the non-reality of free will

[Gregory Goode]

At 12:53 PM 9/22/97 -0700, Jonathan Bricklin wrote:

>The only way we can move into the future is backwards, with our eyes facing
>the direction opposite from that toward which we are moving, seeing the
>next moment only after we have passed through it, just as scenery comes to
>a train passenger sitting with her or his back to the engine car.

The ONLY way?  As nice an illustration as this is, you can certainly allow
for other ways of looking at this concept, can you not?  Why think about
time at all?  Many teachers focus on attending to just what is before us.
All that appears is in the now, an appearance or mentation, even if it
carries some sort of implication of futurity or pastness.  In Western
philosophy classes, when radical empiricism is covered, it is stressed that
we can't even prove that there is a past or future.  Since no idea of
either one occurs in the past or future.  All that appears is here, now.
Can we not just look at that?  For me, this really de-localizes the sense
of "I" almost as much as the "there's no personal do-er or free will" concept.

--Greg