I have a question. What is determinism?

Life is huge. There's room for it all.

Can we choose what to do? Sure. Are our choices governed by our previous experiences? Yes. Are our experiences governed by who we are physically/spiritually? I think so.

Therefore we have the capacity to choose, to imagine and be free. However we also have the capacity to experience and appreciate, and this capacity of experience is goverened by our own individualness. Therefore an interesting paradox arises, the more individual and special we are, the more our apprehension of experiences can be defined and specified and thus our future choices can be inferred. Whereas the more unremarkable we are, the less well our appreciation of life's experiences can be defined and thus it becomes less easy to predict our future actions.

In other words, abstract free-will becomes less free and more willful when it is fixed in a concrete referance. Thus the more free-will an individual expresses, the less abstract a person he becomes, and in his actions definite currents of fate can be determined. The paths of very spirited people are often easy to trace back to their earliest childhood, whereas the paths of those who meander aimlessly often lack pattern for many periods in their lives. The only free-will is unlived. To live free-will is to enter into the arena of fate.

Wow Dawud you just blew my mind that was amazing...

Summarise it in three words or less?

actually scratch that..his words are best left untouched

@ Funzo, now its your turn. I wasn't aware that I said that, but I respect your own insights!

What I was saying was that, our "free" choices are affected by our past experiences, which are subjective phenomenon and thus are not past events, but rather our personal acceptance and judgements of past events.

From that I suggested that, were a person to be very spirited, they would make a great deal of "free" choices and thus display the cumulative effects of all their past experiences. In doing so a shrewd observer could identify peculiar qualities of that person, about what makes him tick and consequently what made him choose the actions that he chose.

Once we plausibily suggest that a link between a person's innate qualities and their subsequent choices exist, have we not arrived at fate?

Also @ Funzo. Love the signature, where's it from?

Our Shia Imams say humans are only 50 percent free. Other 50 is in hand of Allah.

I would say 100% is in the hads of Allah who then chooses to give us free will.

ok you tell me then, how mush freedom does Allah gives us?

10 percent, 30, 50, 70, 90, 99.9999, or full 100?

I don't know and we do not need a percentage.

What matters is that we will be judged on what we are in control of.

its good to know percentage. we all have our cut.

malik wrote:

its good to know percentage. we all have our cut.

It's difficult to say a percentage because that which limits our free will is so hard to quantify. I agree that we are not completely free, but only because we are not perfect. The people who have perfected themselves and who strength of virtue may be said to be free.

This is the concept of freedom from the constraints of dunya and the nafs through perfect Ubudiyyah. As Imam Ali said in Nahj ul Balagha about the Muttaqin "Their desires are dead" meaning that their lowly desires have no control over them.

For the rest of us, we are controled by our carnal lusts and baser instincts, but we also oppose them out of a sense of decency and humanity. But how do you quantify that? Do you say, today I wanted to pray 8 nawafil but was too tired to pray more than two rakats, therefore I'm 25% free and 75% enslaved?

Dawud wrote:

@ Funzo, now its your turn. I wasn't aware that I said that, but I respect your own insights!

What I was saying was that, our "free" choices are affected by our past experiences, which are subjective phenomenon and thus are not past events, but rather our personal acceptance and judgements of past events.

From that I suggested that, were a person to be very spirited, they would make a great deal of "free" choices and thus display the cumulative effects of all their past experiences. In doing so a shrewd observer could identify peculiar qualities of that person, about what makes him tick and consequently what made him choose the actions that he chose.

Once we plausibily suggest that a link between a person's innate qualities and their subsequent choices exist, have we not arrived at fate?

Also @ Funzo. Love the signature, where's it from?

No i understood what you wrote but i just couldnt limit to a setence which is why i edited my post! ah thanks well i shouldnt be taking credit for something Rumi (r.a) said