Life Plan

[CFTraveler]

Comida! Mmmmm.......

[rapidlearner]

mmm jamon... I take it your not a vegetarian CFtraveler? lol

korpo: If you look at your last post, your basically saying that free will only exists in enlightened meditators. "The average person" does not practice that type of concentration so it would be fair to say they are not enlightened, therefore not having freewill. There would also be an argument that external circumstances cause the person to meditate in the first place i.e. they don't have free will to decide to do it.

To sum up... the real paradox of free will/determinism is that free will can exist only in a determined universe. In order to exercise our free will, our actions must have the potential to effect the outcome of events. Our actions cannot effect an event outcome unless there is a cause-effect relationship. Cause-effect is determinism.

Olderwiser/caelrie: emotion sometimes distorts critical thought, but also strengthens and improves it. Logic is an engine of production which functions more productively when it is carefully melded with feelings like empathy for other points of view or with courageous and creative thinking. All reasoning contains emotion. We are not free to choose which emotion will asist reasoning even if its not the same emotion that we decide not to act on. Our emotions are shaped by our past experiences which we can't escape.

However, I must say that I'm not comfortable with determinism. I feel kind of low defending it. But I don't know if thats a survival mechanism built into my DNA or spiritual intuition. Detatching from emotions and then deciding how to act seems like the closest thing to free will to me (even if its not) and I feel kinda happy with that.

[Tom]

You ARE your karma. Change yourself, change your karma.

[CFTraveler]

mmm jamon... I take it your not a vegetarian CFtraveler? lol

Not lately- I go back and forth with that.

[journyman161]

(It's Inflation - we don't have 2 cents pieces any more... )
There appears to be a need to qualify just what emotions are. Perhaps it is best addressed by looking at the event-reaction cycle.

There is a stimulus. It doesn't matter what it is because it doesn't exist for us until it reaches our senses. But eventually, at the speed of light, the speed of sound, or the speed of gravity, it impinges on our senses. This causes the impinged sense organ to react. These sense organs are cells & they react by causing a chemical change that allows a small electrical impulse to leap across a gap to the next cell. The domino effect leads the impulse up to the brain stem & so into the first of 3 brain levels.

The 3 brains do different things; it has been speculated that they are symptomatic of our evolution - that each step up towards sapience 'layered' new functions on the old structure. As the impulse progresses through these structures, the content is associated with other memories with base survival memories being first accessed. It is possible to react to the event from this level. In fact, under stimuli containing known danger factors, it's recently been shown we can react from further down the body, but that's beside the issue here. In times when the 'event' brings obvious danger, we can react very rapidly, using learned responses to get out of danger.

Then memories of less traumatic times are sorted to find associations. If the situation isn't immediately life threatening, emotions are attached at this level - the associations we have, based on life experiences, cause chemical alterations within the brain chemistry & peptides wash through the system, 'colouring' the initial perception. Thus, a few words, innocuous in themselves, can bring blinding rage or overwhelming love.

Thus far we haven't gone much further than what the higher animals experience. (MRI is a lovely tool) Maybe humans have better memories or better associative processes, but dogs, cats (to an extent) apes & cetaceans all run through these processes. What makes us human is the next step. What is meant to occur is that the entire package, emotions, impulse & associations, is meant to then be looked at by the Being, the Self or the 'I' who sits inside making decisions. This is the step that many people never or rarely achieve - the dispassionate look at an event (or the perceptions of an event) the weighing all the factors, then the decision as to how to react to it.

This step doesn't require one to be a high-class meditator, nor even particularly trained. Both those things would help because they provide a focus on the higher level brain functions or empower the central self as the master of the life, but anyone can teach themselves to pause when emotion hits & ask themselves why am I feeling this? That's is the key to free will, whether or not the Universe is determined.

Without perfect knowledge &/or prognostication of some kind, the Universe could easily be predetermined & we'd never know it. The best we can do is use our experience & knowledge, our emotions & logic, as a package to work out, as best we know, what outcome will follow from a given action. If there are events or factors outside our knowledge that change the outcome, then we learn & make new (& hopefully better) decisions that take the new knowledge into account.

Emotions are a tool, one that, pre-sapience, provided a chance for life forms to react faster according to their history. It was a survival factor that provided context for things that happen. It can still provide context, but in our complex environment, & with the likelihood that as individuals, most of us have had traumatic events in the early years that shape how we react to things, we need to exercise our higher functions.

Emotions rely on the A=A calculation - the 'This event has similar characteristics to that past event so therefore the reaction that enabled survival last time will work again' assumption. What being able to pause to evaluate allows, (rather than react according to the emotional content) is the enacting of new solutions, the design of a life so that the events of the past do not fully determine the future, or even the present.

It's not about controlling emotions - that may or may not be the province of enlightened masters - it's about making sure your emotions don't control you! It's about making your life as much a product of your rational choices as it can be.

And forgiving yourself when you make the poorer choice.

[Psychotronic]

It seems like you are saying emotions are only circumstantial product of a mind. Do you know, what we can do only with dialectic logic? We can ONLY DIE. Do you think our mind is dialectic? Our mind has dialectic systems depending on logic and calculating, but the METHOD we use to work with them is very far from dialectic thinking. Higher processes are manipulating with pure consciousness and other phenomenons we know nothing about them. Emotions are something more than pure logic, they can depend on logic, but we can´t working with them by logic. I discussed something about "animal emotions". It seems like you think we have the same emotions as animals. Emotions are maybe an anomaly, but they are anomaly improving conscious abilities with abnormal success, if we want to do the same thing with logic, we can do nothing, because we can understand nothing. Emotions are a part of principle of understanding. You can never fully understand to something abstract only with logic, it has thousands disadvantages(time, scale, expanding tendency, flexibility etc...).

[journyman161]

It seems like you are saying emotions are only circumstantial product of a mind.

Emotionas aren't actually part of the mind at all, unless you count brain & mind as the same thing. Emotions are very strictly brain-products & have been tracked & described & can be seen operating in real time in MRI's.

Do you know, what we can do only with dialectic logic? We can ONLY DIE.

That's a touch harsh & to be honest, I don't see how I've even referred to dialectical logic. My post deals with how we should use emotions & where some go wrong with the process. Stating that we can only die from any kind of logic shows you have some kind of bug on the subject. It doesn't mean it applies at all to what I say.

Do you think our mind is dialectic? Our mind has dialectic systems depending on logic and calculating, but the METHOD we use to work with them is very far from dialectic thinking. Higher processes are manipulating with pure consciousness and other phenomenons we know nothing about them.

First, if we know nothing about them then you are on shaky fground in panning what I have to say. Higher processes are something about which we can theorise but until someone comes up with a working model & definition for consciousness, making such adamant statements about what it is & how it works is a touch premature.

Emotions are something more than pure logic, they can depend on logic, but we can´t working with them by logic.

Actually, emotions are less than logic - they come from the older more primitive parts of us - logic is an invention of Mind, not nature. It has brought us a long way & while it may not be perfect, nor even the best way to live our lives, it certainly provides a better world than living on emotion. eg. today I was out travelling & a pair of drivers decided that I had offended them by not getting out of the way while they were drag racing. Emotions said to go after them, to find a way to make them pay, to (in extreme cases) kill & hurt to ensure they got what is coming to them. Logic said it wouldn't work, it would cause more trouble than any possible satisfaction, & that the life of my wife beside me was worth 1000 of them. So I let it go & spent a few miles calming myself & restoring my peace of mind. Emotions are not good rulers; nor are they meant to control us. All the masters of whom I've read or heard & all the philosophies of which I've read all state that first we have to get control over our emotions & only then can we begin to progress to better lives.

I discussed something about "animal emotions". It seems like you think we have the same emotions as animals.

Animals do have emotions & near as we can tell, many of them are identical to ours. Some may be more primitive in their expression or have a lesser range, but anyone who has lived with a dog, or followed the research into primates or dolphins would see that what we call emotions certainly exist within the animal world. [/quote]

Emotions are maybe an anomaly, but they are anomaly improving conscious abilities with abnormal success, if we want to do the same thing with logic, we can do nothing, because we can understand nothing. Emotions are a part of principle of understanding. You can never fully understand to something abstract only with logic, it has thousands disadvantages(time, scale, expanding tendency, flexibility etc...).

Again, you seem to have some kind of prejudice against logic, & yet the bad things in our lives come from those who will not control their emotions but instead give in to them & react without thought to the things, real or imagined, that they see being done to them. And interestingly, those not in control of their emotions always see things as being done TO them & rarely have the perspective to see their own part in their lives.

Emotions don't improve any conscious ability until they are under control - if we simply react to emotions there isn't actually any space for anything conscious to happen, unless it's regret once we harm or destroy those around us because of a flash of rage. You may denigrate logic but logic is what tells me that you have your own PoV & are entitled to express it, that lets me realise that those around me have a right to live their lives how they wish & not have to follow what I think is right - emotions tell me otherwise.

I'd be interested to hear your definition for dialectic & what you think constitutes a dialectical process. I think maybe it is undeserving of such disdain.

[Caelrie]

Emotionas aren't actually part of the mind at all, unless you count brain & mind as the same thing. Emotions are very strictly brain-products & have been tracked & described & can be seen operating in real time in MRI's.

I can't even remotely agree with that. I had an NDE, meaning no brain activity at all, and I still felt emotions just fine.

[journyman161]

We may be talking of different things.

Behaviour patterns may easily hang over into the astral because they become part of the being. But here we are talking about emotions experienced in the body & the peptide rush of strong emotion is well mapped. If emotion was of the higher beingness, humans would get into far less trouble. And you have only to think of the last time something sparked strong emotion to realise how difficult it is for the rational being to interrupt the process.

Note I am not saying beings do not feel emotion, just that the expression of emotion in a body is a purely physical reaction to perceived events & the associations made. We don't experience something & think 'Oh I should feel annoyance at that' - we feel annoyance & then wonder why. (or just react by lashing out at the perceived source & find out later they meant nothing at all like we thought they meant.)

What occurs in astral or NDE isn't yet sufficiently well described for me to comment on what goes on during one.

[Psychotronic]

Did you read my post in meditation thread? I was saying, that animals have emotions, it is a sure thing. You can´t think, that I am fool in this way. But what is the TYPE of emotions they have? Yeah, primitive emotions to know, what is good and what is wrong.(something hurts) It is really LESS than logic animals use. But human has something more, he has abstract emotions. For example I know the state of our population with all problems and social anomalies. What I am doing, am I using my logic? am I using abstract emotions? it is sure thing. Logic give me an impulse to do something, I know, that it is right like 1+1=2. Somebody ask me for my opinion to society and I must use logic, if I want to know - it is good to answer him, or it is wrong. It is dialectic, like calculating with number values. But if I want to immediately get wide view to society and its problems and I want to immedietely scatter informations and opinions, I must use abstract emotions in this case or I can some hours giving my informations to unity with poor logic. Abstract emotions-views is something provided by subconsciousness, it is sure thing, that subconsciousness has logic, of course. But the main fact is, that I have no possibility to use logic of subconsciousness or its logic systems, so it isn´t logic for me, it is more than logic, I have not to thinking and considering about that, I simply know it and I can see this view like it is entire part of my logic. It seems like entire part of logic, but we can´t calculate it, because it is a work for subconsciousness, it can do it immediately, we never can do it with logic in fully awake state. If I want to have abstract view, I must use more than logic, because I want to have product of logic without using logic. I can use logic only to have a view, but not to calculate views. It can take me some hours by logic, I can do it immediately with abstract methods.

Can you imagine your life with no emotions, only with logic?? Whole this life is only a big death. We need our emotions like intent, and like system of methods of thinking. Primitive emotions come from primitive(old) parts of brain, abstract emotions come from abstract-improved parts of brain-mind. Can I say that simplier? Very important thing I forget, you must be "healthily" sensible to feel what I am saying, you must know how to work with emotions to get knowledge etc. In another case my words are pointless.