Rupert Spira ‘Just say Yes’

This isn't strictly related to the OP, so tell me if it bothers you and I'll move it Stan (I'm calling you Stan because that's your nick but damn I find that hard ) - but it's a Spira video I found interesting and it relates to this subforum because it's philosophical discussions.

It's Spira explaining how we don't control our thoughts, it's an illusion, and so in that sense there is no free will (?) - anyhow, I found myself convinced by his arguments. Whatever that ends up meaning in the end!

Dunno what he’s saying there, it sounds very muddled, imprecise and probably wrong to me (if I could understand it).

We all make observations about the world. We then make up stories which enable us to join up these observations, as a way of understanding them. Ancient societies may have worshipped and made offerings to make the sun come up every morning, and that the sun would then come up after their worshipping, just proves the story, yes?. But they are not right. In the same way today, any stories we tell ourselves as a way of joining up our observations, are still just that, stories. They may be massive improvements on the older stories, they may be wonderfully predictive, and very useful. but they still will not be correct, they will not be how nature actually works. This goes for all of the sciences too. Nature is not organising itself using our stories (well that’s still unclear), but our stories do not accurately describe nature’s underlying systems, our stories are just approximations.

Your thoughts may not be completely under your control, but I think it is necessary to separate your thoughts in this moment, from how those thoughts come about, and those thoughts seem to be built up from everywhere *but* this moment. Your thoughts in this moment are just the sum of everything else outside of this moment. We can show that your past thoughts influence your future thoughts.

But you still seem to get some sort of choice - within the degrees of freedom available to you - about which thought or behaviour to pursue. And you appear able choose to increase your degrees of freedom, by learning. And after your learning, your thoughts and behaviour may change, with the increased degrees of freedom you now have available to you, giving you even more choices.

If you want to describe to others, how free will actually works here, in our shared world, well I think you may be disappointed. I’m not certain it’s possible. All you can probably do is tell a better story. But the story won’t be the truth...

This isn't strictly related to the OP, so tell me if it bothers you and I'll move it Stan (I'm calling you Stan because that's your nick but damn I find that hard ) - but it's a Spira video I found interesting and it relates to this subforum because it's philosophical discussions.

It's Spira explaining how we don't control our thoughts, it's an illusion, and so in that sense there is no free will (?) - anyhow, I found myself convinced by his arguments. Whatever that ends up meaning in the end!

Ian, I welcome such videos/discussions and feel free to call me what you want. The only real advantage of having this name is that I am unlikely to be taken for that scallywag Steve007 when things occasionally get personal.

I’ve watched the video once, I’d maybe have to watch it a few times to ‘get it’ properly. There have been diamonds among his videos that have really resonated with me, no doubt different videos of his may do the same with others, as this one appears to have done with you. I watch most/all(?) of his videos as I am linked to his YouTube channel. I just don’t get or agree with him on occasion, but he’s definitely worth listening to, not just for the diamonds he sometimes produces. He appears to be well respected by a number of the types I follow, an example being Bernardo Kastrup.





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 All you can probably do is tell a better story. But the story won’t be the truth...

Hi Max

I think this may generally be the case, but I also think that some are much ‘closer to truth’ than others, and some might even hit the bullseye. A couple of examples come to mind here: Mathematics. I think 2 + 2 = 4 is far closer to truth than most stories we tell. However ‘love is the most powerful force/energy’ is a non mathematical example of a story that I think might be ‘closer to truth’ or even hits the mark.

Hi Max

I think this may generally be the case, but I also think that some are much ‘closer to truth’ than others, and some might even hit the bullseye. A couple of examples come to mind here: Mathematics. I think 2 + 2 = 4 is far closer to truth than most stories we tell. However ‘love is the most powerful force/energy’ is a non mathematical example of a story that I think might be ‘closer to truth’ or even hits the mark.

Yes I agree, I think maths as a language has a lot of error correction built into it, so it survives it's passage through spacetime pretty well, unlike other languages which we use. That also probably has something to do with Maths being a better description of something more fundamental about nature.

Love is one of the major 'attractive-type' feelings, but I don't believe it's anything more than a pattern of coherence. A big one to be sure, but there are plenty of other patterns of coherence, like 'fear', which is a major 'repelling-type' feeling. They all seem to have their role (although some seem less useful than others), some to motivate you towards one direction, like love, and others to motivate you away from a particular direction, like fear. They can all be wonderfully helpful in making ones way through the world, but they are not infallible. In my view, they are a way we have learnt to navigate through 'time', in the same way we take for granted our senses, that allow us to navigate our way through space. (Obviously it is actually spacetime, so both are connected).