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My free will is only found in choosing an environment that will enhance what is already taking place that I have no control over. I am guessing this can change over time. Currently, I am separated from the city, living alone and learning much about life in my seclusion. At some point, I will need to rejoin human society. When it’s time.
Free will as I see it, (at this point in time), is in how we choose to react to whatever is going on around us. I don’t think this is absolute, because our conditioning predisposes us to react in various ways that reflect that conditioning. Then again, can we really operate outside of our conditioning? How does all of this influence our ability to modify our intentions? I have more questions than answers….
My illusion of free will comes from the apparent “hiddenness” of the Creator to my corporeal senses and the incorrect impression I have that I’m a separate, independent entity. This means I think I’m constantly exercising free choice, unaware that the Forces of Nature/Bestowal are causing me to react in pre-programmed ways that are entirely unconscious to me. Thus I can never be sure which of my choices are really mine versus predetermined for me. The only place I get to exercise any true freedom of choice is in the environment I gravitate towards, once I become aware that this can accentuate thoughts, words and actions that will lead me in the right way … to become increasingly like the Creator’s character and intentions. It’s like that old saying my Mum repeatedly told me: Show me your friends and I’ll show you who you really are! That’s why Kabbalists encourage us to carefully choose the right books, teachers and friends.
My free will is where I chose my external surroundings, which in turn will influence the 3 other factors that are an illusion of free will.
The following are illusions of free will:
Our knowledge, physical and mental qualities that we feel as our own subconscious tendencies, it was instilled in us by our ancestors at birth;
Things we wish to be our deep personal wishes, including our good or bad behavior is consequence of our genes; and
Our desire, thoughts and attitudes are influenced by our family characters, ideas and values we had growing up as a child.
Moreover, as for our actions themselves, we don’t know if it’s free will or predetermined.
Probably depends from where you look. You say, we can choose only our environment, but then again, who placed that environment there, what made me choose one environment over the other? Isn’t it all predetermined by the influences prior to choosing an environment, over which I had no choice?
On the other hand, we perceive making choices every day, every second I choose to do what I’m doing. At least that’s what it feels like. One can’t discern what’s cause and what’s effect, at least not from within the system.
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