Free will or lack of.......

[Vespasian]

6 minutes ago, the village idiot said:

Is it round the back of my Aunt Beryl's, just past the swings, opposite the key cutting place?

Unless your aunt Beryl lives in Israel, you might be a few miles out...

[WesD]

Have you been @Vespasian?

[TIMON]

Apparently the closest estimate is north of Yemen.
Havilah.

[Vespasian]

4 minutes ago, WesD said:

Have you been @Vespasian?

No, I've no interest in going but I had a good time hunting it down, that is to my satisfaction..

 

No, Timon its in Jerusalem..  or was in Jerusalem. The Romans destroyed it when they destroyed the Temple.  You can thank my namesake Vespasian for that..   

 

Oh and the Temple isn't were people think it was, The temple mount was a Roman garrison in olden times...  The Temple was to one side of the Roman garrison just above the Gihon spring..  look on google earth for the location of the Gihon Spring and you have the location of Eden..  

[WesD]

@the village idiot if a thought pops into your head (auto output) can you stop yourself from deliberating on it or thinking about whatever that thought may be and think about something else completely different?

[the village idiot]

6 minutes ago, WesD said:

@the village idiot if a thought pops into your head (auto output) can you stop yourself from deliberating on it or thinking about whatever that thought may be and think about something else completely different?

No, I don't believe I can. That sequence of events certainly occurs but I don't see any way there can be an 'I' in control of it.

 

From a day to day perspective it feels as though one is able to do this, but much time spent in meditation shows this not to be the case.

 

Mindfulness meditation practice over time usually has the effect of 'increasing the space' between (or around) the thoughts.

[WesD]

10 minutes ago, the village idiot said:

No, I don't believe I can. That sequence of events certainly occurs but I don't see any way there can be an 'I' in control of it.

 

From a day to day perspective it feels as though one is able to do this, but much time spent in meditation shows this not to be the case.

 

Mindfulness meditation practice over time usually has the effect of 'increasing the space' between (or around) the thoughts.

So if I ask you to think about different types of fruit which you will, automatically, you believe you can’t stop yourself and turn your thoughts to say what you have planned tomorrow or any other subject matter?

[onetruth]

5 minutes ago, WesD said:

So if I ask you to think about different types of fruit which you will, automatically, you believe you can’t stop yourself and turn your thoughts to say what you have planned tomorrow or any other subject matter?

You might have the thought: "I want to stop thinking about fruits", but you probably don't have the thought: "I want to think that I want to stop thinking about fruits".

[the village idiot]

2 minutes ago, WesD said:

So if I ask you to think about different types of fruit which you will, automatically, you believe you can’t stop yourself and turn your thoughts to say what you have planned tomorrow or any other subject matter?

Correct.

 

The nearest thing I can conceive to be what could possibly be called 'me' (conciousness) can observe the change in thoughts. 

 

That's it.

[WesD]

1 minute ago, onetruth said:

You might have the thought: "I want to stop thinking about fruits", but you probably don't have the thought: "I want to think that I want to stop thinking about fruits".

If you receive an automated thought by its very nature your brain automatically wants you to think of that, it would be very counter intuitive to cut itself off mid thought and offer something else up. Surely by virtue the thought our brain sent us, it would want us to follow it through and run it’s natural time span before moving us on with something else?

 

Its strange how our our attention span differs with subjects we are interested in to those we aren’t.