do you believe that one's choices and perception shape their reality?

Question

why? please give reasons, and how does this relate to free will?

Answer 1

If I was nothing but a negative person, and I really believed that the world treated me badly and everyone was basically out to get me, then my life would have turned out very different. I would not make choices full of hope, or to give other's pleasure- such as volunteer work.
A negative person may believe that they have no free will, that god or whomever has cursed them to live this life -- or that god is punishing them, hence free will is removed.

Answer 2

I believe it's both ways. With some, their choices and perception shape their reality. With others, their choices and perceptions don't affect their reality. Ex.- mentally healthy people shape their reality with their choices and perceptions more so than mentally unhealthy people. Part of mental health is the ability to make healthy choices and perceive things accurately. As for how it relates to free will, some people are more responsible for their reality than others. There are always going to be the more fortunate and the less fortunate in the world.

Answer 3

How about this for practical application; do my judgements become my realities? Isn't that similar? If I have a bad attitude toward whomever or whatever does that bad attitude become a real feeling for me. Therefore a reality. If I believe that I have free will in making choices throughout my life; what are the pieces of my free-will compass? Do I have some ethical and moral codes, observed behaviors in others, some genetic predispositon, some elephants in the living room, and my own desires and ambitions. Am I mortal? Am I agnostic?
Isn't free will great, we can ask all this and more until we feel comfortable and then have some life experiences and start asking about free will again with some new insights. Someone said free will is only free if you give it away to a power greater than yourself. Good Luck

Answer 4

Everything actually depends upon the intent. If one knows that perception is joined at the hip to choices, then controlling ones perception is in effect controlling the choices. If one wished to have a life based upon material/monetary gain, then the perception that time is money produces a person who never has enough time. If one wished to follow a different path, say altruistic in focus, then that person would find great pleasure in helping out with Doctors Without Borders. The perception of how well one lives up to ones desires has a lot to do with basic , intrinsic happiness. Happiness seems to be a fundamental human drive, we all attempt to achieve it. So values influence the perception of what to achieve, true or not, and choices are the route taken to achieve those values. Good luck.

Answer 5

No. Your "learned" beliefs shape reality. You literally live by faith or what you believe is true. Because most beliefs are unconscious as well as conflicted your perception is rarely accurate and your choices are made based on this misperception of others and the world around you. Your free will and choices should be the causative factors of your experience of reality, but until you are the 'observer' of your thought system and have discarded everything you "believe," you cannot "know" anything for certain. Certainly is pure power. To wholly desire something is to create it in reality.

Answer 6

Yes, Choice is Free Will, you can choose to be or not to be as Shakespeare said. You Choose good over not so good! When Creation came into Being it was also a Choice by the Creator. This same Creator, call it what you will, also gave us the ability to make Choices and through Universal Law, our thoughts about Choices manifest in your life. We make our Choices in our Mind and until we speak our Word, they are just in Mind and can be changed! Once we speak our word about our Choices, you can never take it back and it is out there and activates this same very Universal Law of Choice, or Free Will. That is why it is necessary to be careful what you think say and do today as it will manifest in your life in the Future.

Answer 7

Perception is the flavor of knowledge...

Free will is the ability to choose which things to perceive...

Choices are constrained and defined both by what we have chosen to perceive (our free will), and the WAY in which we have perceived these chosen things (our perception)...

The experience gained from living and growing from our choices influences our perceptions about things...We begin to perceive the world according to our personal history...

The things we begin to CHOSE to perceive tend to reflect what we already "know"...(thru experience and perception)

Our perception, free will, and our choices are all inter-related in this way, each influencing the other in a necessary symbiosis...

Answer 8

In his book “Love and Responsibility” John Paul II speaks of the moral principle that should guide all human behavior. He calls it the personality norm. Stated negatively, it says that persons have such great dignity that never, under any circumstance, is it acceptable to use a person as a means to an end. Stated positively, the ‘personality norm’ says that the only proper response to another person is that of love.

Answer 9

there's no other way to define subjective reality without relating such a reality to our experiences, which are shaped by our choices and our perceptions

this relates to free will directly, in that, in order to see ourselves as making choices, we have to already assume that our will is free

Answer 10

well, yes of course. our choices make up our life by being able to choose what we can do in life. think of hitler. no Jewish person had choices under his rule. look at what happened to them. they didnt have any choices on what they could do. they were literally forced to do gruelling, horrible, and tedious tasks. they were brainwashed to believe what hitler did was right. being able to choose is a free will because you are able to have the right to choose what you want with no one controlling you. Being able to choose your career can change your life. would you rather be a starving poor homeless person, or a rich hard-working business-woman (or man) like Bill Gates? choose. think. does it make a difference in your life? YES!