Mike

I agree. I have his main book, and it is almost identical to my theory on free will. I came to the same conclusions he has about "will power," but from a different direction. I came up with the same main idea he has, except he has applied it to real life in a brilliant way. I only really applied my theory to laboratory neuroscience research, and barely touched on the practical uses in everyday living, while this seems to be his main focus. Yes, James Clear is onto something very hot and useful.

I simply heard it casually in conversation, and from too many sources to remember, and for many years.

Thanks, Ham, for recognizing it for what it was intended to be, just a discussion.

It is my understanding that the country of Belize has no copyright treaty with the USA.

Both Dennett and Patricia Churchland were PhD philosophers of high rank, and they sought tutoring from top scientists. For instance, Patricia Churchland had an office in the Salk Institute very close to Francis Crick's office. He tutored her in Physics. Dennett and Churchland are unique in their field of Philosophy, in that they insist on augmenting their philosophical approaches to line up with modern laboratory findings on the brain.

No. The field has exploded with activity in all directions since the 1990s, and I haven't even tried to follow them. I do think they reject the classical definition of free will (as do I), and they pretty much have hunches about some PRACTICAL feeling of free will, but very few zero in on free will. They have thousands of options for specializing in some field less "airy" than free will. The scientists among my old contacts all want numbers; numbers in the laboratory and numbers in the the theories. I chose to zero in on free will when I saw the 3 hints VPW gave us, plus lots of Biblical cues on the limits of human consciousness, plus lots of hints that Daniel Dennett offered. My theory doesn't predict numbers, as a scientific theory would. My theory is for the mental economy of all those interested in understanding the brain. My minimalist approach makes it easier to mentally juggle the concepts of a self and a will.

Thanks Rocky. I am a big fan of Sabine Hossenfelder. My "theory" is not really science research, but fits more in the category of the Philosophy of Science. I talk about changing the definition of "free will" in a radical way, and I offer a new set of attitudes, even some Biblical ones, on consciousness in general. One entire chapter of my book is devoted to Philosopher Daniel Dennett two books on free will, as being the inspiration of my ideas. In that talk, I mention a lot of science, but it's really in the "philosophy of science" end of brain science that my work is situated. I had a longtime close friend, with a PhD in Philosophy and a full professorship, guide me in my ideas and in my presentations over a span of about 8 years. So my free will theory is actually on the fringe of being legitimate research in the philosophy of brain science. I'm still in touch with a few of those brain scientists I knew back in the 1990s. Both they and I are big fans of Thomas Kuhn, pretty much a founder of the field of Philosophy of Science. I had the privilege of meeting him at Princeton, circa 1969.

It is a juvenile expression of hate.

I'm not saying anything related to that. I do not draw those conclusions, or anything like them. I'm only trying to tie together a bunch of odd scriptures I've seen over a span of 52 years, and trying to put words together that may explain them. I don't jump to concussions about it like you are doing. If you aren't looking a lot at the verses I've cited here, you can't possibly follow my words about them. Go back, write down all the verses, and study them a little bit. Get familiar with them, and then you may be able to see what I am talking about. You'll NEVER do it without the verses fresh in mind while you read my words about them. Kinda logical, eh?

No. I see the "double-door equal limitations" thing applying to available interventions by the spirit world into the physical, and not applying to human behavior. If a human properly responds to God's intervention, the world is flooded with good. If a human responds to the adversary's intervention, lots of people suffer.

Very good question. I have always wondered but never had the time or the reason to ask others. I'm thinking of someone I can ask now.

I don't blame you. This is an idea with which I have had hardly any experience expressing in words, outside of a few 1 minute chats, spread out by a decade or two. I'd fine tune this latest draft of my text to say that the sentence "God has a budget" is way too simple. A better way of expressing the idea that generated that early text is more like: When dealing with the senses realm, God has included in the infrastructure, a budet of what kind of interventions from the spiritual realm to the physical physical realm are allowed to take place. Instead of using the budget metaphor, here is a different one: God has put an "insulating blanket" around the physical realm, which limits the ability of the devil to rule his inherited world. It also limits God's ability to get things through the insulation, but His foreknowledge and all knowing power is still there to work within this limitation to get His will enacted, eventually. Someday the insulation will be removed.

I do remember that! The "life of their own" was another thing I never understood. It seems pretty subjective. What is "life" mean here. Again, I need supporting sentences. Was that on page 22 of the syllabus?

I may have missed it in the roller coaster ride here of many posts per minute.

The same way ALL of you stayed out of the loop on this and many other items: by our old man nature dragging us down to a halt at times. I believe even the best of us have hardly scratched the surface of learning from the collaterals, and that is why mastering them was in the #1 slot of importance on VPW's Bucket List Teaching. His final instructions to leaders at the top (and applicable to born again believers) were to come back to PFAL. I finally heeded that instruction for 20 years of weekly study of the collaterals with others and on my own. I'm still out of the loop, still mastering the collaterals, and still learning much. I'm still out of the loop on some things due to the lost months and years, but am thankful for how well things have worked out since 1998, when I seriously came back to the collaterals. I look forward to more years learning what was actually in print, and clarifying more items like this cancer spirit thing. It was a very reliable source that told me VPW said SOMETHING like "cancer is a spirit" in an early AC. I only have one AC from that time period. I don't doubt VPW said something like that one sentence, and a lot more supporting sentences to go with it. Someday I may find it, or find someone who took good notes from that class. What I do doubt heavily are all the accounts here that I have read of that one short sentence. None of them ever have had the supporting sentences that I need to interpret such a sentence or one like it. */*/* Then there is the possibility that VPW made a mistake in that early AC. I am open to that, but not without the supporting sentences. It's all guesswork what he taught on this. I recently became friends with an old grad who may have info on this. No guarantees.