Couple of questions
1. All religions say that man is composed of something that god made and that god decides what has to happen ... where is the space for free will in this ?
2. All modern philosophies say that man is made up of molecules that came together at the right time .. and that electrical impulses decide what man is and does. These impulses can be shown to have a definite pattern in a lab ... again where is the space for free will in this ....
finally what is free will .......................
hope u guys have sleepless nights figuring out the answers
C
Posts
No answers yet so here goes (May be I was being impatient)
ReplyDelete:)
Anyways
Both the points of view expressed say the same thing . That your life is pre ordained, (destiny. Kal etc) This philosophical view is that every event, including human cognition, behavior, decision, and action, is causally determined by the environment. It is, in essence, the view that one's life is predetermined before one is even born. This view proposes there is a predetermined unbroken chain of prior occurrences back to the origin of the universe.
Swami Vivekanand said “We see at once that there cannot be any such thing as free-will; the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know, and everything that we know is within our universe, and everything within our universe is moulded by conditions of time, space and causality. ... To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe; it cannot be found here”
It is easy to misinterpret what he said… What Vivekananda actually meant by lack of free will was that the will was not "free" because it was heavily influenced by the law of cause and effect – "The will is not free, it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect, but there is something behind the will which is free." Vivekananda never said things were absolutely determined and placed emphasis on the power of conscious choice to alter one's past Karma: "It is the coward and the fool who says this is his fate. But it is the strong man who stands up and says I will make my own fate."
Vivekananda's teacher Ramakrishna Paramahansa, using an analogy said that man is like a cow tied to a pole with a rope - the karmic debts and human nature bind him and the amount of free will he has is analogous to the amount of freedom the rope allows; as one progresses spiritually, the rope becomes longer.
One realises that Free-Will is not free but what you do will always be dependent on circumstances that are present at that time and there will be an effect of your action that will determine some other action
Cause –> Action –> Effect ------> Cause –> Action –> Effect
The circle of life
C