Is It Free Will Or Predetermination?

[Horror Fiction Writer]

I am curious to know if their are others on this forum who believe that our reality exists predetermined, or do we have the freedom of free will. In my opinion, our lives ARE predestined, but our minds have been created to think that we have freedom of choice when it is really only us making decisions that are already know to creator. What do you think?

Edited July 3, 2022 by Shari Holmes

[acute]

As a spiritualist, I believe in spiritual progression.

We are in physical form (only for a short time) because we need to learn certain things.  Some of us are reincarnated, and some of us don't need to be.

We absolutely have free will.  It's up to us to make the most of the opportunity and to advance ourselves.

[XenoFish]

Soft determinism.

[zep73]

The real question is, if the choices we make are a part of who we are. If they are, there is no free will. We just do what our personality dictates.

[Silver]

Everything is random. Life is random. Every creature, including humans, try to thrive, some succeed, some don't. Just look at predators in nature- constantly culling each other and herbivors. A few humans live to 100 years, some don't make 1 year. It all ends the same, and it is repeated year after year. The only difference between humans and other animals is that we have the capacity to wonder if things could be different.

Edited July 3, 2022 by The Silver Shroud

[XenoFish]

Threads like this are like playing with matches while pumping gas.

[papageorge1]

I think the answer depends on your frame of reality. From our normal reality we have free will. Ultimately from my non-dualist perspective (God and creation are not-two), this play/drama of the universe is scripted by Brahman/Consciousness/God but ultimately we are that Brahman/God that wrote the script.

So, my answer to the OP question is that it is predetermined but we also are that determiner. An analogy would be some rich famous actor in a movie/play that so identifies with their role as some lowly poor person that they temporarily forget their greater reality.

[Knob Oddy]

As a believer in God, I believe we all make our own choices and can overcome any evil that has touched our lives.

I think that is one of the central common theories in all monotheistic religions. After all, it would be quite unfair to punish a murderer with hell if it was out of their control to murder someone.

Yes, peoples history influences their personality and behaviors (i.e being abused as a child, being robbed continually by a certain ethnic minority) but it is up to the individual to respond to the challenge and let their humanity shine through

[+Hammerclaw]

It's predestinated free-will.

[+joc]

5 hours ago, Shari Holmes said:

I am curious to know if their are others on this forum who believe that our reality exists predetermined, or do we have the freedom of free will. In my opinion, our lives ARE predestined, but our minds have been created to think that we have freedom of choice when it is really only us making decisions that are already know to creator. What do you think?

We tend to think in terms of The Present, or The Past, or The Future.  We think in these terms because of our concept of Time.  In reality, there is only constant change.  Nothing is static.  But if you could freeze frame everything and pinpoint the actual present, the very next point would be the future, and the point before would be the past.  In reality however, there is no 'point' which is Present.  Everything is actually Present, Past and Future all at the same time.  There is only one moment  Without the constructs of Time there is only one point to be considered...that of constant change.  It is only when we begin to measure that constant change that we find ourselves captive by our own mental constructs of Time.

If there is no past, if there is no future, if there is no present, then there is only Constant Change.  How can one predetermine anything within the equation of Constant Change...the only thing to be considered really is that change is Constant.  

We make decisions, plans, thoughts, ideas, everything mental we do or say or think based on the concept of Time.  Time is an illusion.  It doesn't even exist. Anymore than Fear exists...only in our minds.  So when we think of predestination, it is necessary that we incorporate the concept of Time.  If Time is only a concept, then Predestination is also only a concept.

 

Edited July 4, 2022 by joc

[openozy]

4 hours ago, acute said:

As a spiritualist, I believe in spiritual progression.

We are in physical form (only for a short time) because we need to learn certain things.  Some of us are reincarnated, and some of us don't need to be.

We absolutely have free will.  It's up to us to make the most of the opportunity and to advance ourselves.

That's why I'm trying to learn as much as I can, I don't want to come back to this sh----le, lol.

[+ouija ouija]

7 hours ago, Knob Oddy said:

As a believer in God, I believe we all make our own choices and can overcome any evil that has touched our lives.

 

To overcome evil, you first of all have to recognise it as such.

[Emma_Acid]

11 hours ago, The Silver Shroud said:

Everything is random. Life is random. 

Except it isn't. You don't magically turn into a lion when walking down the street. Don't mistake probabilities for randomness.

[Horror Fiction Writer]

21 hours ago, Shari Holmes said:

I am curious to know if their are others on this forum who believe that our reality exists predetermined, or do we have the freedom of free will. In my opinion, our lives ARE predestined, but our minds have been created to think that we have freedom of choice when it is really only us making decisions that are already know to creator. What do you think?

I believe we are given choices that are predestined by Source when we get to decide what body and experiences we are going to have and learn from. We're just made to not remember the experiences yet. I mean, we choose our life path and we choose our next incarnation... we just need to go through it all as spirits having a human experience to advance to further levels of consciousness. I hope that was clear enough. Sorry.

[Silver]

9 hours ago, Emma_Acid said:

Except it isn't. You don't magically turn into a lion when walking down the street. Don't mistake probabilities for randomness.

I said random, not magical.

[jmccr8]

I think it has more to with how you wish to live your life, I am in the why worry about it camp and don't care.

[Emma_Acid]

On 7/4/2022 at 9:45 PM, The Silver Shroud said:

I said random, not magical.

Yep, it isn't that either though. Only nuclear decay is truly random.

[Duke Wellington]

On 7/3/2022 at 10:47 PM, Shari Holmes said:

I am curious to know if their are others on this forum who believe that our reality exists predetermined, or do we have the freedom of free will. In my opinion, our lives ARE predestined, but our minds have been created to think that we have freedom of choice when it is really only us making decisions that are already know to creator. What do you think?

First step is to understand how reality works at its most fundamental level. I recommend watching a YouTube video on the Dual-Slit experiment in Quantum Mechanics. You`ll hear several possible explanations for the weird results, from extra dimensions to parallel universes.

Now consider this experiment:

You boil a kettle, fill a cup, and leave it on the side for 15 minutes. You don`t know the temperature of the water. So you put a thermometer in it and read off 35C. The way most people think is the cup of water had that temperate before the thermometer was put in.

But we could argue that the thermometer transfers an exotic property to the cup of water. In essence, everywhere a thermometer is put it defines that area as having a temperature. So the exotic property passed to the cup of water would be that the thermometer passed the definition of `having a temperature` to the cup of water. We could argue how that exotic property is first required before a temperature exists.

Re-watch the Dual-Slit experiment and consider that the setup of the apparatus may pass the exotic properties of `behaving as a probability` or `having a defined outcome` to whatever particles are being shot through it. Once we do that there are no extra dimensions or parallel universes. Its a bit like a hidden variables explanation of the weird results, but crucially not like the type Einstein hoped for. He wanted a pre-determined reality but I am arguing that something in reality can be pre-determined or operate off free will.

We cannot see anything behave as a probability because our senses (like eyesight) gain information. So everywhere we look we pass on the exotic property of having a defined outcome and everywhere our senses are gaining no information on have the exotic property of behaving as a probability.

It divides the universe in two. A small part that we are away off which obeys determinism, and the rest which doesn`t. Where free will comes in is our conscious choice about what to gain information on. It determines what is included in the two parts of the universe.

[Horror Fiction Writer]

On 7/3/2022 at 8:04 PM, XenoFish said:

Threads like this are like playing with matches while pumping gas.

I love it. I will try, for my pleasure, to find really cool questions to post, to amuse myself when I'm not writing. I am kind of a loner since I was woken up. Before it, I had to be around people all of the time. I didn't enjoy my own company. Now, it is the opposite. So much has happened in the past two years...

[Bendy Demon]

Things only seem 'predestined' because we can see the course we are on yet refuse to change our trajectory and choose, instead, to just sit on our hands and watch events unfold then blubber about how 'god' could have allowed this or that or whine about why someone didn't save us or some such rot.

Whatever happens will eventually happen and what comes next is life, going on as it always has. Human drama does not define our planet, life itself or the course of events of other beings. We are far too ignorant and arrogant to realize we are not the center of the universe but a mere spec in the backdrop of the cosmos.