automatic nature of the breath as it goes in the nose, thru the body, and then out the body and thru the nose. As thoughts arise, just come back to the breath, noticing that thoughts arose automatically also. Noticing that noticing happened automatically also.
After about 2 hours of this practice, you should feel completely serene. At peace. You will also be very tired probably. So now lay down and go to sleep with the intention of entering into a lucid dream to continue contemplation of the automatic nature of reality.
Now chances are extremely good that you will enter a lucid dream due to the meditative mind-state you were in at the time of going to sleep.
Once you are in the dream and realize you are dreaming, again focus on the automatic nature of reality. Try to see how every particle "in you" functions according to the same laws as everything "outside you." You should start to notice the border between "inside you" and "outside you" becoming impossible to distinguish.
Another approach is to follow Buddha's advice to the wanderer Bahiya, in which he said, basically, "Try to see direct experience: in the seen, there is no seer seeing, only the seen. When only the seen is seen, that is the end of stress." In other words, we are getting rid of "experience of reality" in favor of reality itself.
At this point the whole dream explodes into cosmic consciousness when there is no separation between you and the universe. It can be so massively blissful and awesome that you wake up fairly quickly. But if you keep practicing, you should become more used to it over time.
The worst mistake tho, is to start prancing around like me and saying "Ooh, look at how special I am, I have achieved cosmic consciousness! I'm a true yogi! Bow down to me! haha!"
So don't do that. You're nobody, and certainly nobody special. Just automatic like everything else. Remember that. :)
love,
nobody
P.S. If you are interested in the Buddha dharma and you liked the linked blog entry on "Seven stages of awakening" by Thusness, then I suggest you join the facebook group Dharma Connection so you can talk to folks who are awakened to no-self. Obviously on any group there will be a bunch of nonsense, but this group does have some very worthwhile posters. The group's worthwhile posts are archived on this blog: http://dharmaconnectiongroup.blogspot.com/
First, definition of terms: cosmic consciousness is the awareness of the entire universe all at once. However, I have found that there are different levels of identification in this state. The goal is to have no identity whatsoever, since as we will discuss, it is illusory. However, due to habits of mind, some traces of identity may seep into this state and disrupt the perfection. Be mindful of that, because with each insight comes the possibility for stagnation due to the incredible apparent level of truth it brings, as explained here.
Now, before you can try to have the experience:
First, you must have a solid intellectual grasp of the nature of reality. You must understand that free will is a delusion. Why is it? Because everything happens perfectly according to natural laws, automatically. Nowhere can science nor logic find a place for autonomous agents which are able to act outside of the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, and so forth. Even if there is some metaphysical universe, it too would operate on laws. Without laws there is only chaos. Try to simply define what free will means--you will see that you can't define it in a way that makes sense.
So this human brain has evolved to imagine that it is somehow separate from reality and in control of reality to some extent, but just enough to frustrate itself almost constantly due to things not being as they "should" be.
In fact, of course, everything is always functioning perfectly according to natural laws. Just from this small perspective it seems otherwise. So the task is to be mindful of the automatically perfect nature of reality and let go of the habit of thinking in terms of "I", "me", "mine." These concepts are created by the brain/mind and do not exist outside of that context.
A good mantra is: "Perfectly automatic, automatically perfect." Repeat that in "your" head all day long and deeply penetrate it.
Now, if you continue to do that, you will eventually disappear entirely from the universe. Actually, that's not true, because you never were here to begin with except, again, as a concept. But this sensation of "you"ness will be gone. Just universe left. It may take time, but it happens automatically just like everything else. Do not worry about it. Just keep mindful of the nature of reality.
If you are not perfectly clear now that there is nobody here in this automatic display, STOP reading at this point and ask for free help from those who have wisdom over at LiberationUnleashed.com
Before I go on about the cosmic consciousness trick, let me give you this caveat: One problem with psychedelics and even cosmic consciousness is that the states produced are so far away from our everyday experience that it makes liberation seem something very difficult to achieve permanently. That is why Buddha tried to show people how to stop suffering right here, right now, in the midst of ordinary everyday life and perception. His advice to Bahiya is exemplary of that.
---------------
And now here's the trick to blast into cosmic consciousness:
The mind's habits are particularly easy to break in a dream state or inbetween waking and dreaming.
So, wake up around 3am (assuming you normally wake at 6am or 7am) and sit up comfortably while you meditate on your breath for a few hours. Just notice the automatic nature of the breath as it goes in the nose, thru the body, and then out the body and thru the nose. As thoughts arise, just come back to the breath, noticing that thoughts arose automatically also. Noticing that noticing happened automatically also.
After about 2 hours of this practice, you should feel completely serene. At peace. You will also be very tired probably. So now lay down and go to sleep with the intention of entering into a lucid dream to continue contemplation of the automatic nature of reality.
Now chances are extremely good that you will enter a lucid dream due to the meditative mind-state you were in at the time of going to sleep.
Once you are in the dream and realize you are dreaming, again focus on the automatic nature of reality. Try to see how every particle "in you" functions according to the same laws as everything "outside you." You should start to notice the border between "inside you" and "outside you" becoming impossible to distinguish.
Another approach is to follow Buddha's advice to the wanderer Bahiya, in which he said, basically, "Try to see direct experience: in the seen, there is no seer seeing, only the seen. When only the seen is seen, that is the end of stress." In other words, we are getting rid of "experience of reality" in favor of reality itself.
At this point the whole dream explodes into cosmic consciousness when there is no separation between you and the universe. It can be so massively blissful and awesome that you wake up fairly quickly. But if you keep practicing, you should become more used to it over time.
The worst mistake tho, is to start prancing around like me and saying "Ooh, look at how special I am, I have achieved cosmic consciousness! I'm a true yogi! Bow down to me! haha!"
So don't do that. You're nobody, and certainly nobody special. Just automatic like everything else. Remember that. :)
love,
nobody
P.S. If you are interested in the Buddha dharma and you liked the linked blog entry on "Seven stages of awakening" by Thusness, then I suggest you join the facebook group Dharma Connection so you can talk to folks who are awakened to no-self. Obviously on any group there will be a bunch of nonsense, but this group does have some very worthwhile posters. The group's worthwhile posts are archived on this blog: http://dharmaconnectiongroup.blogspot.com/
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