For every thought that we have...

Question

...do an infinite number of realties form and then disperse depending on whether we choose to act on those thoughts?

Or is the course of action you choose to take the only one you could ever have chosen because it is based the summation of all your thoughts and experiences, and could only ever have lead you to the choice you end up making?

So free will is an illusion and the only reality that could exist is the one you play out.

Answer 1

Perhaps its a bit of both. Your 2 points leave plenty of space for both at the same instantce.

Answer 2

I've changed my mind about the nature of free will a number of times and it's a very interesting and tricky subject. Much more so than Christians would have people believe (see my question on omnipotence).

I think what you do for the most part is a reaction to your experiences and your knowledge, mixed with natural biological functions. It also involves a good deal of luck on meeting the right people who can influence you positively and constructively instead of smashing you down as so many people take pleasure in doing.

I like to think that if you learn to grasp your positive thoughts and learn to ignore the negative ones you can infulence your life for the better.

So yes I don't think things are determined because a lot of things are very much up to chance.  

Answer 3

You have up to four thousand thoughts a minute.  Off which you only register perhaps 20 and you very seldom react to any of those. If you re-act to 5 or 6 thoughts a day than you are doing a good job. And some of those are more habitual than actual new.  At the end off your life you have accomplised 10 new thoughts plus deeds you are fantastic.

Peac.

Answer 4

In the metaphorical sense, it is as you say, an infinite number of realities form.  Our minds deal in infinity on a daily basis, and we don't even perceive it as a big deal.  This is what creates the illusion of determinism.

Answer 5

This is a fine thought, which quite naturally leads up to the ultimate questions of the possibilities of freeness of human will.

Do we have free will?

Do we choose our paths in life, or just follow preordained courses of our destiny?

The questions invite us to probe the reality of our life, the mind and our interaction with the world. But while considering these interesting questions why not take into account, first and foremost, the fact that we exist at the centre of the activity. We are the ones questioning and then we are the ones to provide the answers. If we are the ones capable of generating and exerting the power of will then there is no question of the ownership of will that is purely ours.

The question is – is there someone else in the world, against whom we might be capable of pitching our will, or whose will we should know and seek, for collaboration?

The matter of 'summation of all your thoughts', of influences and effects of the past in fact is not the matter things the past, but mainly things that are with us now as our being present. The process summation of life into a moment is never complete, until the moment that is yet to come – a moment is forever.

Then does our past is also ‘someone else’, I mentioned in the previous paragraph, that is solely responsible for determining our future? But past is never fixed, but is always in a state of flux, of increase, of growth, so much so that we cannot come to know fully as what exactly past is, as for instance, the moment I think about my past it changes for me, by the very act of my thinking.

Things go on forever without being fully added up to form any fixed form upon which we might fix our sense of reality and say that that thing alone has caused this. The only things we have now are our opinions, and impressions, that two change but while they do they also give us just sufficient amount of guidance to see a little further into things and find the way for our will.

The seat of the government of our moment now for the purpose of all the moments to come therefore is always vacant. This is up to us to have as much of it as we could, according to our ability and will, and participate in shaping the future. If we are idle then things will keep changing by the reason of some unknown will, but if we participate we enter with a rightful claim upon the determination of our future. Mind is a reality in time where it is subjected to an interminable flow and to randomly initiated sequences of events. We are the ones to bring order into chaos, we are the ones supposed to seek to offer answers. I would say that I am free, but responsible, free to jump in but responsible for what might happen thereafter.

Answer 6

The answer is relative to your position in time.

Answer 7

This depends on the nature of thought - of which the jury is still out on. If thoughts either originate and/or are materially affected by quantum phenomena then there are many courses of action available.

If there are virtual universes where alternative decisions were made and/or acted upon then the inhabitants of those 'realities' would be responsible for whatever they chose or did not chose. I take the soliptical view on this.

The criminal law courts take the decide that you do have free will (unless you temporarily or permanently lack capacity). Is this right? Is this fair? Yes - you should be accountable for your actions.

I believe that ever since the moment of creation, all matter (including our own material existence) is set up to behave in a pre-determined manner. This merely gives us the allusion of free will. This is the only reality that can play out. I treat life as though I have genuine agency - that I can affect things just because I chose to. Notwithstanding that it is my destiny to choose this as otherwise life would just be too complicated.

Answer 8

Free will is a condition which I have wrangled with...not on a metaphysical level, asking is it inevitable, predetermined...guided by unseen forces, but on a socio/political cultural level, how much of what I think is inculcated subliminally? How susceptible am I to representations, cultural messages from the day I was born predisposing me to 'go down' certain thought processes, form particular opinions all broiled up in the nature/nurture whirl?

I am not arguing that I'm a hapless automaton subject only to propoganda and populist garbage, I suppose I want to cut through all of that so I can achieve the aim of having an original thought/idea! Not one I necessarily want to act on, but to be sure that it is ALL mine.

So, if free will is an illusion, then I need to have confidence in the reality I have forged for myself, while not insisting others adhere to its principles.

Answer 9

Universals Govern Your Thoughts About Each Thing.