LastThursday

Yes, but you do realise we’re on a forum about breaking through illusions, and recovering the Truth of the Absolute? Is it heresy to introduce the Absolute? I’m just agreeing with @Aeris ‘Choice is a Total Delusion’. I don't feel as though there is confusion. If free will is not the application of choice, then what is it? If choice is not governed by free will then how can it be a choice? The two are one and the same. Also, what do you mean by exist? Isn’t existence just a belief? For the 'idea of a choice' to exist, you must believe it exists. And a belief is just a choice. @tecladocasio @Zetxil in my opinion you are still clinging for dear life onto a sense of self agency and individualism, and you may feel uncomfortable giving that up. But that's ok, reality continues even when you see through the veil.

Ok, so I just pushed back the point at which the choice is made. Let's see if I can explain what I'm getting at a different way. It boils down to this: the world is analogue and continuous with no boundaries (a non-duality if you like), but a choice is finite and bounded. So how do you get from one to the other? The main problem is that You are part of the analogue experience and so is the entity (You) that is doing the choosing. By way on analogy. Imagine being a master mason with a large block of marble ready to be carved. That marble block could be carved into an infinite variety of forms, the block has infinite potential options open to it and there is as a consequence an infinity of choices that could be made. But. The mason is building a church. The number of forms (doorways, windows, buttresses etc.) is drastically reduced, to a finite number. The mason decides to build part of a window. You see the mason is not completely free to make any choice s/he likes because they are artificially constrained. Their 'Free Will' is not 'Free'. It is 'Constrained Will'. What about true 'Free Will', i.e. one that isn't constrained by anything? Say the mason takes the first blow out of the marble. And with each successive blow changes his/her mind about where to strike next. And in the end s/he has carved a beautiful statue. When was the choice made to make a statue? Was it one choice or a thousand choices? The reality is that no choice was made at all. From the marble block to the statue was one continuous happening without gaps - there was no room for choice, because there are no 'gaps' in the analogue world. The mason is just deluded into thinking choices were made.

This is an artificial situation. See, you have set up your options a priori, and then you make your choice after that fact. That is the delusion of choice. This is how we all justify having free will. In order to make a choice, you must have options, in order to have options, you must carve up the world into separate compartments. The carving up of the world, is the delusion. If you truly believe in randomness, then choice is not compatible with it. Choice is deliberate, not random. Free will cannot be truly random.

The previous arising thought does not exist. It is just a thought of/about the previous arising thought. There is no connection: just a thought happening now, giving the illusion of two thoughts being connected together. It's as slippery as an eel. The 'feeling of familiarity' of having had a previous thought is not in itself a thought however, it is a part of thought, the same way the colour red is.

@tecladocasio so you agree it's 'something else'. In that case who/what is doing the choosing? What is it choosing from?

A decision or a choice requires there to be something to choose from. No? If yes, then by definition it is dependent on something.

So. Is a choice a 'thought' or 'an action' or 'something else'?

@tecladocasio Choice depends on the number of options available at any given moment. Your mind likes to simplify, so it pretends the number of options are limited and also pretends there is a deadline for choosing. It also likes to pretend there is an action to be taken as a consequence of the choice. The reality is that at any given moment, there are a huge number of potential options. You narrow down your options to Latte or Cappucino - a thought then 'pops' into your mind to have a Latte. You then action that thought by telling the staff you'd like a 'Latte please'. You tell your friend about your coffee shop story later in the day. The reality was this, you could have: Walked out the coffee shop. Gone to the toilet/restroom before buying. Chatted to the person next to you in the queue. Sat down and did nothing. Looked at your mobile. Held up the coffee shop with a pretend gun. Made a choice for latte and 123 days later walked back in and actually ordered it. Hopefully, you get the point. You discard all the thousands of choices you could have made, and instead you try and justifiy having free will, with the choice you did make.

@Sharp I so hope you are still with us. I also hope you had the conviction to look into the eyes of your loved ones, when you told them what you were going to do and how much you loved them. If you are going to go ahead anyway, I really really hope you do it right and don't end up a vegetable locked into a useless body dribbling into your hospital pillow for the rest of your life, unable to talk to your loved ones as they visit you every day. I too am curious about death, but I'm going to wait for death to find me first. If you need to talk, I'm 100% here for you mate. Just PM me.

@Schahin I think you are in a greater state of 'not knowing' than a lot of us on this forum. Therein lies the real answer to all your questions. It's all a matter of perspective. All science is about pattern matching. It looks for patterns in one phenomenon and then applies that pattern on to other phenomena. For example it says 'hey this creature is very similar to this other creature, there must be some sort of link (pattern match) between them'. It then looks at skeletons (fossils) and applies the same principle, and even to DNA. They then come up with a bigger pattern called 'evolution' and apply that to all living creatures. But you have to be really careful not to confuse 'patterns' with the next thing: Direct experience a.k.a conscious awareness. This is the experience you are having right now: your perceptions, sights, sounds, smells, touch, feelings, thoughts, the sense that you're existing. The trickster amongst all of those is 'thought'. Because thought is were the scientific 'patterns' live. It's worth noting that you are also playing the pattern matching game. Without patterns you wouldn't recognise a damn thing. A tree is a tree because it fits the 'tree' pattern and the same for all other objects and things and people in the world around you. A pattern is illusory however. Because a pattern can be discarded and a new one put in its place. The other is because you can apply any pattern you like to the world of direct experience. The world is an illusion, because we treat the world as a jumble of patterns. The only thing you can be sure of in all this, is that there is constant change in you direct experience. The paradox is that everything seems so permanent and solid and that it 'came from somewhere'. But the solidity and permanency and progress of time, are just patterns - they are not direct experience. Other words for patterns are: belief, gut feeling, theory, law, information, words, the past, the future, story, narrative, my parents, my birth, my death and so on. The world is meaningless, unknowable and very mysterious. But that's ok.

It definitely evolved over billions of years. It is also just a dream. The past is just not what you/we think it is. For more, look up A-Theory of time. Although I don't agree totally with the theory. Ultimately, the past is a (re-)construction in the present moment.

Hopefully, you are less blind now. The thoughts themselves are neither good nor bad, they're like clouds in the sky. It's how we choose to react to them that's important. The reaction is normally caused by the stories we tell ourselves. If we are aware that we actually have a choice, and we drop the story, then that can be curative. Sometimes it's better to let the thoughts come and go, like waves on a beach - and instead just sit there and enjoy the sunshine.

My belief is that the unconcious mind is just a label slapped on to concious experiences that can't be explained. Have a thought about murdering a friend? Hmmm. Where did that come from? The unconcious mind of course. Nope. The bottom line is, everything happens in conciousness. There is literally nothing outside of conciousness. It simply doesn't exist. The thoughts of McDonalds don't 'come' from anywhere, they simply appear in your concious awareness - that's it. After some thoughts appear in your mind several times, you join them together into a story, which you use to 'explain' why you're having the thoughts. It's a bit like the following scenario: You meet someone new. You like them and get to know them over time. Because you like them, you see them regularly. You become great friends. Then one day you realise you haven't seen that friend in years. You knew that friend for ten years. Good story eh? But if you deconstruct it, perhaps you only directly interacted with them for say 1000 hours, about 40 days. You just filled in all the blanks and expanded that to 10 years. We're constantly making up stories and 'filling in the blanks', to make our conscious experience seem sane and stable. It is not.

The truth is, is that everything is a belief. In order to be conciously aware of anything at all, there is a belief of its existence. Belief is baked into reality. The best that you can do is let beliefs be fluid, let them change, and don't cling too hard to them. How else do you raise your level of conciousness?

Careful now, there were no actions and no speaking, just words on a screen. Words which you interpreted and reacted to. Don't get lost in the @Shin fantasy. Don't get too lost in the @Joseph Maynor fantasy, even if you enjoy it.

For the love of god!

I can neither confirm nor deny. The only thing that matters is if you're sure. What I say is irrelavent. What is your direct experience? Sit with that direct experience and come back to me in 48 hours. Or even better when you're fully Ox stage 10 Turquoise Enlightened. Do the work.

@Shin no. I'm you. Don't be dellusional. Hello. HELLO! WAKE. UP. NOW. @Nahm row row row your boat gently down the stream...

Perfectionism is not mastery. To be a master you have to start as an amateur and then you will make a lot of mistakes on the path. To be a master takes dedication and stamina and it's not a sprint to the finish. I have worked on some projects and ideas for over ten years, sometimes with breaks that last a year or more. Do I feel guilt? No. Sometimes you need plenty of time to learn something deeply and let it seep into your bones. The number one thing you need for emotional mastery is to be very self aware. For example, I know my stubborn inner child well enough not to fight against it, if I did, nothing would get done. Instead I bore that child first, by sitting there and doing nothing for as long as it takes, until the child is asleep; and then I work. Learn what makes you tick, be a master of your own self.

Bingo! Memory makes the world hang together. But what is that sensation of memory? Slippery isn't it?

Whoop whoop! It's Thursday (again).

@noselfnofun The thoughts about the past are a direct experience. The past is not. Alternatively, the past is just a thought, not concrete reality. And the thought always exists in the now. Say you keep having a recurring thought about your mother. Where does the thought go when you're not thinking about your mother? When the thought comes back, how do you know it was the exactly the same thought you had before? How do you know you had that thought before?

This is capitalism. Allowing too much free time is inneficient. We work 8 hours a day because that is the most that capitalism can get away with. If it were possible, you would be made to work 24/7/365. AI and robots will only make for more productivity, not less work or less working hours.

He's 60.

Go and die in a warm sunny place with a beach and good food. Not sure I'd tell anyone, couldn't be doing with all the well meaning pity and falseness it entails. Actually. Who am I kidding? I'd be a party animal... Give me pity and falsity. My ego can **** *** after I die... Yes I'm conflicted