The question of POV-level free will.
Despite how we are what we imagine (what our POV focuses on), clearly, there are distinctions between entities in the avatar world. The POV itself may be free to go anywhere and anywhen and gazes at everything with equal weight/solidity/validity, but there are certain things that it associates more with certain avatars, so that each avatar appears as a separate entity in the avatar world.
In other words: the POV can look at Grandma’s earrings and know Grandma in them; by using this POV, we can become Grandma, become our past selves who used to spend time with Grandma--all kinds of things. And yet, Grandma doesn’t equal to earrings. Grandma also doesn’t equal to my avatar, who is looking at the earrings or thinking of Grandma.
What creates this distinction?
Two things:
- The source of the POV’s inspirations.
- The POV’s decision to accept or reject such inspirations. Sometimes, the decision happens automatically (unconsciously).
Recall that “the present” is shifting every moment anyway. And because time and space are tied, space is also shifting every moment. The only thing that ties all those spacetimes together is that something makes it so. The “I” of each of us makes it so. Something that forms the “I” but isn’t the POV inspires the POV to believe that “I” who read the sentence “The only thing that ties all those spacetimes together is that something makes it so” is the same “I” as the one who is reading this present sentence. And the POV, in this case, accepted that inspiration.
The reason we think of "us from one second ago" as being the "same" as "us in this present moment" isn't because that is right or correct. This isn't a given. Consider how, from practical life experience, we know of people who have changed so dramatically over time that "they did not seem to be the same person." The dots of the many "I"s need not necessarily be connected.
The reason that two different versions of us are connected and we think of both of them as "I" is that we decided to accept the inspiration to do so.
I will call the source of the inspiration "the storyteller"
The existence of something like the storyteller is inevitable. We know from experience that our POV has no (full) free will.
When you want to eat a chocolate ice cream, do you decide to want to eat chocolate ice cream? No. You are inspired to want chocolate ice cream. What you can do at the POV level is to accept that inspiration or reject it.
One could say that one likes chocolate ice cream and wants to eat it because that used to be Grandma’s favorite flavor. But why did Grandma like it? When was chocolate-flavored ice cream invented? Did the inventor decide to want to invent it? No. There was an inspiration to invent it. And that person, in that particular case, accepted the inspiration. Possibly, there were numerous others who got the same inspiration but rejected it. Therefore, they did not become the inventor of that marvelous thing called chocolate ice cream.
And the same applies to everything that seems more important and more logical than anything related to chocolate ice cream. There are a billion inspirations floating around in this universe and some people accept it while others reject it. Also, the same "I" may reject an inspiration at one spacetime coordinate but accept the same exact inspiration in another spacetime coordinate. The inspiration could be “I feel like wearing a blue shirt today” or “It's about time I quit my job” or “I want to marry this person in front of me.”
Similarly:
When you want to sleep, do you want to sleep because you decided you wanted to sleep?
No. Something inspired you “It’s about time I sleep”—what was that something? You might say it's your habit. You always sleep at 10pm, so by 10pm, you know you should sleep. But why did you always sleep at 10pm, to begin with? Because it’s the right time to sleep? Why? In some other spacetime coordinate, people think it’s normal to sleep at 12am. Perhaps you yourself used to sleep at 12am instead of 10pm. Who created your normal? Who started all this? Certainly not your conscious POV, if you keep iterating these questions enough times.
And when you fell in love, did you do so because you decided to do so?
Hopefully that wasn’t the case! Hopefully, the inspiration hit you like a lightning bolt.
Also, after the initial inspiration come a series of secondary inspirations. Take career decisions, for example, which can appear to be "logical": what tells you your decision is the right decision? You may think it’s the statistics on the average income of people who are in that particular industry—but what makes you think that such statistics will apply to you? that you won’t be a very lucky or very unlucky outlier? or that you can’t pick this other career that, statistically, makes the same amount of money?
Someone somewhere will go to an oracle to make career decisions. They were inspired to ask the oracle for advice. Is that any less "logical"? Why, because relying on a power that one believes to be divine is based on a less shakier foundation than relying on the averages of a million people who aren't actually you?
We may think we decide to make a decision. We may also think that upon deciding to make a decision, we decide what to take into account and what not.
But we don't. All we do is accept or reject inspiration that has been given to us.
The storyteller sends us the inspiration and the POV can perceive it; it can accept or reject. And the POV need not be sad because it doesn't generate its inspirations; there is great power in the POV, which will be discussed in the next many posts.
The worldview tag is best read in this order. The later posts build on the earlier posts.