Let’s extrapolate the concept of free will with a wild abandon.
If there exists potential free will, free of any physical restrictions, that free will cannot have been created as time is a physical property. Thus the free will supersedes the physical universe, or co-existed with the physical universe if it has always been here.
As the free will causes changes in the physical universe, it represents the “cause” and space, energy and time is the “effect” of the free will acting.
Now if the physical universe is truly “effect” it is not capable of causing anything – it has no will of its own. The free will on the other hand can not be affected by anything except by its own choice. Therefore, anything that the free will experiences is by its own volition. By choosing otherwise, the free will experiences otherwise.
While the physical universe is total effect, the free will to be truly free is total cause.
Whereas free will changes by its own choice, its choice may be swayed – by its experiences and thus its choices. A feedback mechanism is then seen as the free will chooses its own experiences and is then affected by them. This may lead to the free will apparently loosing control of its will by association and believing it has less free will. It will then act as less free, less “cause”. To change this feedback mechanism, the free will can be coerced by an other free will to believe it is more “cause” and less “effect” and hence bring the situation under control of the free will once again.
Any coercion will do as long as the free will believes the solution presented will work. This may explain how many people are helped by a wide plethora of practices aimed at bettering the individual. It may also explain the Placebo effect.
A few notes:
- In this discussion of the free will, one could simply reduce the it to a descussion of whether “will” exists at all. Forget “free will”. Does “will” exist? If the answer is “yes”, reality is neither purely deterministic and/or random. “Will” is that other factor beyond determinism and quantum randomness.
- By “choice” is meant the possibility of “will” being exercised.
- A case can be made for the physical universe and the many “wills” within it being a whole rather than two separate concepts – where the physical universe is the result of a consensus of the “wills” involved.
Geir Isene - uncut 
excellent exposition..
the only point I would ask you to reconsider is the ‘total X’ postulate. The Universe does not allow for ‘absolutes’. ‘will’ through the act of exerting itself produces ’cause’ and ‘effect’ as a co-dependent phenomenon, a prime polarity, that is ‘splitting’ the power of the Being the very moment it enters the shared Universe.
And the question remains: “within the shared Universe are the choices that people are making already ‘programmed’ by the massive number of prior agreements with self/others or is it possible to truly ‘choose’ independently of the given situation and co-players?”
I like this discussion.
Could it be that free will is monitored/restricted by understanding?
And by understanding, I literally mean “standing” plus “under.” And that would be the individual’s concept of the forces and influences he operates under.
So if the individual operates on the basis that another individual or the physical universe is responsible for or is the source of a particular state of affairs or conditions then it is not possible to exercise free will outside of that set of limitations.
If the understanding changes, then the scope of free will could change as well.
True – but this is also only bound by the Will’s own considerations. Nothing else binds it.
Where there’s a will there’s a way. Where there’s no will, there may be another’s will and thus, a way.
I wonder where the consideration to be bound by your own considerations come from? I think it has to come from a thought universe, but above that there has to be something senior to thought, and it’s a static, or the only actuality and that has to have nothing senior to it, or there is no actuality. Yet there is one. I hear LRH talk about how we’re not all one but I think it’d have to be one source starting it. Saying “but there’s no time of any kind” is kind of like, well…
But luckily the Q’s are only “the highest point from which we’re now operating” and not the highest point necessarily, so there’s still plenty of questions.
Whenever I squarely face it logically, I can see only that everything’s stringed up to one source with nothing senior to it which determines everything, and so we’re all parts, or all of the whole, and so there’s gotta be destiny, and no self determinism. Or, anyone on strings is capable of influencing the whole source because they’re part and parcel to it. But they always have to influence the whole source because there’s actually no “parts” to it. There’s can’t be, it’s a singular source. Blow anyone’s mind?
Geir, wonderful post!