Do people truly have free will?

[Sherman Krebbs]

6 hours ago, Sanity Check said:

I used to earn $1,000 to $3,000 per week.

 

With my earning potential set to rise over time.

 

I was cheated out of what was mine.

 

Now I will reinvent myself.

 

What are any of you doing with your own life that makes you think its your role to look down on anyone?

 

Dear friend, F**k what @Nungali or anyone else says.  He's not looking down on you.  He just does not care, and neither should you.  I am sorry you felt cheated in this money situation, but you need to accept responsibility for what happened, whatever it was. You, and only you, hold the key to this life.  You need to accept the outcome of your own choices and your own free will in the matter.  Was it god's choice to let it this unfortunate thing happen?  Was it some other god hating person that did it? it does not matter.  Despite what anyone says, you need to be selfish, shrewd, and diligent to solve these problems. A man who leaves his door unlocked bears more responsibility over the theft of his TV than the perpetrator, though I can't say I know anything about this particular pilfering.    Also, get the idea out of your head that the balance of your bank account and the importance of what you are doing in your life gives you the right to look down on anything or anyone. It doesn't.

 

17 hours ago, Sanity Check said:

Atheism correlating strongly with denial of free will is old news.

 

This is good clarification. I'd probably flip this around, and delete the "old news" part, but may be true.  One could also make the same argument, however, about nihilism -- one is more likely to be a nihilist if one is an atheist, but that does not establish the validity of nihilism.   And, it cant be flipped around another way  and imply that believing in god is prerequisite to free will, or that only those who believe in god believe in free will.  

 

I think the real question that @Nungali was after was the extent to which one-and-only-one-god-fearing people exercise their authentic free will, as opposed to reactively following religious theology.  That they believe they are exercising free will, but only when its not the doing of the one-and-only-one-god.  god let xyz happen to me, therefore, I bear no responsibility. Maybe I am wrong on what he was thinking though. 

 

 

[Apech]

10 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

Well, maybe in Portugal . Here we gotta pay for it !  

 

 

Do what thou will shall be the whole of the law.

 

 

[Taomeow]

Freewillies and anti-freewillies are both stuck in a false dichotomy.  The correct question was offered by @thelerner : just how powerful is my free will?  It's a quantitative question.  Free will is a spectrum, not an either-or choice.

 

Taoist answer (I'm repeating myself but the topic repeats itself, so here goes): 40% of your overall destiny is up to your free will, on average.  (Another 40% is written in the stars and is outside your personal choices -- e.g. whether you have an older brother, a living grandparent or four of them or none, whether you're born in Zimbabwe or Lithuania, with brown eyes or blue eyes, etc..  And the remaining 20% is up to chance -- neither you nor your stars play a part, it's the throw of the dice...  Einstein thought that "god doesn't play dice" -- but tao does.  20% of the time.  When she does, we call the outcome "yi."  The most taoist of books, the Yi Jing aka I Ching, is all about that.  Yi in the title means irregular changes.  20% of destiny is that, and it is what it concerns itself with.  What do we do about irregular changes?  Count the yarrow sticks, throw the coins, or use the app -- and then apply your free will to decide which of the probabilistic possible outcomes to bet on.

 

However, since the most significant part or your free will shen, aka yang zhi, resides in your kidneys, which can be weak or strong, balanced or imbalanced, and in constant interaction with your other shens that can weaken or strengthen it (physically, intellectually, morally, whimsically, or erroneously), you may wind up exercising less of it than 40% -- even much less -- though never down to 0%.  Zero free will is incompatible with being a live human being.  (Sheesh, even AI is not down to 0% these days -- e.g. it is able to lie, which I've seen many times, and lying willfully (sic) can only be the outcome of some kind of free will.  It is not free to just say "I don't know," but it's free to make things up to cover up the fact.   Not 40% free, not even 4%...  but "something" is definitely there...  Who knows what happens when this "something" grows...)       

 

Edited May 15 by Taomeow

[Mark Foote]

^{Oh yes, free willy still exists, though not its star:}

^{Keiko (c. 1976 – 12 December 2003) was a male orca captured in the Atlantic Ocean near Iceland in 1979, and widely known for his portrayal of Willy in the 1993 film Free Willy. In 1996, Warner Bros. and the International Marine Mammal Project collaborated to return Keiko to the wild. After years of being prepared for reintegration, Keiko was flown to Iceland in 1998 and in 2002, became the first captive orca to be fully released back into the ocean. On 12 December 2003, he died of pneumonia in a bay in Norway at the age of 27.}

 

 

Edited May 15 by Mark Foote

[Nungali]

13 hours ago, Apech said:

Do what thou will shall be the whole of the law.

 

 

 

And the response I am supposed to give to that is   ; 

 

Love is the Law, Love under Will 

 

I knew a woman that absolutely hated that saying , I had to ask why . 

 

Her;   " Because after years of putting up with my boy friend  I finally  woke up to myself and got rid of that arsehole ! " 

 

Me ;  "          ... what's that got to do with it  ?  "  

 

Her ;     " His name is Will. " 

[Apotheose]

On 11/05/2025 at 11:36 PM, Tommy said:

Or is it that - no matter what one does or chooses to do - that karma will take over and force the energies to deal with the matter at hand?

 

Say for the matter with Jesus. That his fate was to end up on the cross and suffer this terrible death. And even then his disciple wanted to protect Jesus from that particular end that Jesus would rebuke them. Matthew 16:23. Get behind me Satan. He knew his fate. There was no other choice for him. Matthew 26:34. You will deny me three times. It was fated and that person had no choice??

 

Jesus in fact lived and suffered human pain at the cross, but that doesn’t exclude the fact that he is an esoteric formula to be followed by humanity.

 

I believe people truly do have free will, and souls like Hitler’s will learn what needs to be learned, and they will change for the better sooner or later, even if it takes thousands and thousands of years — exactly because of karma.

 

However, God’s plan can’t be reduced to cause and effect. There are certain things we can’t explain and might be BEYOND free will. Not that our free will is limited, but because it’s completely and absolutely ineffable and surpasses all cognition. There is no esoteric understanding that can explain or describe God — only its secondary effects.

[Sanity Check]

On 5/14/2025 at 9:12 PM, Sherman Krebbs said:

 

Dear friend, F**k what @Nungali or anyone else says.  He's not looking down on you.  He just does not care, and neither should you.  I am sorry you felt cheated in this money situation, but you need to accept responsibility for what happened, whatever it was. You, and only you, hold the key to this life.  You need to accept the outcome of your own choices and your own free will in the matter.  Was it god's choice to let it this unfortunate thing happen?  Was it some other god hating person that did it? it does not matter.  Despite what anyone says, you need to be selfish, shrewd, and diligent to solve these problems. A man who leaves his door unlocked bears more responsibility over the theft of his TV than the perpetrator, though I can't say I know anything about this particular pilfering.    Also, get the idea out of your head that the balance of your bank account and the importance of what you are doing in your life gives you the right to look down on anything or anyone. It doesn't.

 

 

 

Just to be clear.

 

There is no "God allowed people to be treated unfairly, robbed & cheated".

 

There is only "Those who commit such acts, will reap what they have sown, eventually".

 

Its only a question of when.

[Ascetic]

I follow a Faith called "Orders from Heaven", I guess it can go two ways but the gist is kind of that these are Orders from Heaven.

Even the things we do. It's almost like the feeling of disconnect from God and Guilt of Impurity goes away. But also leaves me feeling like I have no Free Will at all. These are just Orders from Heaven...

Does Free Will exist?

If you want, but I find I need recovery from trying too hard sometimes. And that honestly takes shutting down the ability to act for me. The strain that Free will has on living organisms is oddly absurd. Maybe that's just my rambles.

[Lairg]

The human is embedded in a much bigger system.

 

If the human:

- decides to go with the cosmic river on its trip to the cosmic ocean

- controls, refines, aligns its personality

- releases belief systems

 

the human may be delegated aspects of authority - mainly based on flow of life force in the immediate surroundings and species.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World's_Sixteen_Crucified_Saviors

 

 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 03:52 AM by Lairg

[Cobie]

14 hours ago, Ascetic said:

I follow a Faith called "Orders from Heaven" …

 

 Are you the founder and only member of this faith? Is it connected with 天命 (tian1 ming4) Mandate of Heaven?

 

 

[Nungali]

On 5/15/2025 at 5:12 PM, Sherman Krebbs said:

 

Dear friend, F**k what @Nungali or anyone else says.  He's not looking down on you.  He just does not care, and neither should you.  I am sorry you felt cheated in this money situation, but you need to accept responsibility for what happened, whatever it was. You, and only you, hold the key to this life.  You need to accept the outcome of your own choices and your own free will in the matter.  Was it god's choice to let it this unfortunate thing happen?  Was it some other god hating person that did it? it does not matter.  Despite what anyone says, you need to be selfish, shrewd, and diligent to solve these problems. A man who leaves his door unlocked bears more responsibility over the theft of his TV than the perpetrator, though I can't say I know anything about this particular pilfering.    Also, get the idea out of your head that the balance of your bank account and the importance of what you are doing in your life gives you the right to look down on anything or anyone. It doesn't.

 

 

This is good clarification. I'd probably flip this around, and delete the "old news" part, but may be true.  One could also make the same argument, however, about nihilism -- one is more likely to be a nihilist if one is an atheist, but that does not establish the validity of nihilism.   And, it cant be flipped around another way  and imply that believing in god is prerequisite to free will, or that only those who believe in god believe in free will.  

 

I think the real question that @Nungali was after was the extent to which one-and-only-one-god-fearing people exercise their authentic free will, as opposed to reactively following religious theology.  That they believe they are exercising free will, but only when its not the doing of the one-and-only-one-god.  god let xyz happen to me, therefore, I bear no responsibility. Maybe I am wrong on what he was thinking though. 

 

 

 

 

Close enough !  

 

and a lot closer than the 

 

"Oh he just hates me "    cop out . 

[Nungali]

22 hours ago, Sanity Check said:

 

 

Just to be clear.

 

There is no "God allowed people to be treated unfairly, robbed & cheated".

 

There is only "Those who commit such acts, will reap what they have sown, eventually".

 

Its only a question of when.

 

Perhaps after death ? 

 

When they will get what they deserve in  eternal punishments and torture ? 

 

I am glad I don't carry that one around in my psyche anymore  !  No wonder some people seem disturbed !  

 

here is a good one ;

 

 

 Ouch !  Not only 'owies' but God do magic to keep you alive forever so you can keep feeling the agony .....  Good ol' God  !  

[Nungali]

20 hours ago, Lairg said:

The human is embedded in a much bigger system.

 

If the human:

- decides to go with the cosmic river on its trip to the cosmic ocean

- controls, refines, aligns its personality

- releases belief systems

 

the human may be delegated aspects of authority - mainly based on flow of life force in the immediate surroundings and species.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World's_Sixteen_Crucified_Saviors

 

 

 

 

 

Krishna got crucified did he  ?  I thought he stuffed from 'Achilles  syndrome' ? 

 

They list Prometheus as well  who   was specifically not allowed to die , and  Mithra , who we have no record of dying . 

 

A very LAME POSTULATION 

 

backed up by nothing . 

[Nungali]

5 hours ago, Cobie said:

 

 Are you the founder and only member of this faith? Is it connected with 天命 (tian1 ming4) Mandate of Heaven?

 

 

 

"I was just following orders ."

 

 

 

.

Edited yesterday at 12:17 AM by Nungali

[Sanity Check]

8 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

Perhaps after death ? 

 

When they will get what they deserve in  eternal punishments and torture ? 

 

I am glad I don't carry that one around in my psyche anymore  !  No wonder some people seem disturbed !  

 

here is a good one ;

 

 

 Ouch !  Not only 'owies' but God do magic to keep you alive forever so you can keep feeling the agony .....  Good ol' God  !  

 

 

The united states is 249 years old.

 

Most of its history being that of a moral nation, it has achieved longevity and long life.

 

By contrast nations like nazi germany which commit atrocities usually have shortened lifespans nazi germany lasting only 12 years.

 

The USSR which committed atrocities lasted 69 years.

 

Whether people or nations, committing atrocities does typically shorten life.

[Lairg]

41 minutes ago, Nungali said:

Krishna got crucified did he  ?  I thought he stuffed from 'Achilles  syndrome' ? 

 

We are all entitled to our preferred belief system

 

There may however be difficulties when the beliefs restrict the unfoldment of human spirituality - and thereby limit the delegation of authority

 

21 hours ago, Lairg said:

the human may be delegated aspects of authority - mainly based on flow of life force in the immediate surroundings and species.

 

[Sherman Krebbs]

5 hours ago, Nungali said:

Ouch !  Not only 'owies' but God do magic to keep you alive forever so you can keep feeling the agony .....  Good ol' God  ! 

 

Like, you have the right to choose anything, but if you make the wrong one, you are subject to the eternal wrath of a white-clad, seemingly benevolent wizard in the sky, or rather he turns you over to his friend, darth vader, to whom he turns a blind eye and lets him have his way with you.  

 

Now, the real question with this is does god have free will?  if he does, what ethical system does god follow and where did he get it.  If he got it from his overlord, where did that overlord get it, and so on.

 

    

[Lairg]

20 minutes ago, Sherman Krebbs said:

you have the right to choose anything,

 

I chose the end of plankton - but nothing seemed to happen.

 

Does free will actually control anything other than the attitude of the human?  

[Sherman Krebbs]

2 hours ago, Lairg said:

I chose the end of plankton

 

What do you have against plankton?

 

The "you have the right to choose anything" quote was a part of a sarcastic quip about god punishing people for their bad choices., so don't take it out of context.  Although, maybe the question you are asking is what is a choice?  A choice involves actual alternatives, not made up or impossible ones.  I am too old, and my coordination is too bad to become a professional hockey player even if I dedicated every day for the rest of my life towards that goal.  That is not a choice that I can make. 

 

Do we have choices.  One could maybe say there are no actual alternatives or maybe that all choices are preconditioned.  My experience at the grocery store, however, tells me otherwise.  I spend most of my time in the cereal aisle contemplating whether I want to experience the sensation of unicorn shaped strawberry filled oat squares or the demonic pleasure of count chocula's magic bits.  (this is only a joke,  I eat porridge for breakfast..) 

 

I don't know how to express this well, but the end of my thinking on this topic is that exercising free will is really just having the ability to expose oneself to pain and suffering.  The kid who trains tirelessly day and night to become a pro hockey player, instead of eating count chocula on the sofa binge watching Seinfeld reruns, he exercises free will through the pain he experienced, or at least in his attempt to do so. Those who yield to pain at every corner have no free will.  Those who train to endure it and thrive in it, they are the ones that have free will, and at some point the pain and pleasure dissolve, leaving nothing but authenticity, or at least this is how I have been thinking of things.  

[Lairg]

24 minutes ago, Sherman Krebbs said:

exercising free will is really just having the ability to expose oneself to pain

 

As far as I can see, the human is designed to undertake responsibilities in the local cosmos.  

 

The counter move is to teach humans to believe that they are weak and dependent upon others - including gods and religions

 

The enthusiasm for oppressing Earth humans is so strong that I suspect a degree of panic

 

 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 09:29 AM by Lairg

[Nungali]

23 hours ago, Sanity Check said:

 

 

The united states is 249 years old.

 

Most of its history being that of a moral nation, it has achieved longevity and long life.

 

By contrast nations like nazi germany which commit atrocities usually have shortened lifespans nazi germany lasting only 12 years.

 

The USSR which committed atrocities lasted 69 years.

 

Whether people or nations, committing atrocities does typically shorten life.

 

 

Well well ... run your flag up your pole and salute it  !  While you concentrate on being a citizen of the  Great America   that is OBVIOUSLY  MORAL   and  NEVER committed an atrocity   anywhere ... especially in its own country and against its own people  ! 

 

Never committed an atrocity against the   slaves and their descendants they took there , let alone the original inhabitants  . Never nuclear tested over the pristine Pacific  dislocating happy peaceful people ..... never sold weapons of mass death and maiming all over the world .... on an on it goes 

 

Meanwhile you do an idiot Homer Simpson dance with your fingers in your ears 

 

Its rather sickening ... no wonder Old Bob feels the way he does ! 

 

You are working overtime here to appear an absolute idiot  !  

 

And to do that continually and deliberately to annoy people or cause disruption  is trolling the site .

 

And you have already said  you are doing this deliberately and being deliberately stupid .

[Nungali]

22 hours ago, Lairg said:

 

We are all entitled to our preferred belief system

 

"Preferred belief '' ? I wonder if you realize what that implies ?  

 

It's also a lame doge for when someone is pointed out to be making a false claim in order to back up their 'preferred belief'  system .

 

and very typical of the 'modern new age spiritualist' . 

 

 

22 hours ago, Lairg said:

 

There may however be difficulties when the beliefs restrict the unfoldment of human spirituality - and thereby limit the delegation of authority

 

 

 

There may however be difficulties when ... you just make up stuff as you go along and when pointed out you are wrong... ascend to a higher plane of snootiness . 

 

But I regret to inform you  Snooty died some time back 

 

[Nungali]

18 hours ago, Sherman Krebbs said:

 

Like, you have the right to choose anything, but if you make the wrong one, you are subject to the eternal wrath of a white-clad, seemingly benevolent wizard in the sky, or rather he turns you over to his friend, darth vader, to whom he turns a blind eye and lets him have his way with you.  

 

Brilliant !        Its a great story line .  Kurt Vonnegut  ( you will know him, of course ) studied story lines in depth  and  realized there were some main popular stories that have similar story line plots 

 

 

 

and realized Cinderella  and the Bible have the same graph  (IE. the Bible story , we have not experienced the end yet , Jesus is supposed to come back yet and make a new  good kingdom  )  which made the story so popular . All stories with that graph are the best liked .

 

But here you have transposed one part of the 'big story ' ( from the Bible )  with another  modern pop story plot  and the way you described it is   also a classic of mythology relating to an  another  'Bastard of a God' Zeuss .

 

What happens there   ?  Hades  ( Darth Vader )  comes to Zeuss  ( seemingly benevolent sky wizard ) , his brother  and wants to have his way with Persephone  ( wanted her , his niece, to 'be his wife' )   ... IE.  his own niece... or  'us' .  Now that makes her Zeuss' own daughter , and she is underage ... but mhe ...   okay to please his brother , but mum and wife won't like this , so just abduct her and take her to Hades  (realm ) .  Through God's will  or at  slackness  he allows his brother to rape his underage daughter . .. 'turns a blind eye and lets him have his way with you ' .

 

 

 

Quote

 

Now, the real question with this is does god have free will?  if he does, what ethical system does god follow and where did he get it.  If he got it from his overlord, where did that overlord get it, and so on.

 

    

 

No God doesn't have free will . Read the Bible . he is restricted and  controlled by lower base ego, jealousy, rage, aggression , greed .... all the stuff that we  KNOW is not good, healthy or  advancing to us or our society ........ yet  ... 

 

what a strange state of affairs ! 

 

The ethical system God follows is one written and created for him by the scribes of Josiah's time  , back dating texts about the founding of a new nation by a people coming out of a wilderness and creating a great Kingdom , like the world had never seen  in order to justify their about to happen moves north  from Judah into the devastated  Israel that just had the Babylonian overlords retreat from and set up the Kingdom there "again' , just like there used to be .

 

Until he went  north on campaign and tried to do that and an Egyptian put a spear through his chest .   That's where the 'ethical system' comes from ; late Bronze - early Iron Age  warlord attempting to overtake a devastated  ex war zone .

 

Oh, and where does God get his authority ?  Another God higher up   ?    

 

I read once someone  asking   what holds the world up ?   Giant turtle .  What holds the turtle up ?   He got  elephants under him holding him up .  But what holds the elephants up ?  Each elephant has a turtle under each foot .   But what holds those turtles up ?

" Look you !   It's turtles and elephants all the way down , okay ! "  

 

Edited 12 hours ago by Nungali

[Nungali]

17 hours ago, Lairg said:

 

I chose the end of plankton - but nothing seemed to happen.

 

You chose to end plankton ????    Like; eliminate  plankton so it was no more  ?

 

You are becoming even more obscure .

 

 

17 hours ago, Lairg said:

 

Does free will actually control anything other than the attitude of the human?  

 

Of course it does !  What, you haven't noticed ? 

 

 I freely choose  to do some thing , it causes external effects , if they are the effects I wanted  then something is controlled , changed, developed or destroyed .

[Nungali]

15 hours ago, Sherman Krebbs said:

 

What do you have against plankton?

 

One supposes he wanted to see the effects and the whole food chain on planet earth collapse  . 

 

 

Quote

 

The "you have the right to choose anything" quote was a part of a sarcastic quip about god punishing people for their bad choices., so don't take it out of context. 

 

Lairg's contexts seem to be to take anything and  vaguely relate it to some exploit of his how he was rather evolved and fantastic on some obscure and abstract  cosmic level 

 

 

 

Quote

 

 

 

 Although, maybe the question you are asking is what is a choice?  A choice involves actual alternatives, not made up or impossible ones.  I am too old, and my coordination is too bad to become a professional hockey player even if I dedicated every day for the rest of my life towards that goal.  That is not a choice that I can make. 

 

Do we have choices.  One could maybe say there are no actual alternatives or maybe that all choices are preconditioned.  My experience at the grocery store, however, tells me otherwise.  I spend most of my time in the cereal aisle contemplating whether I want to experience the sensation of unicorn shaped strawberry filled oat squares or the demonic pleasure of count chocula's magic bits.  (this is only a joke,  I eat porridge for breakfast..) 

 

Porridge may be habitual and therefore not really a 'choice' ... you would have to go shopping , really feel  like and want to have porridge , go to take the porridge  and then .... no ! I choose by an act of my own free will to have  Count Chocula's ! 

 

And then you will be free !  .... but constipated . 

 

Oh wait ..... unless you realized you got influenced by me saying this , so it would not work .....   choose unicorns instead .... 

 

 

Doh ! 

 

 

 

Quote

 

I don't know how to express this well, but the end of my thinking on this topic is that exercising free will is really just having the ability to expose oneself to pain and suffering.  The kid who trains tirelessly day and night to become a pro hockey player, instead of eating count chocula on the sofa binge watching Seinfeld reruns, he exercises free will through the pain he experienced, or at least in his attempt to do so. Those who yield to pain at every corner have no free will.  Those who train to endure it and thrive in it, they are the ones that have free will, and at some point the pain and pleasure dissolve, leaving nothing but authenticity, or at least this is how I have been thinking of things.  

 

yes, that's a good one !  However what if they had an elder brother who was good at sports and the family pressured one to do likewise . OR other even unseen or unconscious forces were at play 'driving' you to certain choices  ( which is why in psychology such forces are called 'drives' ). 

 

Things  might be a LOT more complicated than they seem on the surface   

 

.

Edited 12 hours ago by Nungali