RE: What is wrong with FW?
August 5, 2018 at 1:19 am
(This post was last modified: August 5, 2018 at 1:48 am by vulcanlogician.)
(July 29, 2018 at 10:01 am)Little Rik Wrote:(July 28, 2018 at 5:22 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: @Rik
Doesn't the Bhagavad Gita say something like "Action (ie karma) is merely the gunas acting upon the gunas, while men in their delusion think themselves the doers of an act" ??? The view being presented there seems counter to the idea of free will. But maybe I'm misinterpreting it or something. (I think I can go find the actual verse if you want. Unless, of course, your particular brand of yoga denounces the Gita or something.)
I don't think the idea of God works for or against the idea of free will. There are plenty of atheistic free willists out there. So I don't know where you got the idea that atheism = incompatibilism.
1) I never said that the FW is incompatible with atheism.
I rather said that most atheists hate the idea of FW so it is rather incompatible with atheists in general not with atheism.
2) To understand the role of the gunas you first got to understand the two opposite forces always present in nature like the positive and negative, yin or yang and so on.
These two forces while are not present in lower form of life such as plants and animals that follow mother nature instinct are instead present in man (men and women of course).
While the positive force try to get you up (up spiritually speaking) the negative one try to push you back towards animal, plant or even matter life so forget for a moment about these gunas and instead try to understand the low of positive and negative which is much much more important.
So I located the verse:
Gita 3.2 Wrote:The bewildered spirit soul, under the influence of the three modes of material nature, thinks himself to be the doer of activities, which are in actuality carried out by nature.
https://asitis.com/3
How is this not hard incompatibilism/determinism? I am familiar with both metaphysical models. They say this: the will of a person is not "free will"... it is not a person's choice to do otherwise than he/she does. The will is bound by the laws of nature. It has causes outside of the human psyche, and because these causes are beyond a person's control, so too is a person's will beyond his control.
Unless you can show otherwise: the Bhagavad Gita preaches against free will. I've read the Gita several times with various commentaries/translations, so I should be able to follow any argument you put together.
