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Forums - General Discussion - Your "Free" Will is Not Free

happydolphin said:

For those that believe in God, this goes in line with "God judges the heart" and the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30).


What does the "heart" mean? I've seen people used this word, but I don't think I fully understand it. From my understanding, you can say you are good, act like you are good, etc but deep down, your heart can still be evil. If this is true, then Tthis begs the question...what is your heart?



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robzo100 said:


Well I'll give you mine I guess.  Lack fo control to me means freedom (My other post).  I agree with everything you said, but would ascribe it to being free rather than a lac of free will.  People who are free are people who are able to be influenced by outside factors.  To be free is to have the ability to have one's direction changed in an instant by an outside force (It's not really a "decision making power").

Will, is the power to have that effect on other people - to influence the direction of others.  You say you have no control because your fate is determined by external forces all the time, but you have that exact effect on OTHER people all the time - you change the fate of others.  For example, giving a gift to someone, giving money, beating someone up, convincing someone in argument, etc...

In other words, we are exercising our will all the times when we affect the fate of something, and we exert our freedom all the times when we allow ourselves to swayed in some manner.  If you care to understand this in depth more you would have to at least see my earlier post as well which is fairly short I think.  Essentially, freedom is what makes life undetermined, and will is what makes it determined.  Also, some people like to be free, and others not so much.  Same goes for having will.


That's why I tried not to use the term "free will" in my post. It's a very loosely defined term and can cause people to disagree even if they believe in the same thing.



Jay520 said:
happydolphin said:

For those that believe in God, this goes in line with "God judges the heart" and the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30).


What does the "heart" mean? I've seen people used this word, but I don't think I fully understand it. From my understanding, you can say you are good, act like you are good, etc but deep down, your heart can still be evil. If this is true, then Tthis begs the question...what is your heart?

In the context I used it, it mostly means inclination I think. Which direction one weighs in, good or evil. The alignment of your will.

In your sentence, it's what you are deep down. That is your heart.

-------------WALL OF TEXT--------------

As an example, the bible says that Abel was good and Cain was evil. At the same time, we see God talk more to Cain than to Abel, yet both offer sacrifices to God. So why is one good and the other evil?

New testament:

"Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous."

Old testament:

Cain and Abel

1Adama lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.b She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forthc a man.” 2Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.

Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. 4But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering,5but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

6Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

8Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.”d And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

That follows with convo between Cain and God.

I think in this case Cain's heart was bad. Even though he had much, he made the wrong choice. According to the convo with God he could control it, but he chose not to claim that truth and as such will be called a wicked an lazy servant (parable of the tenants). I think it's the same for everyone.



Farsala said:
Alright I will bite...

Say me and a criminal are fighting, then all of a sudden I take out a gun and give it to him, he shoots me and I die. How would I expect profit from that and if so what did I profit from that?


That scenario almost sounds unrealistic to me. However, your shocked condition may have caused you to believe that by giving him control of the situation he would let you go since he no longer would be threatened.

And like I said earlier, just because you expected or hoped for profit doesn't mean you will receive it. In fact, in other scenarios the exitement (when betting or playing bingo) may also be the profit. You don't have to win in order to gain mental profit.



happydolphin said:
Jay520 said:
happydolphin said:

For those that believe in God, this goes in line with "God judges the heart" and the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30).


What does the "heart" mean? I've seen people used this word, but I don't think I fully understand it. From my understanding, you can say you are good, act like you are good, etc but deep down, your heart can still be evil. If this is true, then Tthis begs the question...what is your heart?

In the context I used it, it mostly means inclination I think. Which direction one weighs in, good or evil. The alignment of your will.

In your sentence, it's what you are deep down. That is your heart.

"Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous."

 

Question: If you perform actions that perfectly matches the actions of someone with a good heart, is it possible for you to have a bad heart?

Why does the heart even matter if actions are what helps/harms others?



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Jay520 said:

Question: If you perform actions that perfectly matches the actions of someone with a good heart, is it possible for you to have a bad heart?

Why does the heart even matter if actions are what helps/harms others?

It would be the bottom line, that in the end, over the long-term, such a person would be impossible to trust, since at any moment they could live according to their true inclinations. As such, the heart trumps actions as it can be temporarily bipassed but it is the true source of actions and positions over the long haul.



There was a movie I watched a year ago or so It proved that free will does not exist. At least as what we think of as free will. If anything at all we just have control of 1% of the stuff we do. We are observers to what our brain does. If we think about something we just get what our brain thought just a nano second ago. We are on on auto pilot 99% of the time thats why you can think about stuff and at the same time cross the street without getting killed. Etc. Its trained behavior.
I once dropped a knife and even tho I know that knifes are sharp I tried to catch it and cut my hand because my brain is used to catching stuff I drop.

Its very ressource intense for our lets call it ME/ICH/The thing we actually are to be activated or to control and see everything thats going on so to save ressources we are on auto pilot. If you go to a supermarket for the first time your brain calculates the least annyoing path because it automatically outweights positive and negative stuff. It guesses the best route to go to the supermarket based on areas you already visited before and other information saved in your memory. It can fail to do so but it still does it automatically. We then just believe we chose the path on our own.

So lets say you are on your way now then YOU (the consciousness) get activated to take notice of the obstacles and special stuff thats on the route. (thats why learning stuff/doing stuff fo the first time is so hard) But not YOU chose what you are looking at its still happening automatically based on prior experiences. We just think we are looking at stuff we want.

Lets say you go to the same super market again 1 day later then YOU will again be activated to check what your first visit recorded and correct it if needed.

If the route is saved in your brain you will now go the route on auto pilot. You can think of it as a holodeck your brain creates . If you think about lets say your girlfriend breaking up and are totally occupied by this thoughts you will still be able to find the way unconscious because our brain feeds our senses with FAKE information coming from the brain instead of realtime info coming from ears, nose or eyes etc. You dont really see the street you are walking on its a recreation by your brain. YOU will only be activated when something happens that was not there before like a fast driving car etc.

Our "consciousness" was shaped by what our childhood etc was like and this will always be the case.

P.S. the "thinking about girlfriend breaking up" is also nothing you can choose to do. You either developed as an idividual that ignores unimportat stuff like people breaking up, as a person that is very emotional that really gets hit hard by stuff like this or as a person that has a 50/50% chance of being affected by this. You can not chose by free will if you will miss your girlfriend or not.

So i have to agree with OP.



i don't catch falling knifes^^ (at the guy above me)



I also dont usually do it but it was when I was 14 and it was a Utility knife I rarely used at that age. So there was no connection between DANGER, ITS A KNIFE and DON'T CATCH IT. Now its different. In my life I dropped several utility knifes now and I never again tried to catch them.



When I see a a sharp object in free-fall, I subconsciously jerk away from the object. If your reflex is to catch that object, I think you have some strange reflexes.

....just saying.