Barbra,
I had been terribly busy with work and did not open Gather for nearly three months. Today when I logged in, I saw your message. I am glad you found in my article something to support you at a moment of need.

I am sorry for such terribly delayed response.

I believe astral body should refer to the same thing as suksham shareer.

Jean,
In Hindu scriptures it is called "suksham shareer" where suksham has the meaning of "very small", "minute" etc. and can be taken in the sense of un-perceptible. Shareer means body. Generally, people translate it as subtle body or ethereal body. There is no reason why it cannot be called "light body". The idea is to convey that there is something apart from the physical body.

Beautiful or not, I am one of its regular readers --- and an admirer.

Dean,
MAY-NOTs will remain as long as human knowledge is based on logical derivations. And perhaps it is good in a way. Once all the MAYs and MAY-NOTs become IS and IS-NOTs, you will have no subject left for your beautiful poetry --- and that will be a big loss!

The article I wrote on inspiration from Dean had a number of words joined together without spaces. After correcting it I have now reposted it on the following link:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977209539

John and Dean,
In my article I have deliberately avoided the bigger, philosophical angle while exploring the question of free will. I have started by accepting the purely scientific view of a physical brain that carries out innumerable biochemical activities in its 10 billion cells. My argument is that the very change of non-living matter into the patterned molecular activity we call life introduces decision-making by the living organism. This decision-making exists in as trivial a creature as the cockroach, because even in the case of the cockroach, unlike the ball, the ultimate behaviour it will execute cannot be determined and predicted in advance. This unpredictability of the behaviour of a living creature is its exercise of free will. My argument is: non-living matter is entirely controlled by the physical forces around it; the living matter makes a choice, even if of the most preliminary nature.

I have deliberately avoided the higher, moral issues in free will, because my purpose is to prove that even the most mechanistic view of the brain as the seat of mind does not rule out free will. My argument is that free will is built into the very texture of life, even if we take the most primeval form of life. When that is so, there can be no doubts about the exercise of free will by humans.

Dean, I still differ when you suggest that just because the present is built out of the building blocks gathered from the past, therefore, it is uncreative. If you dismantle a building and use all the bricks to create a new design, will you call the new design uncreative just because it is built from old blocks. Let us say that 99.999999% is old. Even then something is new and creative in it, isn't it? All creativity is essentially a recreation of the past in a new design, but that does not make it a mere copy-and-paste. The blocks have been copied-and-pasted all right, but not the pattern in which these are re-arranged. The pattern is new and creative --- unless, of course, it is deliberate plagiarism! So, in my mind I am very clear that your "own
crude mortal quest" is not a duplication of anything that has ever happened before in this universe.

The ability to choose among the innumerable alternatives, which is available to the living and not to the non-living is, in my opinion, the essence of free will. Of course you are free to exercise this free will and believe that free will does not exist!

Dean,

You wrote: "Working backward, how does a mind benefiting from circumstance and experience, improve itself?"

I do not presume to know the process that makes the mind improve its functioning. I have read of theories and believe that an extra-sensory power would have worked to bring about the improvements. Unless the evolving organisms of yesteryears could step out of their bodies and look at themselves from outside, it would be unimaginable to think how the evolving organism could plan, architect-like, that the eyes needed to be shifted this way or that for better vision or the body of the bird should be made slender to reduce air-resistance. Without stepping out of the body, such planning would seem impossible. I earnestly believe that esp was at work. Incidentally --- may be because I meditate several times a day --- I have more experiences of esp than I can explain by sheer coincidence. I believe 100% in the existence of esp.

"And isn't it quite a leap to go from there to a mind that has free will, without
accepting that past environmental and mechanistic factors actually determined
that free will?"

I believe the essence of free will is whether your behaviour is the one-and-only one possible in the given circumstances, as in the case of the non-living ball, or an infinite number of behaviours are made possible by the operation of what I call intelligence. In case of the cockroach, infinite number of responses are possible and hence it is impossible to predict in advance as to what exactly will happen. To restate it differently, if you were given all the details of the various forces acting on the ball, you could draw a graphic on paper to show the exact path (the only possible path) on which the ball will travel. You cannot do this in case of the cockroach, because another deciding factor, i.e. intelligence, has entered the scenario, thus making infinite paths of movement possible, the actual path depending upon what the cockroach does.

My logic of free will is based on the transition from the non-living where the outcome is entirely due to outside factors and the living in which there is another factor that enters the scene --- the factor that I call intelligence. I deliberately gave the example of the cockroach to emphasise that as trivial a creature as the cockroach plays a role in "deciding" the outcome.

Instead of taking a philosophical view of free will, I have tried to give it a simple criterion --- can the outcome be determined in advance without taking into account what the cockroach does? You say we are automatons because a lot of our behaviour is determined by what we have learnt in the past. Would you say there is nothing original in your son playing a symphony because everything he is doing is learned by him.

"even though an enlightened mind may deal more efficiently with problems in the future, can it as pure mind, apart from the mechanical function of its brain"

It is not my argument that mind is independent of the brain. I have argued that the mind is probably analogous to the electro-magnetic field that arises around a current-carrying conductor. Mind is probably some sort of energy field that arises due to the bio-chemical activities within the brain. It may be a form of energy or some totally new entity yet to be discovered. I don't think mind can exist independently of the brain. I don't know if any of the religions also says this. If mind could exist without brain, it would become soul.

"we still do not really understand the mystery of consciousness. "

I started out by saying that after a certain stage I have gone to making logical assumptions. So, I claim no finality to what I have said.

"all I am doing is pasting achievement onto past achievement, and kidding myself that I am creative. I'm really kind of a phony, am I not?"

I beg to differ. The Greeks would even say that the river keeps changing every split second because the water in it is no longer the water that flowed a moment ago. Even you and I are no longer what we were yesterday. A lot of what made part of us yesterday has passed out through urine and feces, and a lot that we ate has become a part of us. In this world nothing is static. So, how could you be totally static in a world where nothing is static. Is your poetry uncreative because it uses the same words Shakespeare used? Or talks of issues that Moliere wrote about? I want to bring you back to my definition of free will. If I knew all the circumstances in which you are going to create a poem and if I could then exactly produce the poem that you are going to write, then I would say that you have no free will and no creativity. . But if with the best of tools to study your circumstances I cannot predict what you will write, then you are exercising a free will which is independent of your circumstances.

The crucial question then is: can tools be invented some day which would make it possible to exactly produce in advance a poem that Mr. Syncro is going to write by merely studying his past and present circumstance and without any reference to what is currently going on in his mind? I believe such tools are not possible.

Dean,
You may like to go through this article:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977209539

Dean,
In my opinion, consciousness is the integration of intelligence, and intelligence is a property of living matter. Intelligence is what distinguishes the living from the non-living.

Even the organelles within a living cell carry out their multifarious biochemical processes in a manner marked by intelligence and decision-making --- decision-making in the sense that one of the innumerable possible alternative courses of action is chosen, even though this choice may be built into the biochemical formulas and thus predetermined.

The cumulative intelligence generated by all the biochemical processes of the body is what we call consciousness. Any definition of consciousness as independent of biochemical activity may be good philosophy but repugnant to rigorous scientific thinking.

Now the question is whether the integrated intelligence called consciousness that emerges from the uncountable biochemical processes, of which the self is one aspect, is so bound and determined by those biochemical reactions that it cannot generate a set of biochemical reactions called "free will". I believe it can. Some day, perhaps, science will demonstrate the ability of the integrated intelligence to generate biochemical reactions rather than being a mere passive product of these reactions.

John,
I agree when you say: "You do the thing I speak of here many times every day, or you could not be patient and reasonable."

And yet, after our conversation, I realise that trying to further develop the ability to surrender to the experience by switching off what you call "the reactive memory" could be a good way of sensitising the mind. I'll try this.

Thanks.

I agree.

It is a difficult situation indeed. If I were in his situation, I would hesitate to tell. The chances of her knowing are little, but the chances of permanent bitterness after a confession would be very high.

Yes, Georgiana, or else we would not be talking to each other today. A few decades ago we would have little chance of interacting.

Bernie,
This type of sincere and well-meaning debates are what make Gather what it is. Thanks for your interest in the article.

John,
I agree and accept. May be I'll try to silence my past experiences and try to observe the pure experience for what it is. Perhaps it will take time --- months, years, may be. But certainly it will add a dimension to my understanding of things.

Thanks for all your comments.

Georgiana,
Your expression "blind faith" itself describes the nature of such faith. How can what is blind show you the way? As you rightly say, the self should undertake its own explorations.

John,
While trying to understand complex phenomena, in your case you try to capture the experiences as they are --- poetically, as you say --- I try to reduce them to as clear a statement as possible. This results in our different approaches. Starting in different directions, we are moving closer to the same goal --- the goal of understanding the complex processes of the mind.

Over the days, I have learnt to take your expression of your experiences as complex and deep rather than unclear. That is why I did not complain of it but tried to understand it.