[Avodah] Free Will vs. Physics

[T613K at aol.com]

On Tue, Sep 23, 2008, Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
: First off, believing in  free will doesn't mean believing that physics
: has no effect on a person's  choices, just that there are also choices
: that a person makes independent  of physics...


>>Physics limits free will -- I can't choose to  fly just by flapping my
bare arms. But within the domain of options physics  allows, my choices
are free.<<

-- 
Micha  Berger           




>>>>>
I believe that most of the decisions we make are  actually forced decisions 
and not the product of free will.  Hakol b'yedei  Shomayim chutz miyiras 
Shomayim.  
 
You decide to fly to New York but a million things can happen -- you get  
sick, break a leg, miss your flight, flight is canceled, there's a blizzard in  
NY and your flight is diverted to Washington, yada yada.   You decide  to make 
fish but the fish is spoiled, the stove won't work, the power just went  out, 
an emergency comes up and there's no time to cook, you make peanut butter  
sandwiches for supper instead.....
 
The only sphere where you GENUINELY have bechira is in the sphere of Avodas  
Hashem, choosing to serve Him or not.  This is mostly mental.  A  person can 
be paralyzed and unable to speak -- there is actually a man in my  shul who is 
in that matzav, a brilliant man, a talmid chacham -- but as long as  he can 
still even /think/, he has bechira.  A lot of things happen as a  /result/ of 
your exercising your bechira, for example, you may decide to do a  mitzva and 
then actually do end up doing it.  But it was equally possible  that your 
intentions would not pan out and would never come to fruition.  
 
If you meant to do a mitzva and through no fault of your own you were  unable 
to complete the action, you still get schar, whereas if you meant to do  an 
aveira and it didn't work out, you don't get onesh for your thoughts.   But in 
any case it is only an illusion that walking, talking, doing, are  all 
dependent on your bechira.  Only the thought, the intention, the desire  are 
dependent on your own bechira.  Whether it all comes into actuality is  not up to you. 
 
 
Once I made a kugel for a friend who had just given birth, and on my way to  
her house, my car hit a bump and the kugel fell off the front seat and landed  
splat, upside down on the floor of my car.   That was "physics."   But 
physics is just the way that HKBH "hides" Himself in the  world. Famously, the word 
for world, olam, means "hidden." Physics is  another way of looking at 
Hashgacha.  
 
All this is moot in actual practice, because -- since we are not privy to  
Hashem's intentions -- we have no choice but to proceed through life AS IF we  
have free will in every area, including whether to get up or go to  sleep or 
make a kugel or call a friend or buy this house or take this job  
or......whatever.  The knowledge that ultimately your steps are guided from  Above makes no 
/practical/ difference.
 
I heard a great quote this past weekend from a guest, don't know who said  
it, but here it is:  "We have to believe in free will.  We have no  choice."
 

--Toby  Katz
=============






**************Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial 
challenges?  Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and 
calculators.      (http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20080923/823ae09a/attachment-0001.htm>