Literally.
That’s what I think at least, and I feel I’ve presented a pretty argument for that here. I think what most people aren’t understanding is that to have free will you must have agency. No agency, no free will. No self, no agency.
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I agree. More generally, anyone very strongly attached to their views about how the world works will not be convinced by the Buddha’s Dhamma. That’s why we see conversations in the suttas where some people are convinced by the Buddha’s teaching and take refuge right then and there whereas others walk away unconvinced.
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If that were so, is that a problem for you?
Definitely not. Like I said before it doesn’t change anything. All it offers is another angle to see anatta directly, otherwise you still go about your life and practice in the same way. It’s only once you completely remove all conceit, that sense of “I am,” that you actually go on directly experiencing it all the time.
And the uncontrollable nature of the aggregates is a major teaching in the suttas. This is the deeper truth of anatta that most people have a difficult time accepting. As I said it’s very counter-intuitive until you start experiencing it directly more and more. The idea of agency is part of the delusion of self that we operate from most of our lives, until you are able to uproot it through the practice. The buddha even explains how it comes to be, with a person coming in contact with the Dhamma, it resonating with them, and then they follow it to its end. All uncontrollable processes throughout. I’m just still not hearing how uncontrollable processes can have free will, how something with no self, no agency, can have free will. There’s really no option where those two things can be reconciled.
@Charlie You did say that maybe we do have a self and the buddha only taught that the aggregates are anatta, but even if that’s true, the buddha said that if there is a self then it has no effect at all on our behavior or thoughts because that’s all contained within the aggregates, so even if it’s there, it has no effect and doesn’t matter. Even if you meant that we are something more than the aggregates and that extra piece still isn’t a self, unless it is a self, then it can’t have agency, there can’t be control. The important thing though is that anything that has anything to do with our thoughts and actions, that has to be one of the 5 aggregates or multiple aggregates working together. Even if there is something else, it doesn’t have anything to do with how we function, the buddha made that part clear.
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I most definitely did not. You’re misrepresenting me.
Oh sorry about that man, I forgot the tag, that last part wasn’t for you. I fixed it.
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Self-determination exists. Will exists. Decision making exists.
However they are all causally arisen (from contact).
If the door bell rings, the sound and ear door will arise, giving rise to consciousness, and then, contact (phassa). Contact will create intension -to open the door. Now this process is pretty much self-contained, and doesn’t require a Self. This is just a string of experiences. That doesn’t mean there is no ability to decide. Decision is just another kink in the chains of cause and effect. Just note that what we thought was a Self, never existed even before. We were able to make decision just fine without it! However we think ‘I’ make decisions- but actually causality makes decisions!
We can make really good decisions without the need for a Self.
with metta
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Right, but the decision we make, that is also uncontrollable. So it really isn’t a freely made decision if theres no agency involved. There’s no self in any of those processes, so regardless isn’t any will. Processes can’t have will. We are just hyper-complex Rube Goldberg Machines possibly with a random number generator. If will is just an uncontrollable process, then it really isn’t will anymore. The way I see it, any aspect of agency must be let go of eventually. I’ve said it a few times, but you cannot have agency if there is no self, and you can’t have free will if there’s no agency. It may be caused and conditioned and everything you said, but that still is not free will. Everyone for some reason really wants free will to be true, even though once they explain their views, they barely believe in it anyways. We don’t need free will for everything to be the same. Like I said before, it actually helps us because it shows even more that there is no self.
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I think this is classified as a wrong view. From MN 2 :
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Well in that sense, most everyone here has wrong view, since most of us all think at least something about how things work. I do agree with you though, totally. I just think this type of wrong view is something that is released in more advanced practitioners. I mean, this is essentially saying you must let go of all views, of any kind. Clinging to any view is a fetter, and only “no view” is actually right view. That makes sense though. I guess I’m just not there yet. Still, even if it is wrong view, there is always going to be something that is more logical than something else, even if it is wrong view as far as cessation of suffering.
Right view must be viewed in the context of the path, which only has one purpose, to end suffering. So right view doesn’t mean true view, it just means right for ending suffering. I mean there is a true reality out there, there is a fact, but I think the point is that trying to figure it out or holding on to any views just brings more suffering and clutters the mind. Subjectivity is the only thing you can trust anyways, so there’s no way you could ever really know external truth. The only thing you can really know for sure is whether you are suffering or not. The state of your experience. Attempting to hold on to anything else is wrong view. I agree with this completely, but until then, it’s still fun to philosophize.
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People come to adopt the view of hard determinism completely independently of Buddhism - I spent some time tripping out about this theory before becoming a Buddhist, after delving into some writings by Dawkins, Dennet, Harris (“The three horsemen of the apocalypse”). So - I’m not convinced that this view is the result of serious meditation practice or Buddhist contemplations. Apparently, it is possible to continue believing in a “self” even after intellectually accepting this view, otherwise there are a lot of physicalist paccekka Buddhas and/or non-Buddhist stream-enterers out there!
I only meant understanding this can be used as a tool toward that end. It certainly doesn’t guarantee it. My meditation practice has only shown me this firsthand, but it isn’t necessary to reach the same conclusion through inference.
Or…
The underlying aggregates create the idea of free will and a self capable of owning that idea. The self then holds the idea as their own.
A different set of aggregates create the idea of no free will and a self that is capable of owning that idea. This other self perceives the first self as holding a different idea and goes into dispute with that self.
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True.
The idea of the Self arises as a labelling error. Ignorance (avijja) represents itself through labelling (sanna) and labels consciousness as self, or something else that arose in a stream of experiencing. Furthemore a memory of a past stream of experience (ie a mental construct-fabrication sankhara) may have elements that are labelled incorrectly as self as well.
The idea that no-self is wrong view, only arises if the person persistently believes there is a self and attempts to swallow not-self. This four fold negation was used when talking to people outside of the dispensation so that they would not be confused and give rise to questions like ‘did I have self before, but have no self now’ etc.
with metta
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My point is that the question of is or is there not a self cannot be known. Therefore, any assumptions derived from the notion that there is or is not a self is baseless. Which I think is why holding such views is considered wrong view. Can’t we just have mysteries?
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Previous post from a similar thread:
The question though, is not whether or not there is a self, it is whether there is agency within the aggregates. The Buddha did not answer regarding the self question, but he did say that everything that has to do with our minds and actions is wrapped up within the aggregates, and that those aggregates are not-self, uncontrollable, and without agency. So even if there is a self hidden somewhere, there still isn’t free will, because our decisions and actions are totally made up from the aggregates. Basically, if agency exists it must be from the aggregates, and because it clearly cannot be, then it isn’t there.
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Care to provide backup sutta references, especially the highlighted word? The Four Right Exertions proves that there’s definitely something we humans can control, quite contrary to the “no free will” idea.
Yeah for sure. So SN22.59 says that they are uncontrollable, and SN22.100 says that everything we do is the result of some combination of the aggregates.
The 4 exertions are just more processes that are caused and conditioned. Just by reading and learning them, you have integrated them into your mind, and if you are so inclined and your mind has already jumped up with the thought of the dhamma, then you will naturally act on that new information. It’s all processes, all causes and conditions, none of it is actual volition or free will. Your mind is just responding to everything it comes in contact with in the only way it can. Whether or not some kind of randomness or probability is thrown in there, it still doesn’t give you agency or free will.
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