I have heard a number of times on this forum about how it is wrong from someone to take another's free will. But any time you do anything that involves others, it will often take away their "free will".
If you get a job, that means someone else couldn't get that job. Does that mean you took away their free will?
If you get married to a significant other that means someone else who also liked the same person probably won't get a chance at them.
In order to make more money than average, someone else has to make less money than average.
If a criminal commits a crime, and then you send that person to jail, you took their free will.
We live in a world where there are consequences, and those consequences often mean someone else's "free will" was taken away.

There is also the fact that people are born differently. You might want to be a great musician but if you weren't born with the right mind, you probably won't be. You might want to be a movie star, but if you weren't born with the right looks you probably won't be. Does that mean free will was taken away from you?

... the job:
whether you or someone else gets it - neigther of you had it, therefore it was given to one and not the other, but not taken away from eighter

marrying a significant other:
it is your choice to like and want to marry - and so is someone elses
She/he decides as well as to whom to marry - all free will, nothing is taken away.

more money vs. less money:
it may look like it - OTOH the amount of money is not fixed as we all know - banks just create it ...
It was Wayne Dyer who said:
You cannot get sick enough to make even one other more healthy, you cannot get poor enough to make even one other better of financially ... and a few more analogies along this line.
You decide what's good for you, what you want.
You may get it, you may not, but that has as much to do with your free will as with that of others.
But not with taking it away.

With the criminal, that is true. And it is specifically intended in this case.

You may wish to be something/someone and yet will not reach that goal.
Be careful with what reasons you attribute to that appearent "failure".
The reason could simply be found in your (mis)judgement of what you really want.

Noone is taking anything away from you when you say you want to be an actor but are not succsessful.
Lack of effort is just one possible reason.

"Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them." (R. Bach)

Other than in a controlling way or deliberate 'theft' of something, the concept is not to not violate someone elses free will, it is optimize free will among those competing. That is the way that PMR is built - there is competition for scarce or unique resources. So you don't compete unfairly but in a situation where someone gets the job and someone else does not, someone will win and someone will lose. Just don't win by cheating. You don't have to give up seeking what you want or aim for. You just do not cheat someone else out of it for your advantage. You 'play fair'. If you for instance have a job with a company and someone you may perhaps not like wants to go to work there, you do not deliberately spread untruths or imply negatives just to cheat them out of that job in perhaps retaliation for something from the past.

That is more the concept as I understand it.

Ted

In your examples, free will has not been "taken away" or removed. Interfering with another's path and available decisions does not remove free will. The person still has the free will to choose from the other available options. For example, if somebody takes my job, wins the love of my spouse, steals my money, and locks me in a small room somewhere; I still have the free will to choose how I will react to the situation. Though my surroundings and available choices have been altered, my free will remains. I might not be able to choose to walk down to the grocery store (being locked in the room), but I still have the free will to choose how I react, where I will sit in the room, how I will pass the time, what I will do in NPMR ventures, etc.

So, you can interfere and alter what choices are available to somebody, but you cannot take away that person's free will.

_________________
-"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find... you get what you need"

Right, I was superficial when it came to the criminal.
Society can severely limit decision-space by locking criminals up somewhere or by other means of punishment.
Give them opportunity to re-think their previous free-will choice.
But free will still remains.

Freewill does not mean you get what you want, it means you choose from the available data in your awareness, as in what to do. Other people choosing first, and trying to get by, is just part of the game. I think when someone bully's you or another physically, or mentally, just because they are control freaks, they need to be stood up to. I have noticed when they are confronted, some of the people they have been controlling do not like this. They think you are a trouble maker, which makes me think that they are followers, and they are choosing to do so. I have noticed this can be shaky ground,, but one thing is for sure when they directly try to take ours away, all doubt is erased. I run into this all the time, i am always looking for creative non violent solutions. I think it is just natural for us to try and control others, and deny we are doing it. Again we get back to the intellect running the show, instead of us at the being level. This VR is challenging beyond the intellect. Just some of my views. Sabby

Wayne Dyer is wrong on this account. Money is a drawing right from a fixed pool of resources. The more you have, the less everyone else has. The crass reality is that destroying your savings (in money - not in resources) will make everyone else better off. Financial melt-down is actually a good thing for most people.

It works similarily with other fixed resources - the less you consume, the more is left over for others. For example oil, water, ore, arable land, and so on.

The MBT commandment of "optimizing free will for all" has a few builtin contradictions. For example, the ultimate way for me to optimize the decision space for others is to commit suicide, because it leaves all options open.

By asserting my will, I necessarily put limits on other people.

I agree with the original post about limiting free will in second/third/fourth orders. If I eat a fish - who starves? Who's fishing stock am I depleting? Who will starve in future generations because I disturbed the eco system?

Selflessness is an illusion in physical reality precisely because the physical world is defined by limits and quotas. I participate by making decisions about what should be used for what.

_________________
Johan

Nature does not teach us what "fairness" means.

The real debate lies in the subtleties. What sort of manipulation is fair? Is it fair to use more effective marketing to sell a product you know is inferior? Is it fair to sell a product you know is inferior by using techniques the competition wouldn't stoop to? Is it fair to mislead someone if you can convince them it's for their benefit? (Placebo products.)

That's everyday life, all over the world. You can choose not to participate, but then you're an eremite.

_________________
Johan

Or rather, optimizing free will for all will always be self-sacrificing.

_________________
Johan

You have not 'got' it. Suicide amounts to depriving those dependent upon you of that support. If absolutely no one cares, then you have at least forced some one to either bury you or smell you and risk disease. Suicide is neither a good way out nor a cheap shot for your argumentation.No and No. Are you talking a placebo as in medicine? It is not fair to falsely convince someone that an action is for their benefit if it is not. That is known as a scam.

Ted

Well, I see that specific thing differently - I briefly mentioned why.
I also see that differently with regard to many other of those "fixed resources". Note the quotes.

The analogy was intended to show that you can not help (specifically financially) any specific one to "get better" by your choice to refuse a higher income or "intentionally" staying poor.
Putting that limit on yourself will not achieve the intended result for the other.
It is indeed the same as for sickness/well being.
You need not feel guilty for being well off ... this actually gives you decision space to achieve good for you as well as others.

Based on your free will you make choices, you interact based on them.
So do the others.

It's not you putting limits on others
but your and their choices as a reaction to such assertion can do that.

Choices.

The physical world may be defined by limits and quotas, but is it not itself an "illusion"?

Suicide for the sake of others, is at best sub-optimal and most likely detrimental. You leave more options by existing than not existing, you and others both have to interact, and in those interactions both parts have opportunity for growth. You cannot simply take yourself out of the equation. A low entropy being would do everything to help others, and meanwhile "optimise the decision space for all", there is no contradiction. A being that would commit suicide just for the sake of sacrifice would not be very low entropy.

Your misunderstanding seems to come from believing "optimise the decision space for all" is about resources, and not interactions between beings that provides opportunity for growth. You also seem to believe every interaction between a human and some part of nature, cause the part of nature to be "less". Someone else will not starve because you eat a fish, unless you take part of destructive fishing industry (in the long term) which removes the balance inherent in an ecosystem. Simply eat something that is according with the balance the environment.

By asserting your will, you will only put limits on others if that is your intent. Your will (intent) can even help to remove limits from others, just by interaction.

I think that definition of low entropy just creates a slippery slope. If you live in a house/apartment, then you are not really helping others since that money could have been used for charity work. And if you have things like computers, cars, internet connection, tv, phone, more than 1 shirt, furniture, vacation plans, food that isn't cheap, you could have spent that money on helping the ones in need instead of on yourself.

No, this has nothing to do with money or material wealth.. or even material comfort. A low entropy being is helping others by just being there for them, showing an example, sharing in wisdom, interacting with people. By not having some of those thing you list, you severely limit the "functionality" of the low entropy being, and the effect it can have on the surroundings. There is no balance in your definition of helping others. Maybe I shouldn't have written "everything", what is meant is everything of your being.. not "stuff".

But I think it's still a valid question. Let's say a person from a 3rd world country who was very poor and starving met you...and asked, "I noticed you have a nice house, a nice car, a nice computer, a nice TV, a nice cell phone, a nice music collection, you take nice vacations, and you have many other material comforts. If you are a low entropy person, how come you spend so much money on yourself instead of using that money to help people like us who are starving or those in need?"