[MD] The Quality of Free Will

[Ham Priday]

Dear Marsha --

On Tuesday, July 19, you said to Joe:

> I have been puzzling over the experience of subjective
> consciousness - awareness.  It is experience but I cannot
> observe it, like an eye cannot see itself.  It seems not to
> be permanent and seems to control nothing. It witnesses.
> On investigation this is NOT an autonomous self.  But
> it is experience and yet not an object of knowledge.

Did you not read Dave Thomas's post recounting a recent TV appearance of the 
Dalai Lama?

[David on 7/18]:
> I once paraphrased to Marsha that I saw him in a TV clip snap
> at a questioner who asked him some question about the Buddhist
> principle of "no-self."I said, because I did not have access to the
> clip, He said something like (and this really pissed her off),
> "If you have no self, who is it that is going to change?"

You don't observe "the experience of subjective awareness" because it's what 
you ARE.  Like it or not, you are a conscious subject, and subjects can't 
observe or "witness" themselves as objects.  The subjective self and its 
conscious stream of passing experiences is "permanent" only as long as the 
being of that self is alive.

Now, you can say that your self is not "real" or is only "interconnected 
patterns", does not "exist" in the sense that objects exist, and cannot be 
directly observed in the sense that objects are observed.  Nonetheless, if 
Marsha's self were removed, Marsha and her reality would disappear.

I'm curious as to what "investigation" has convinced you that your self is 
not autonomous.  How does one go about investigating herself?   Brain 
scanning?  Hypnosis?  Psychotherapy?   And if, as the Dalai Lama suggested, 
you have no self, who or what is it that makes Marsha's choices and 
preferences?  Quality patterns?  DQ?  Collective consciiousness?

Do you really believe yourself to be subservient to the reality you create, 
Marsha?  Or are you still puzzling it out?  I would like to believe you KNOW 
you are a real person with a personna and a self of your own, just like the 
rest of us.  But your proclaimed "self-denial" has me confused.

Please restore my confidence, Marsha.

Best wishes,
Ham