The link between free will and determinism - He says "Be" and it is!
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This I believe is a fairly profound insight; take any object, such as a cup. What caused the cup? The first cause is something we call "ALLAH" or in science, "the big bang singularity". Keeping this in mind, let's say I have crafted the cup in front of you.
Now, who created that shape of the cup? If you say that the structure "OPF" created the cup, even with your perfect eyewitness evidence, you are a liar, you are giving an incomplete testimony! Surely the air particles played their role, the walls of the room, the sounds in the air, the light, the shadows, everything! If we consider this, the entire universe played a part! So clearly one cannot look at anything in the universe as a separate entity when considering its creation. However it is a solid indisputable truth that "I" (not the nonexistent "OPF" created the cup!
Now, nobody questions how the stars came into being, how the planets perfectly found their points of equilibrium, yet we still ask about human free will, as if it is any different. Hell, we don't even consider animal free will! Going back to our cup - we can come to an amicable conclusion - the cup willed itself into existence. Yet, we know for sure that a cup is a dead object, it cannot will anything, how could it possibly will itself into existence?
Even yet, it seemingly has; there can be no disagreement here. To clarify the situation here we must bring in some insights from physics. For instance, it takes 8 minutes for light to reach us from the sun. Supposing someone zapped the sun into non-being with their atomic obliterator ray but they told us they would do it, we would have 8 minutes of time in which to decide what the heck we're gonna do. After 8 minutes, the sun would disappear from the sky!
This means that there is a degree of predestination in everything. Everything is decided right here, right now. You take input from the past which is everything around you and in the present moment, you decide what to do with it. In physics, this is described by something called the light cone, an imaginary sphere which expands with time at the speed of light that dictates what is possible and what is not possible. Using the sun example, we have 8 minutes of time to do anything possible within that 8 minute light cone.
Taking note of the above, this leads us to an obvious truth, that the set of possible actions within a particular timeframe is a finite number. An incredibly striking conclusion to draw from this is that free will is not a phenomenon but a mathematically quantifiable number, like temperature and mass! What does this have to do with free will? It means that everything is semi-predetermined, that free will is something that takes place in the present moment. More importantly, who is willing it? Let's get to the sweet nectar, if the stars are "predetermined" to be, then it must have been decided from the big bang that they must exist.
But if that is true then this is perfectly true of the cup! Surely stars cannot will themselves into being, man cannot will himself into being, a cup cannot will itself into being but ALLAH wills everything into being. Indeed if we consider the situation of the cup with a sharp mind, we find that consciousness/free will permeates the entire universe, it is not restricted to a vanishingly small subset of it called "human beings", what an ignorant idea! With all this in mind, I ask you to reread verses such as 4111, are they not self evident now?
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Salaam
I always find your posts insightful so keep posting brother.
I'm trying to get my head around what you wrote though. If i'm right in reading what you wrote then you are saying that which we think/will has always existed/created with Allahs help. I do agree with this statement if that is what you are stating.
My understanding of us and the universe is like this
We are experiencing this universe like a virtual game. The real us/nafs is situated in a virtual reality body that can experience this universe/reality, kinda like a spacesuit. Allah is the ultimate programmer of this universe/reality and knows the outcome before the program comes to an end. The program has many creatures including humans and non-humans who have have free will BUT only within the defined parameters set by the programmer/Allah.
I find this example for me the best way to explain free will. I also believe free will is not limited to just humans but animals too. This would explain why Allah states in the quran they are a community like you and they will be gathered too by their Lord.
Hope I've not derailed off the topic too much just wanted to add my 2 cents and possibly expand further on your interesting insights.
PEACE
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To sum up what I'm trying to say, the answer to the question "do we have free will" is "yes, we do but there's a certain maximum amount at a given time". There is no argument of whether our actions are predestined and thus we aren't responsible, or whether we have free will and hence responsibility. The answer as said is that we have a degree of responsibility which we can actually put a number to. Clearly this is going to be a focal point of judgement day.
What I also state is that free will is not limited to ANYTHING, a brick has just as much free will as us, the most developed beings in the observed universe! Consciousness pervades the universe, we are not individual souls in individual bodies, we are the shapeless and formless water of the sole spirit running through the intricately crafted pipework we know as the human body. Simply put, I am you inside a different body. Your game analogy is exactly how I see this reality, we are the game's software engine (spirit), not just the characters.
Ego/nafs is the computer's software/hardware configuration, soul/ruh is the electricity that makes them all run.
To further sum up what I am saying; right now I have the choice of moving my hand up, down, left, right, etc. If I move my hand up, that is now the "past", and it was decided to be from the birth of the universe! The same is true of any direction and such a thing is indisputable. This is the meaning of "He says Be and it is", that everything is the will of the creator no matter what it is.
Imagine that thing that exists at the beginning of time as the puppet master, we are the puppets. The nafs is the puppet, the ruh is the puppet master (hence 3872). To be enlightened/mu'min (see 4914) is to merely acknowledge that your transient form-having nafs is the puppet, that you actually are the eternal, formless ruh.
This is not a difficult thing to do but the nafs will throw everything at you to avoid it, to realise turns the tables on the power the nafs has. After this realisation, the nafs is your bitch. The nafs works with shaitan to bring about learning via pain, the ruh works with allah to bring about bliss.
All of these things have been said by seekers of truth millenia ago, this is nothing new!
Peace, and happy new year
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Salaam,
To further sum up what I am saying; right now I have the choice of moving my hand up, down, left, right, etc. If I move my hand up, that is now the "past", and it was decided to be from the birth of the universe! The same is true of any direction and such a thing is indisputable. This is the meaning of "He says Be and it is", that everything is the will of the creator no matter what it is.
7630
7630 And you cannot will unless Allah wills. Allah is Knowledgeable, Wise.
Imagine that thing that exists at the beginning of time as the puppet master, we are the puppets. The nafs is the puppet, the ruh is the puppet master (hence 3872). To be enlightened/mu'min (see 4914) is to merely acknowledge that your transient form-having nafs is the puppet, that you actually are the eternal, formless ruh.
You mean like in Matrix movie? !
May Allah guide us all towards the truth. pr
Mohammed M. Khan -
Can you recommend any literature that further expounds on the concept that your talking about?
PEACE
For a thorough study of this topic you might want to read the works of Hume to understand determinism and then tackle the ideas of Kant (pronounced 'kunt'... yes that's right, kunt... grow up and stop giggling) who discusses what he believes to be the incoherence of mechanical determinism.
For more light reading, try googling 'determinism refuted' and you'll find a lot of material expounding much of what OPF has said.
Hope that helps.
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Peace OPF,
Even yet, it seemingly has; there can be no disagreement here. To clarify the situation here we must bring in some insights from physics. For instance, it takes 8 minutes for light to reach us from the sun. Supposing someone zapped the sun into non-being with their atomic obliterator ray but they told us they would do it, we would have 8 minutes of time in which to decide what the heck we're gonna do. After 8 minutes, the sun would disappear from the sky!
This means that there is a degree of predestination in everything. Everything is decided right here, right now. You take input from the past which is everything around you and in the present moment, you decide what to do with it. In physics, this is described by something called the light cone, an imaginary sphere which expands with time at the speed of light that dictates what is possible and what is not possible. Using the sun example, we have 8 minutes of time to do anything possible within that 8 minute light cone.
Thank you for this profound and thought provoking post. I would like to add a small provokation. )
It is a correction to what you said about us having 8 minutes of time before we realize that the sun has been obliterated. Earth and Jupiter and Pluto would immediately feel the effect of the obliteration of the sun at the same exact moment and would all instanteneously be sent hurling into space. The "speed" of gravity is in fact faster than the speed of light.
Now things get more interesting )
For example, since nothing in this universe can travel faster than the speed of light this means that gravity is actually coming from outside our universe or as you call it the domain of the "ruh".
Your discussion about causality as it relates to time and hence speed now takes an interesting turn. Since gravity is instanteneous this means it has infinite speed. This would imply that it has no causality.
Peace,
Ayman
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Peace, thanks for the replies!
Another interesting thought is that you DO in fact have free will (to choose and decide), it's just that you have already made your future decisions...
Actually, you haven't made your future decisions except to a certain degree. All your decisions are made here and now. Imagine a picture that is rapidly changing because there are so many artists, and you are an artist inside a paintbrush. What will you do with your paintbrush? Actually, you don't need to imagine at all, just look around, hehe!
Peace,
Ayman
Thanks for the insight into gravity, you mean to say it is "non local"? I'll have to read up on this. Actually, my life's work is probably headed in this direction so I'll get back to you in 15 years
My current understanding is that there are 2 sets of laws that completely determine this universe. There are the fixed fundamental constants (such as fine structure, the mass ratios between particles, etc) and the laws that control how these things influence everything, which we are slowly discovering in physics. This is what I believe the quran calls "the balance" (559), these are the scales of justice themselves! This is the sole source of determinism in the universe. The flawlessness of the creator displays itself here for the keen eye. All of this stuff is handled by the speed of light/information. This is the "hardware".
The second law, guess what the second law is? YOU are the second law of the universe! It is all free will. This, I believe is what the quran refers to as Al-Kitab. Every decision made leaves a trace. It makes one set of things IMPOSSIBLE and makes another set of things possible - observe the truth of this verse in this light
2373 - O men! Here is a parable set forth! listen to it! Those on whom, besides Allah, ye call, cannot create (even) a fly, if they all met together for the purpose! and if the fly should snatch away anything from them, they would have no power to release it from the fly. Feeble are those who petition and those whom they petition!
This second law is encoded in what physicists call the "wavefunction". It merely defines what is possible/likely and not possible in the here and now - the observer controls the wavefunction and how it changes over time by making decisions. This is the free will aspect of the universe, the software. Funnily enough rather than being controlled by lightspeed this stuff is instantaneous, just as ALLAH's dominion extends over the entire universe, seen and unseen.
Can you recommend any literature that further expounds on the concept that your talking about?
Well I can't recommend any specific names but the corpus of "Vedanta" is a very good start (apart from perhaps this text called "lysergic acid diethylamide" which is a really fun and uh tasty read, the whole text fits onto a quarter square inch of paper!). Actually any kind of truthful spiritual text will have the complete message of the quran within it. These insights tend to be reduced down to a single sentence/verse as we see many times over in the quran. This will sound cheesy and annoying (it was everytime I heard it) but the further expounding begins within yourself.
Peace!
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Hi,
Thank you for this topic.
Let's consider for a moment DejaVu. What is that? - It is a fragment of the recorded future revealed by the All-Mighty.
Is that determined?
- Once I was with the band in a new town I had never visited before (that's consciously). So by arriving, I left my friends and went to sit on a rock on the other side of the road. Just to take a breath and enjoy a view. Upon sitting, bam, original replay! I had been there before.
Till now, I can observe that everything is determined by the data we hold inside.
The people around, even things respond by the state you are in.
Balance is always the answer. From emotional to the food.
God decides where to put you. In your hands is the ability to respond. Response-ability. For what comes thru your Hearing, Eyesight and the Mind.
Free-will implies control. Choice implies freedom.
We have choice. What you do with it, is up to you.
Certainly, remembrance of God is the greatest.
Peace,
R.