Omniscience of Divine Being.

Ramesh also likes to offer the image of an individual life as a long mural say 50 miles long. You can't see it all at once although it exists. We walk along the mural of our life and so it appears it unfolds in time but the end already exists, just as the end of Hamlet was written before the play was performed.lfen

Hangdawg,Are you saying that? I wouldn't say that. How does "knowing" equate to "determining"??? Say I see two cars on a collison course but that doesn't mean I can prevent the collison nor that I determined it.This is a major question. I hope that in time you will give it serious thought. What is "will"? And can it be "free" or not? I'm mean this question in a scientific sense not a question about religious dogma.Another question, do you think God is more complex or less complex than a human being?lfen

Hi Dawg,You probably have guessed that I would think "marriage" is one way some people have described how they see the relationship of God and humans. There are a lot of cultural, social, psychological basis for this. I'm not sure where you get that a man and woman can "be one in body and soul". It's a sentiment but have you any scientific basis for this? You seem to be reasoning from presciencific metaphors.I'm thinking that the notion of freewill could arise from the experience we have of conflict over decisions. This arises from the complexity of the brain and hence the complexity of brain actions.
I'll propose an issue that seems both important but neutral in the sense of hot issues of faith. It's something I'm dealing with now and that is choosing what to eat and what not to eat.Based on the information I've read and reports from my Doctor, I've decided to change my diet in a direction I believe will result in greater health. I love desserts of all sorts and liked many convenience foods but now I choose not to buy and eat ice cream and instead purchase and eat whole fresh fruits and vegetables.
I prefer the taste and pleasures and convenience of ice cream and candy to vegetables. I have internal conflicts from time to time as part of me wants a pint of ice cream and another part of me is concerned about what that will do to my blood sugar and cholestral.
I think this is an internal conflict and somehow as my complex brain weighs a lot of factors behaviours eventually emerge. Sometimes I decide to "cheat" and have some sweets but more often I resigned myself to eating a healthier food. This involves motivation and will (a subjective sense of effort).I think a major function of religion is the control of behaviour through motivation; the carrot and stick of heaven and hell. In my case instead of religion I'm citing medicine and the carrot is health and energy and the stick is heart disease and type II diabetes.This conflict does seem to depend on my being conscious, but where in this do I find a "free" will? I don't know if you will find this example interesting or useful. Let's say that I had access to omniscience. How might that change my experience of this? Would I have to engage my will? Would I feel a conflict? or would I be in complete harmony with my life as lived? Let's say I could know for certain that eating so much of certain fats would result in my having a heart attack or that I would die in a car accident and that eating ice cream would have no effect on that?lfen

Hangdawg,Would you also accept a "what" is doing the determining? I'm thinking of some complex of neurons and information in a matrix of a larger ecosystem. I will assert that a "who" is an illusion that seems to create a separate and independent "actor" when the reality is the system is acting in a great complexity of interactions one of which we call for convenience "me or I" and another we call "you" or "he".lfen

A Christian's approach to this would be Bernadette Roberts' book THE EXPERIENCE OF NO SELF. The advaita sage Ramana Maharshi or Wayne Liquorman give a good understanding of this. Basically you need to examine your sense of being a separate self. A vast number of temporary patterns exist on all scales in this universe. None of them consitute separate things but only the appearance of separate things. What you call God is all there is and there only appear to be other separate things existing.lfen

Pantheism is a concept as is monotheism. Have you read Roberts' book?lfen

Hangdawg,I'm more interested in where does "what you want" come from. Do we have the freewill to choose what we want? My short answer is "No". Even if what we want is to inhibit a desire we think is unsuitable? And recursion on that can get a bit dizzy. You seem to be approaching the nondual formulation here. I like this but am a little surprised that you are getting this close. Pleased but surprised.As to Libet I see his books are in the library. I need to read them as I had thought his research demonstrated the lack of free will but he has written a book arguing for it. I myself think free will is a botched concept for the fact that the organism is the locus of conditioning and thus must be "held responsible" by a system in order to modify behaviour.lfen

Hangdawg,Here is a good summation of the readiness potential. Now I want to read Libet's latest book to see how he finds for free will in this.lfen

That sounds like a way to choose books and to use some books however I think there are books that I choose to read and reread in order to understand the author. It's good to be flexible. Roberts first book is small but tells a story that I think to understand you would have to start at the beginning and read through it and then maybe give it one more going over. On the other hand it's entirely up to you. It just seemed to me that you were trying to sum up her position from a quote and the whole thing missed what she was writing about.gotta run to work,
lfenABE: ps, I like libraries or used book stores, or locally owned book stores, I personally don't shop at Walmart, or Barnes and Noble but stay local.This message has been edited by lfen, 05-13-2005 01:02 PM

Interesting distinction but I'm not sure what is being distinguished. How does WHO differs from WHAT? And then why is WHO more important than WHAT?lfen

And what about believers who have animated encounters with a living personality like Krishna, Kalli Ma, Shiva, Tara, Allah, and etc?lfen

Hangdawg,I agree. I am at present more drawn to the problem of the power to decide which appears to a a neuronal response. There is also as you mention or alluded to the ability to inhibit a response that has begun.The problem of the self I think gets subtler perhaps because it involves behaviours that aren't observable? At present I'm content to take the self as a reference to an organism. This is a naturalist approach and you may find it too limited as it excludes unobservable or "supernatural" phenomena.I do strongly favor the naturalist approaches of science but ultimately I don't limit my thinking to naturalist conclusions. So though I use a naturalist approach I think my interest in the non dual teachings takes me beyond a pure naturalist perspective. On the other hand I'm very skeptical of the traditional explanations of religion but so are many teachers of the nondual.lfen

Hangdawg,Congratulations on finishing another year of school. Enjoy your vacation time as it sounds like you are.Your comments remind me of how much yours and Phat's approach to religion is what the Hindu's would call bhakti, or devoted love of God. One appreciation I have of Hinduism (I'm not a convert) is the recognition that different personality types respond to different approaches to spirituality, or God. Some people need a strong personal loving devotion often to a human, or incarnated form of divinity. Others express through service (karma yoga) and others through perceptive insight and meditation.lfen

Phat,I think you are right about that. I think I was using it in a looser sense to mean some specific form of deity. I know in Hinduism that some of the gods are non human for example Hanuman who is a monkey.My approach to spirituality tends to be intellectual. What Hinduism would call Jnana yoga. Interested in understanding and direct seeing of What Is.I suppose philosophical dualism is closer to the dualism that I refer to. I'm referring to psychological dualism which is to say the experience of the self, the sense of I am, and the sense that the rest of the universe is not self, is other. This is to say the dualism I refer to is the subject object dualism. The nondual is the state where the subject and the object are not separate, not two.The experience of the nondual is something that occurs in some people independent of their religion and culture. It is the basis of the teaching of the Buddha and became the flower of Hinduism, but it is also central to Sufism in Islam, and is has arisen in contemplative Christianity at least within Catholicism.The "solution" to the appearance of duality is when the illusion of the self evaporates. This solution is unnappealing to bhakti types because it involves the loss of the beloved as an object of love and devotion.lfen

Hangdawg,Keep in mind that although I work from a naturalist position that I don't hold that naturalism is sufficient nor is it my goal to reduce everything to a naturalist explanation or description.I'm going to focus in more detail on your statement about illusion and the alternative "real". I offer two examples to help us sort out our references. Phantom limb sensation is one but although I believe the accounts on phantom limb I've not had a limb amputated so haven't personally experienced it.Have you done that experiment where you cross your middle finger over your index finger and then felt a marble or ball bearing with your fingertips? When I did it and I've read that when most people do it it feels like you are feeling TWO marbles yet you can look and touch with uncrossed fingers to verify ONE marble. So my question is what sort of reality do feelings report? And to who do they report?lfen