Analytic Idealism on Free Will (Ep 10) - Analytic Idealism Course - Bernardo Kastrup 

"We are free to act according to our will; but we are not free to will our will" - this is a great insight of Art Schopenhauer (5:57)

Made me think of the following quote: "Man has free will to the extent that he knows himself " by Alan Watts

Love you kastrup. You and Rupert truly make a formidable combination 🎉

Would love to see an honest discussion on this topic between Bernardo and Robert Sapolsky!

Agree fully. That is why, in order to avoid confusion, people should speak about personal will instead of free will.

There is no free will. Every choice / decision is determined by at least something, sub-consciously or consciously. But it also doesn't matter, even if it is fully deterministic. And it doesn't matter because the circumstances that determine any decision / choice are always changing. So the next choice you make can be different, because it's determined by the circumstances created by the previous choice.

I always say that there is no evidence that we have free will but we should act as though we do just in case we do. 🙏

In love with this series of lectures. 🙏🙏🙏🙏

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and insights.

Absolutely fantastic ! 🙏

So free will is pretty much limited to the information availability at a specific time🤔

What BK describes as free will at the level of Universal Consciousness (or Core Subjectivity) corresponds well with the Bible's Exodus 3:14 where God says to Moses: "I am that I am" / "I will be what I will be" / "I create what(ever) I create". Necessity and will are the same at this level, because there is no external agency impinging on the choice.

Truely essential

Merci bcp Bernado 😊

I think that there is nothing FREE when there are choices. Choice must be a sign of confusion.

The ego has an authority problem. It is the futile attempt of the unwilling (conditioned) part of us to control the larger (unconditional) part of us, aka free will.

This is similar to the hard problem of consciousness in that the problem is an artefact of faulty reasoning.

The bit that doesn't make sense is when he says the ego is free to choose certain things such as mortgage options. I think this contradicts the rest of what he says and leaves a lot of explaining such as - why are some things willed by the ego but other things aren't? How do you define this list? Isn't everything the ego thinks it is willing, actually being willed by the cosmic consciousness?

If you say free will is whatever is determined by what we identify with, that means that a puppet is free as long as it loves its strings.

Wonderful. I can either say that 'I' have no free will because 'I' don't exist. Or, if I insist on this concept of 'I', I can say that choice is determined by that with which 'I' identify. But at the same time 'I' is the Universe, the Self with a capital S. We are all part of the closed non-dual system 'I'. My ego has no free will, but 'I' do.

The one part that escapes me is this core subjectivity and how is there free will from there? I understand or at least I think I do that core subjectivity is after everything has been erased from memory so even after there would be something there which is the real you but how does that pertain to there being free will from that place?

If core subjectivity is what we do or do not identify with, and if it is a strictly determined need and desire to identify or not with our core subjectivity, then clearly it is not an option over which we have any control. Even arguing that this identification has a greater importance than any other "choice" is without meaning because that "argument" is also determined. Saying that it is the entirety of our being which determines what we think or do is merely to select a functional set or boundary, which selection is yet another strictly determined "decision" that you may or may not be determined to feel good about. Saying that everything is like colliding billiard balls but that it makes a difference because we are an integrated set of billiard balls, seems like a feel-good repackaging of determinism. Feel-good or not, it does not get past the problem that without some beyond or apart from billiard-ball choosing related to truth and morality, there is be no way to choose for truth or morality because our internal compass just points as strictly determined and we merely witness those directions and outcomes. And not just witness them, but also just witness "our" thoughts and feelings of those outcomes, all of course strictly determined. In other words, if strictly determined then their is no agency, maybe just a feeling of agency if that is what your personal box of billiard balls determined. I want something more epistemologically and morally satisfying than merely witnessing my life experience as a mechanistic ride. This desire that motivates me to seek an alternative to chance and determinism. Bernardo thinks these are the only two options, but I am working on a way that is apart from both of them, and it feels like I am choosing to do so apart from both of them as well. If my desire and pursuit are strictly determined, then I will be a mere witness to the process and outcome. If, on the other hand, there is something at work that is apart from randomness and determinism, then maybe I will come to understand the differences, one thing for sure is that I will have little desire to pursue this question if I think it is all strictly determined.

We need a discussion with Sam Harris asap

What is "culture" ? Something on your "screen of perception" ?

So, who's doing the choosing to identify with the either the ego or with core subjectivity?

what could it be that is able to identify with core subjectivity? there is nothing else. and subjectivity cant identify with itself, it only can have the illusion of beiing something else and that will be the process of identification itself.

So in patroern QA john V. i think on the fly came up with similar language when talking about free will.. We don't want to live in a random universe .. were every trhng is arbitrary and not meaningful.. I'm sure i'm not doing any service. Now my argument that the thing we are trying to save that science seems to want to snuff out ... that thing most often called free will.. that isn't easily described .. is this is my future open or is already defined like a movie playing out. but the end was always going to be what it ends up being. .. i say if we exist in a purely deterministic universe or a purely micro macro duel universe and were stuck in the determinism side than the frontal lobe would never have evolved. There would be no need for a high level hard choice making mechanisms.. if the choice was n't actually real.. . the frontal lobe could only evolve in a universe where choice existed or where the future was not necessarily determined. ..and biology exists in a 3 rd middle ground where the randomness of quantum field theory or of the micro melds with the strict determinism of the macro in such away that is expressed by biology in manner that we can say gives us agency , gives us choice , and ultimately meaning.. ..

BK’s theory of idealism goes so far beyond the constraints of determinism. Sapolsky and other physicalists absolutely miss the point when discussing free will v determinism because they are so straightjacketed by their erroneous conception of matter as primary

You can choose for or against self. When you feel hungry you can follow nature or you can choose to diet, splurge or be frugal on food purchases, even if you were a native American member of the doomed Christmas time stranded Donner Party.

4:07

I was meditating a year ago on cathedral grounds on a hill pondering life and God. Suddenly it hit me, tingling throughout my body and a buzz in my brain: God or the universe is “Will” the difference between inaction or nothing at all and everything is “will”. The Big Bang was the “will” of consciousness to come into physical reality. It’s why humans are the only creatures on earth that have “free will”, because we can choose what we identify with. Unlike every other creature. Although I have seen evidence of free will in animals, though rare.

If nature is the will, then certainly there is no metaphysically deep sense of will from the standpoint of the ego self, only minute executions that one identifies with, but not true self will. As egos we certainly identify with what is going on with us, and certainly have no ability to fully change or minds, or psychological orientation, or even free ourselves from self-limiting behavior. That's a fact not only psychologically, but existentially, as we also have no control over the world and the situations that happen to us. So I wonder, do we have the will to identify with pure conscious awareness, or is that just something that happens when nature decides it happens? And is nature Even deciding teleologically, or is the infinite dynamic of universal dissociations of local consciousness just unfolding by nature of what they are? Because in that case, you might as well just accept everything for what it is, which to me sounds like an extreme solution lacking a middle resolution. But, maybe it just is what it is, and maybe that's a path of least resistance. Thoughts?

Man I wish you would talk to Sapolsky about this (who seems like an idiot on this subject).

Universal consciousness is Shiva and Its willing is the cosmic dance of Nataraja.

Buddha’s teaching of no self puts paid to all this.

This is a non-starter. The claim that one can choose what they identify with is the same as saying they choose their thoughts, which we know they don't. And certainly, free will isn’t pulled out of a magician's hat by any sort of reframing. We, whatever that is, exist purely within a state of subjectivity-regardless of what objective reality is. A choice, no matter how it is framed, is subject to exactly the same subjective dynamics as any other mental form. That is, it simply appears, and true agency was never part of the chain of causality. We exist in a reality in which true agency is utterly incoherent. We would have to be an uncaused agent operating in some kind of god-space, which we can see very clearly that we are not. I think we should take whatever nuggets of wisdom we can from understanding non-free will and move on. But we're already starting to bite our own tail with such an imputation.

Who is it that has free will? No one knows.

I think your whole theory would work way better if you throw out the concept of free will completely.