[MD] The Quality of Free Will

[Ham Priday]

Dear Marsha --


When you posted this at noon yesterday, I was recovering from a short 
illness and did not feel up to commenting on this Buddhist instruction.  I'm 
much better today, so I'll give it a try.

> Hello again Ham,
>
> If you will forgive me for quoting from Miri Albahari's book, here's
> the crux of the issue: "... Awareness purports to exist as a witnessing
> presence that is unified, unbroken and yet elusive to direct observation.
> As something whose phenomenology purports to be unborrowed from
> objects of consciousness, awareness, if it exists, must exist as _
> completely unconstructed_ by the content of any perspectivally ownable
> objects such as thoughts, emotions or perceptions.  If _apparent_
> awareness, perhaps by virtue of one or more of its defining features
> (that form part of its content or 'aboutness'), turned out to owe its
> existence to such object-content rather than to (unconstructed) _
> awareness itself_, then that would render awareness constructed and
> illusory and hence lacking in independent reality..."
>
> There!

"There!", as in take that?  Just what am I to make of this analysis, Marsha, 
starting with "Awareness purports to exist" -- "something whose 
phenomenology purports to be unborrowed from objects"?
I would say first that awareness doesn't "purport" anything; it makes no 
claim or intention on objective being and has no need to be "constructed". 
It's your intellect that does the constructing and demands "object-content". 
What Albahari seems to be saying in his conclusion is that awareness IS an 
independent reality BECAUSE it's not formed or constructed from objective 
beingness.

So there!

> I have mentioned before that I can identify with some of your statements
> about 'self', mainly because of this witnessing capacity.  To me, freedom,
> too, is in this kind of presence: witnessing/mindfulness. I cannot 
> identify the
> flow of "thoughts, emotions or perceptions" with an independent self, but
> what of this witnessing experience? What of this intimate awareness? -
> But this book is dense and complex, with lots to think about, and I will
> need to read it again, but it seems to be on the right trail.

The notion that there is no self is an artificially-contrived theory that 
serves two purposes:

1)  For the objective empiricist, it supports the view that the conscious 
mind is a product of biological evolution and is entirely accounted for by 
electro-chemical changes in the brain and nervous system.

2)  For the Zen mystic (or pantheist) who is persuaded that reality can have 
no other form that Oneness, it avoids the paradox of "otherness" that a 
subjective agent creates.

Quite frankly, Marsha, it is my opinion that you have adopted this principle 
from one or both of the above arguments, and that you have lately come to 
suspect that a universe with no sensible agent is meaningless.  If, I'm 
right, you are beginning to think for yourself, which will ultimately 
resolve your quandary.

> I hope you are well.

This concern for my health was prescient ...or maybe you're clairvoyent!  In 
fact, I was suffering abdominal pain and shortness of breath on Sunday 
morning.  When the common remedies didn't work, and my condition grew worse, 
my wife drove me to the local hospital ER where after submitting to x-rays, 
cardiac scans, and other tests, I was diagnosed with an impacted colon. 
They registered me in a hospital room where I spent a sleepless night 
attached to an IV and saturated with Miralax while vainly trying to find a 
comfortable position.  Only after consuming some solid food (oatmeal) Monday 
morning did the symptoms ease enough to allow me to breathe more freely, and 
with Rose's help (she volunteers at this hospital) I was able to negotiate a 
discharge that afternoon.

Anyway, thanks for your concern, Marsha.  I hope I've put the Self in a more 
sensible framework than your author did.

Best wishes,
Ham