Thanks for your article on whether humans have free will, or whether it is an illusion to think that we do. The way i see it, the nature of being human has often been equated to having free will -- by both philosophers and spiritually-wise individuals, alike.
i absolutely have no question that i have free will, and need no outside source to tell me that. One test for being certain of that, is that i am able to effectively choose between any argument you have made that either implies i do not have free will, and ones that conclude i am indeed able to exercise my will by my inner choice, discounting claims of being a proxy of external agencies. To me, the real question is how it is possible that anyone can be manipulated into believing they don't possess free will, which is such a basic element of our existence here on this planet ?
Animals act primarily on the basis of instinct, when out in Nature -- which is 'located' at the collective level for their specie, but also connects with all of Nature at a deeper level. We, humans, also have an instinctual mind, which is demonstrated by the 100th Monkey Effect of being able to acquire new knowledge we haven't individually learned, but that has been learned by a critical number of other people anywhere on the planet, which thus has been entered into the human collective instinctual level. Also Carl Jung has written extensively on the Collective Unconscious which is revealed in our dreams and represents symbolic knowledge that is shared across all of humanity.
However besides an instinctual mind, humans also possess an "Inner Life" which we perceive as being in a 'place' inside us -- where we think to ourselves before we take action out in the world. This is where our conscience is also located. We know it is ourselves that is the origin of that inner voice we experience, because when sometimes other inputs try to take over that space, i.e. through trauma, we are aware of the difference. Obsessive thinking and compulsive behaviour can be a sign that our Inner Life needs some attention. However people generally are well aware they are not acting completely in their best interest when playing out psychological patterns -- ones which will come to make sense to them, and which they can then again change with their conscious free will -- through utilizing classical psychodynamic therapy (less so through the brain-visualization based behaviorist approach currently in vogue).
The complete loss of the integrity of the Inner Life only comes in the situation of psychosis, even though the inner experience of the person going through that process, is still understandable and the healing of it, possible, as was shown by psychiatrists like R. D. Laing, before the advent of the unconditional psycho-pharmaceutical approach universally employed today.
In regards to the legal aspects relating to free will in criminal situations, there is a fine balancing act involved in determining whether a person acted through their own free will in committing a serious criminal behaviour, and who is thereby personally responsible, or whether they have shown specific signs of a defined mental disorder, to which the criminal act can be attributed, whereby they are then deemed not criminally responsible but are kept in treatment until they they are deemed again free enough from the disorder. The trouble in moving the fulcrum of this balance to accept more and more situations into the 'not-personally-responsible' side, i.e. people simply with PTSD, is that it would inevitably lead to the deterioration of everyone's personal free will authority in society.
Putting people away in a mental asylum forever, to keep them from revealing evidence that is dangerous to the government's political position (or the rogue actions of agencies w/in the government), had been a typical practice in the USSR, but America has apparently not been exempt either, i.e. in the JFK assassination coverup, Ralph Yates who picked up an inconvenient CIA agent/Lee Harvey Oswald look-alike hitchhiker with a package of curtain rods (thereby duplicating and throwing suspicion on the gov't contention that the real Oswald did it) -- and who could not be made to recant his firm belief in his story of picking up such a person -- although being perfectly sane, was kept for years in a mental hospitals in Texas until his death. (reference: James W. Douglas, "JFK and the Unspeakable") By making it easier to judge people who commit acts listed in the criminal code, as not responsible due to a mental disorder, it would correspondingly make it easier to judge political dissidents, or those who simply don't comply with health measures they find are dangerous to themselves, the same way, and enable them to be put them away for "treatment" indefinitely. In China this is called "cultural re-education."
The whole world is already going down this slippery slope of retracting personal responsibility, aka free will, towards those who would 'know better,' i.e. brain researchers with dueling neural network theories, well-meaning trauma experts with multi-factorial "agency" considerations, and politicians eyeing the consistency and expediency that AI exhibits -- to act as judge in some court cases.
i respect Dr. Mate’s position on having many factors taken into account regarding personal responsibility in situations where a person infringed upon the criminal code due to having had trauma, but i believe we must keep the nature of free will separate from personal responsibility, the latter being based, as far as the law goes, on knowing what is right and wrong. Someone who is psychotic does not, by definition, possess that ability, whereas someone addicted to drugs or under the emotional limitations of trauma, still does know the difference, so with them a judgement against the criminal code should be made with significant leniency given. Even the basis of trauma as i understand it, is much more to do with what the traumatized person gave up themselves in the crisis event, like not fighting back against a rapist, than with the violation they experienced by the rapist. So making it seem that due to previous trauma, a criminal charge can be dropped on the basis that the person was not able to choose what they did -- exactly contradicts what they need to heal in regards to the trauma -- accept that they did (consciously) choose not to fight against the rapist and to (consciously and emotionally) forgive themselves for that, and re-own their fighting spirit. Too often society supports a psychological disability rather then supporting healing from it, i.e. through disability benefits that one can barely exist on, with no funding for psychotherapy, only 'maintenance' visits to a psychiatrist or mental health worker, but with unlimited free pharmaceuticals that cause addiction, and do nothing for their trauma, but keep the person in a perpetual medicated state.
The fact is -- the action of free will, through which each of us, within the space of our Inner Life, consider and evaluate our personal choices -- can belong to no one else, but the respective individual human. It is beyond analysis and predetermination, because it is inherently equal to what a human being is. Due to the requirements of maintaining a just society grounded in principles of truth, freedom and liberty, in some situations like the necessity around determination of criminality where mental illness is a factor, judgment needs to be very carefully employed using established and regularly re-evaluated criteria, all done with the oversight of impartial (and absolutely human) decision makers.
Free will essentially is a quantum value -- whereby the free will of each individual of a democratic society is equal to everyone else's, but where the unjust loss of the free will of only one person, represents the loss of the complete free will ethic of the whole society. The nature of free will forms the basis of democracy and the saying "i disapprove of what you say, but i will defend to the death your right to say it." The use of juries composed of the accused's peers in court cases, recognizes this principle of the free will inherent in each person, and thus it must never be allocated to an AI program. It is not about some idea of the AI being more able to judge impartially and consistently -- it is about the fact that a person with free will, should only be judged in a court of law by a holder or holders of the same human free will quantum value.
We have many good lessons from history where the rise of dictators and autocrats led to the loss of the free will of individuals and groups, and eventually the whole society crumbled. The civil rights marches and actions of the 1960s and 70s wrenched away the oppressive values and beliefs held and enforced for centuries by elitists, and established the society we have today, where the free will of the individual is recognized in all its respects, and laws keeping it in place should never be allowed to erode. The conscience of each human being, directly tied to humanity's collective, quantum free will value -- which essentially is akin to our quantum consciousness itself -- is the greatest safeguard against any take-over of our civilization, ultimately even against the loss of planet Earth to an alien race which does not possess, nor value, this quantum essence.
On the other hand the integrity of our Inner Life, the place in us where our free will conscience resides, may be in jeopardy like it never has before, since humans have walked the planet Earth: https://www.bitchute.com/video/59wjaT2mAGC4/
You can no more separate your spirit from your mind than separate your brain from your body.
This is why holistic healing has become quite the new health care model.
I think it can be over analyzed to the point of endless befuddlement.
If indeed we have the autonomy to choose our actions then we are indeed responsible for them.
The area of addiction is no different than say the type one diabetic. In either case you must relent to the prescribed treatments to maintain optimal personal health. They are both sicknesses that can only be treated. Neither are choices in that one could not simply decide to not be afflicted, but you can decide to follow the treatment regimen necessary to live as well as you can in-spite of them.
We are most assuredly shaped by our lived circumstances that can result in psychological (and even physical) injury from birth through whatever stage is present. That is the imperative to “be present”.
There are endless means through which we can and probably should seek enlightenment. Such as reading through and pondering the essay above.
Thanks for your article on whether humans have free will, or whether it is an illusion to think that we do. The way i see it, the nature of being human has often been equated to having free will -- by both philosophers and spiritually-wise individuals, alike.
i absolutely have no question that i have free will, and need no outside source to tell me that. One test for being certain of that, is that i am able to effectively choose between any argument you have made that either implies i do not have free will, and ones that conclude i am indeed able to exercise my will by my inner choice, discounting claims of being a proxy of external agencies. To me, the real question is how it is possible that anyone can be manipulated into believing they don't possess free will, which is such a basic element of our existence here on this planet ?
Animals act primarily on the basis of instinct, when out in Nature -- which is 'located' at the collective level for their specie, but also connects with all of Nature at a deeper level. We, humans, also have an instinctual mind, which is demonstrated by the 100th Monkey Effect of being able to acquire new knowledge we haven't individually learned, but that has been learned by a critical number of other people anywhere on the planet, which thus has been entered into the human collective instinctual level. Also Carl Jung has written extensively on the Collective Unconscious which is revealed in our dreams and represents symbolic knowledge that is shared across all of humanity.
However besides an instinctual mind, humans also possess an "Inner Life" which we perceive as being in a 'place' inside us -- where we think to ourselves before we take action out in the world. This is where our conscience is also located. We know it is ourselves that is the origin of that inner voice we experience, because when sometimes other inputs try to take over that space, i.e. through trauma, we are aware of the difference. Obsessive thinking and compulsive behaviour can be a sign that our Inner Life needs some attention. However people generally are well aware they are not acting completely in their best interest when playing out psychological patterns -- ones which will come to make sense to them, and which they can then again change with their conscious free will -- through utilizing classical psychodynamic therapy (less so through the brain-visualization based behaviorist approach currently in vogue).
The complete loss of the integrity of the Inner Life only comes in the situation of psychosis, even though the inner experience of the person going through that process, is still understandable and the healing of it, possible, as was shown by psychiatrists like R. D. Laing, before the advent of the unconditional psycho-pharmaceutical approach universally employed today.
In regards to the legal aspects relating to free will in criminal situations, there is a fine balancing act involved in determining whether a person acted through their own free will in committing a serious criminal behaviour, and who is thereby personally responsible, or whether they have shown specific signs of a defined mental disorder, to which the criminal act can be attributed, whereby they are then deemed not criminally responsible but are kept in treatment until they they are deemed again free enough from the disorder. The trouble in moving the fulcrum of this balance to accept more and more situations into the 'not-personally-responsible' side, i.e. people simply with PTSD, is that it would inevitably lead to the deterioration of everyone's personal free will authority in society.
Putting people away in a mental asylum forever, to keep them from revealing evidence that is dangerous to the government's political position (or the rogue actions of agencies w/in the government), had been a typical practice in the USSR, but America has apparently not been exempt either, i.e. in the JFK assassination coverup, Ralph Yates who picked up an inconvenient CIA agent/Lee Harvey Oswald look-alike hitchhiker with a package of curtain rods (thereby duplicating and throwing suspicion on the gov't contention that the real Oswald did it) -- and who could not be made to recant his firm belief in his story of picking up such a person -- although being perfectly sane, was kept for years in a mental hospitals in Texas until his death. (reference: James W. Douglas, "JFK and the Unspeakable") By making it easier to judge people who commit acts listed in the criminal code, as not responsible due to a mental disorder, it would correspondingly make it easier to judge political dissidents, or those who simply don't comply with health measures they find are dangerous to themselves, the same way, and enable them to be put them away for "treatment" indefinitely. In China this is called "cultural re-education."
The whole world is already going down this slippery slope of retracting personal responsibility, aka free will, towards those who would 'know better,' i.e. brain researchers with dueling neural network theories, well-meaning trauma experts with multi-factorial "agency" considerations, and politicians eyeing the consistency and expediency that AI exhibits -- to act as judge in some court cases.
i respect Dr. Mate’s position on having many factors taken into account regarding personal responsibility in situations where a person infringed upon the criminal code due to having had trauma, but i believe we must keep the nature of free will separate from personal responsibility, the latter being based, as far as the law goes, on knowing what is right and wrong. Someone who is psychotic does not, by definition, possess that ability, whereas someone addicted to drugs or under the emotional limitations of trauma, still does know the difference, so with them a judgement against the criminal code should be made with significant leniency given. Even the basis of trauma as i understand it, is much more to do with what the traumatized person gave up themselves in the crisis event, like not fighting back against a rapist, than with the violation they experienced by the rapist. So making it seem that due to previous trauma, a criminal charge can be dropped on the basis that the person was not able to choose what they did -- exactly contradicts what they need to heal in regards to the trauma -- accept that they did (consciously) choose not to fight against the rapist and to (consciously and emotionally) forgive themselves for that, and re-own their fighting spirit. Too often society supports a psychological disability rather then supporting healing from it, i.e. through disability benefits that one can barely exist on, with no funding for psychotherapy, only 'maintenance' visits to a psychiatrist or mental health worker, but with unlimited free pharmaceuticals that cause addiction, and do nothing for their trauma, but keep the person in a perpetual medicated state.
The fact is -- the action of free will, through which each of us, within the space of our Inner Life, consider and evaluate our personal choices -- can belong to no one else, but the respective individual human. It is beyond analysis and predetermination, because it is inherently equal to what a human being is. Due to the requirements of maintaining a just society grounded in principles of truth, freedom and liberty, in some situations like the necessity around determination of criminality where mental illness is a factor, judgment needs to be very carefully employed using established and regularly re-evaluated criteria, all done with the oversight of impartial (and absolutely human) decision makers.
Free will essentially is a quantum value -- whereby the free will of each individual of a democratic society is equal to everyone else's, but where the unjust loss of the free will of only one person, represents the loss of the complete free will ethic of the whole society. The nature of free will forms the basis of democracy and the saying "i disapprove of what you say, but i will defend to the death your right to say it." The use of juries composed of the accused's peers in court cases, recognizes this principle of the free will inherent in each person, and thus it must never be allocated to an AI program. It is not about some idea of the AI being more able to judge impartially and consistently -- it is about the fact that a person with free will, should only be judged in a court of law by a holder or holders of the same human free will quantum value.
We have many good lessons from history where the rise of dictators and autocrats led to the loss of the free will of individuals and groups, and eventually the whole society crumbled. The civil rights marches and actions of the 1960s and 70s wrenched away the oppressive values and beliefs held and enforced for centuries by elitists, and established the society we have today, where the free will of the individual is recognized in all its respects, and laws keeping it in place should never be allowed to erode. The conscience of each human being, directly tied to humanity's collective, quantum free will value -- which essentially is akin to our quantum consciousness itself -- is the greatest safeguard against any take-over of our civilization, ultimately even against the loss of planet Earth to an alien race which does not possess, nor value, this quantum essence.
On the other hand the integrity of our Inner Life, the place in us where our free will conscience resides, may be in jeopardy like it never has before, since humans have walked the planet Earth: https://www.bitchute.com/video/59wjaT2mAGC4/
Fascinating.
We are whole, good, bad, beautiful ugly.
You can no more separate your spirit from your mind than separate your brain from your body.
This is why holistic healing has become quite the new health care model.
I think it can be over analyzed to the point of endless befuddlement.
If indeed we have the autonomy to choose our actions then we are indeed responsible for them.
The area of addiction is no different than say the type one diabetic. In either case you must relent to the prescribed treatments to maintain optimal personal health. They are both sicknesses that can only be treated. Neither are choices in that one could not simply decide to not be afflicted, but you can decide to follow the treatment regimen necessary to live as well as you can in-spite of them.
We are most assuredly shaped by our lived circumstances that can result in psychological (and even physical) injury from birth through whatever stage is present. That is the imperative to “be present”.
There are endless means through which we can and probably should seek enlightenment. Such as reading through and pondering the essay above.
Peace out