Well, my subject was probably strong. It is not my question originally, but I consider it a good one which I'll like to get an answer, but this is the story:

I got involved in a thread of Free Will in spiritualforums.com. You can find the question at the bottom of this page (probably you may need to register):

http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41298&page=129

That thread has a wider variety of type of souls compared to here, but it is interesting because some of them are so persistent, and even though you might think they don't think right they may show some good low entropy qualities, like not getting upset easily and others. There is a user call Andrew G that is a very interesting person. He is very polite and friendly but has a strange and particular way of thinking. This is his question and I post it here because I wonder how others in the forum would answer. So far I was answering different questions there, but I don't see a good one in my mind yet for this one. May be some ideas from here might help:

Bearing in mind that we are on a spiritual forum so many here probably go with the idea that death is not 'the end'. Im interested to see if those who believe we have free will somehow believe its possible to choose to extricate oneself from life. Im not talking about suicide here because that would just lead to death. Im talking about ALL life. Do you believe it is possible to somehow uncreate ourselves? To remove ourselves from the process of life? To choose to somehow leave all that is?

Thanks,

Claudio

_________________
"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

> http://soprano.com <

Hi Clau,
Is he talking about life as a FWAU, life as an IUOC, or his entire section of Consciousness? Doesn't this fit with what you learned from Tom about this? I think it is great that you are out there doing this Claudio, talking to people like this.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Well, he mentioned "all that is". In his metaphor it would mean the IUOC. He said clearly not death, so FWAU certainly not. It's an interesting experience already. I am learning to choose my battles (my battles here got me better prepared, you know what I am talking about :). So many of them are far from Consciousness being what they call "All that is" and being also information. A lot of them contradict themselves seeing Consciousness as something external and internal at the same time. A lot see it as a realization or as a final state of oneness. I try to bring very simple statements there, because some are far from getting to the mindset of MBT. I am using Tom as an example to adapt my posts to the one asking and also to a general audience. I post way different than I would post here where I know mostly everybody knows the MBT concepts and language. I also found a few people that liked my posts and Tom. That was good.

Claudio

_________________
"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

> http://soprano.com <

That is a good feeling, isn't it.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Bette and Claudio,

It appears to me that, without knowing our viewpoint and terminology, what he must mean must amount to willfully deleting our existence as an IUOC as the closest match to the words used. This being done by some action on our part as an act of free will. As an IUOC, our sum and total, we are an integral part of The One Consciousness. We are a functional part, whatever or how little that function might be, and The One Consciousness will not give that up. Tom has discussed before how exceedingly rare it is for even the FWAU aspects of our IUOC to be so badly dysfunctional that it would be deleted by erasure. That if this did occur, the basic functionality would merely be reduced to a beginning level personality and started up the long road of entropy reduction and development of quality of consciousness again. There would be a great deal of recovery and therapy effort exerted before that would happen. However many times through a PMR or whatever it took. Consciousness chooses to grow and develop, to lower entropy and not to prune to accomplish this but to create blossoming, to love. An IUOC might choose this out of free will and a troubled existence, but would not have the capability. The most that could be done would be withdrawal from participation in virtual realities.

You can choose for a very long time to avoid actively seeking growth by participating in a PMR type development laboratory again. This is permitted, but you would be urged, and more vigorously with time, to participate again. But I don't know any details and that becomes a 'Tom' question.

Even if you are coming at this from the direction of God and religion, unless you are taking a fundamentalist concept of God as standing outside of its creation and judging or possibly condemning, you get a concept of God as containing all that exists in a metaphorical sense. Not a willingness to delete a cherished part of itself as all such parts are cherished.

Such is my opinion and understanding.

Ted

Hello Ted:

I appreciate your post. Very good. Even though it sounds very satisfying for me and I would guess for most people, I would predict a possible reply from somebody on that forum like this:

"So from what you are saying there is not such a thing as Absolute Free Will because if you want to be deleted, the One Consciousness won't allow it.

Therefore you would agree, that there is no free will, because all decisions are ultimately executed by the One Consciousness, so we don't have free will".

Ted. I don't want to force you to respond again, but this is a good exercise to deal with tough people that bring this kind of argument. I would appreciate your answer to my fictitious reply to you, because so far I prefer not to answer, because replying to the first one with your post, even though I consider it a great one and cannot think of something better so far would not create the effect desired and will give the no free will believers a way to discredit it with our own words.

It's not as simple as I thought when going to play as a visitor team :(


Thanks,

Claudio

_________________
"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

> http://soprano.com <

Claudio,

Any one who thinks that free will means that you can have what ever you choose is going to be rapidly disappointed. They would have had to lead a very sheltered life to think this. To have yourself totally deleted as an IUOC is simply not something you can have, free will to choose it or not. That is a matter of decision space as I would understand it. Would they also think that they can walk into a bank and decide that they would like some money? Only to the limit of what they hold in their account. And not even then if there is a prior claim in terms of a transaction not yet completed.

Ted

Good post Ted. Good to have some extra help when needed. You helped me good with your two posts. I am better ready now. Thanks!

Claudio

_________________
"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

> http://soprano.com <

I have a possible suggestion, but it depends on the correctness of my understanding of the terms in use.

Based on Ted's responses, perhaps it would be useful to clarify what is meant by "Absolute Free Will." Your fictitious argument implies that Absolute Free Will equates to Absolute Decision Space. As far I understand it, the "Absolute" part of Free Will refers to the fundamental nature of free will, as opposed to the size of decision space involved. All it says is that you absolutely have the ability to choose (make decisions), but it says nothing about WHAT you can choose.

Just my two cents. :)

_________________
I am, because I choose to am! Wait, I mean be. I AM BE!! Wait, that's not it either... ;_;

Hello Ouroboros:

Nice to meet you. Your post is well appreciated. That was a good observation. But deleting a IUOC is a "special case". We can do the "virtual version", and we may tend to think if we buy a pack of cigars we can then go and burn them if we decide it is bad for our health, later on. So we tend to think that we can get rid of what belong to us. May be we may consider that our IUOCs are really a long term (may be with no expiration clause) agreement that includes CS connection and collaboration clauses.

I was thinking there might be a way to delete our IUOCs that is ugly. Trying to devolve to the maximum and try to mess with all kind of bad and good powerful beings. Somebody in the way may fulfill the will. I don't recommend it to anybody, and understand it is not in my decision space that option (I just delete it). I was just thinking it is possible.

Claudio

_________________
"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

> http://soprano.com <

Absolute Free Will is discussed by Ted on his website, but I'll be darned if I can find it.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Claudio,

Nice to meet you too. :)

That brings up some very interesting tangential philosophical questions, but I have a feeling a number of them are addressed in My Big TOE and will probably wait until I finish reading it before unbiting my tongue. My lacking familiarity with the material will probably only result in unproductive meanderings. :P

But boy, I expect to have a LOT of fun here once I'm done with the trilogy. ;)

_________________
I am, because I choose to am! Wait, I mean be. I AM BE!! Wait, that's not it either... ;_;

Claudio,

Good question. I think a better approach would be to decide whether or not an IUOC would even DESIRE to do that. I don't think so. That sounds like something a highly limited fragment might desire, as in an FWAU, but not an IUOC. I think it is fundamental to the nature of an IUOC's being to want to exist and to lower its entropy. If it demands an answer, I would guess that it is not possible. However, I think that is something only a much more limited subset would even consider.

It's like something else I have thought about. Many people seem to have the desire to be done with this PMR and escape back to the oneness, or heaven, or whatever you want to call it, because PMR is hard and sometimes depressing. If you are put off by these things, I think you're missing the point. That's a sure ticket right back here when you are done with this packet. Anyway, you wouldn't be here to begin with if your IUOC had not desired it. No mistake was made.

Ramon

Hi Ramon:

It all started with the post by Andrew G in the other forum. He is an interesting particular case. We are so different and I think I am connecting with him at a more of subconscious level. He is behaving with low entropy in communicating sometimes, despite all the particular thinking he does.

Your quote above is good and something I think and thought about as well. In my case, sometimes is not because of the suffering but because I feel I am wasting my time sometimes in this PMR, that I can be more productive being 100% of the time in NPMR. My daughter and other positive experiences I am able to find keep me in the path. I am tough with myself and my handling of time.

Claudio

_________________
"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

> http://soprano.com <

No. Free will can only effect the next thing you do, not what is already done. You can undo a way of thinking and experiencing but only for future experience. The best you can do is forget the past, and not go back there. You can find better possible outcomes to past experience, but these run in parallel to the event as it was.

You do not have to query the past as it was. You are free to visit the alternatives instead if you so choose. Free will only affects what will happen, what is possible to happen, not what already is actualised.

_________________
Most people are mostly good most of the time. - the Deefburger assumption of marginal probable personal state.