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RE: Free Will: Intention interrupts our deterministic reactive nature (PI)
I read and followed Gurdjieff's fourth way in my late teenage years. It was really tedious and I could only quit. Even a simple mindfulness exercise will show us how much we are not in control of our mind. In most cases, it's an automated system running societal, parental and a few personal thought patterns.
I haven't read anything by Gurdieff. But I agree that most of our cognitions are automated. Mindfulness is quite difficult but gets easier with practice. I agree that, the difficulty of mindfulness demonstrates how much we lack control over our mind
Yes, the automation can only be stopped by mindfulness which is difficult at the beginning but easier with practice. By the way, I don't think you want to read Gurdjieff's, I tried it years after my initial introduction and it was boring to read. The summary of his work is that we are automatons and he gave a series of exercises in mindfulness to help break the automatic thinking mechanism . I prefer the metaphysicians because they are practical, philosophers mostly just discuss.
I see. Yeah philosophy can be very hard to read. I have only read a little and it took me several times of re-reading it over and over in order to understand it.
Lol. It's also believe it's usually that way. I prefer anything practical, books with exercises I can get to right away.