Who Determines the Authority of Moral Standards?

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Royce
If there is no free will there is no choice. We are either preprogrammed or our illusion of choice is predetermined or predestined. If there we have no choice but to do what we are predestined to do then there can be no culpability, accountability, responsibility or consequences.

Your 'one being' would not have to make any rules nor would we decide to obey it's rules. We would simply be doing whatever we were predestined to do anyway. Granted that this could be the case but then what would be the point. If all is predestined why bother actually going through the motions. It would be a waste of time and energy.

If we have free will but all is already known of what was, what is and what will be then we still have to actually live our lives. That would not be the same as predestination or predetermination. Te difference is subtle I know but it is like knowing how a chess game will be played out form the position of the pieces rather than playing a scripted game.

The difference being (in the analogy, and in the case of free will vs. predestination) the margin of error on the part of the "predicter". If, however, the "predicter" was infallible, then there would be no difference between predestination and determined free will (phrased thus to reveal that it is an oxymoron at heart).

 

[elwestrand]

Predesination and free will are both illusions, yet they are the same and both real. My zen master friend says:
the person with the most choise has the least reality,
The person with the most reality has the least choice

The macrocosm is "predestined," absoulte "free will" exists in the micrososm and it is because of the microcosm that there is a macrososm and that it is predestined.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by elwestrand
Predesination and free will are both illusions, yet they are the same and both real. My zen master friend says:
the person with the most choise has the least reality,
The person with the most reality has the least choice

The macrocosm is "predestined," absoulte "free will" exists in the micrososm and it is because of the microcosm that there is a macrososm and that it is predestined.

Perhaps you might expound a bit, for those of us (myself included) who know nothing of Zen philosophy.

 

[elwestrand]

There's nothing I can explain about Zen philosophy, and if I were to guess, probably every member of these forums would hate it because it is not intellectualy stimulating. There is no philosophy, only spirituality. My Zen friend does not like religion, nor do I. I had a book of peotry and writings by a 13th century Chinese Hermit, but I gave it away. All I can remember is something from one of his poems in which he is with a party and they are watching a flag being blown by the wind. He states that the flag is not moving, only your mind is moving.