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> When I meditate, sometimes I can notice that I'm thinking verbal thoughts—suggesting that verbal thoughts transpire subconsciously, as well. Something simila
by mtalantikite 6y ago
> When I meditate, sometimes I can notice that I'm thinking verbal thoughts—suggesting that verbal thoughts transpire subconsciously, as well.
Something similar was coming up recently in my meditation practice, where I'd be aware of a vague impulse of a thought or idea arising before it became verbalized. Then I realized that I had had that experience before, when I was a kid and playing music a lot, where I'd notice the sensation of a thought beginning to arise but would put it away before it could get verbalized, since playing music needs a lot of attention and discursive thoughts will certainly make you mess up.
I'm not really trained in Zen, but in reading a book by Katsuki Sekida a while back he referred to thought impulses by varying degrees of 'nen', with the first 'nen' being a thought impulse of pure experience before it is recognized by a second or third degree 'nen'. This sort of felt related to that experience.
- retrac 6y agoI have always had the rather unsettling feeling that my internal monologue is a post-hoc justification or rationalization for what my subconscious just caused me to do, and was not the cause.
- tomComb 6y agoUnfortunately I think there is a degree of consensus that that is how it works, and this is used as evidence for the lack of free will.
- mehphp 6y agoI'm not sure how free will would work, even in theory. If the universe is completely deterministic then of course there isn't freedom of will in that. If it is random, then that still wouldn't be freedom because it would still be out of our control. I can't think of a way that it could work without invoking the metaphysical.
- dr_dshiv 6y agoWell, if you take away the "I", so that it isn't the will of a singular being, but rather the free will of the elements of reality, manifesting itself— it makes sense— it isn't random, because it has coherence and it isn't deterministic—it is emergent. It isn't "me" that wills some reality into existence. It is the substance of the universe willing reality into existence. But even if you take the "I" away, it doesn't take away the utility or reality of the will. "Free will" emerges, like "wetness" emerges as a quality of water.
- someguyorother 6y agoIt'd have to be like the libertarian incompatibilists envision it: that free will gives everybody a capacity to, to some degree, be a first cause. From https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-arguments/#TwoReasForThinFreeWillIncoDete https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-arguments... "Free will…is the power of agents to be the ultimate creators or originators and sustainers of their own ends or purposes…when we trace the causal or explanatory chains of action back to their sources in the purposes of free agents, these causal chains must come to an end or terminate in the willings (choices, decisions, or efforts) of the agents, which cause or bring about their purposes. (Kane 1996: 4)" That might be metaphysical, but I don't see any other way free will could operate - that is, if it exists.
- mehphp 6y agoWell I mean... you can't think a thought before you think it; so of course there would be a prior cause before you became aware of it. How else would it work?
- baron_harkonnen 6y agoThen you will really enjoy the work of Daniel Wegner. Most of his research is summarized in the book "Illusion of the Conscious Will". His main argument is that we have two causal models to understanding the world, direct physical ones and "agent based". The first is good for figuring out a thrown rock is about to hit you and the agent based models are important for understanding things like a tigers sneaking up on prey. Wegner proposes that when we apply this agent based model to our own actions we come up with the illusion of a conscious will. This is essentially the same as your post-hoc justification.