Free-will is one of the longest running philosophical and scientific struggles. I am certainly not an expert on the history of this issue, but have encountered it in a completely counterintuitive way with Physics, where Quantum Mechanics, possibly the most relevant set of theories to my field of physics, and Newton’s determinism collide. Determinism in my mind is the same as free will, though this may not be a proper philosophical comparison, as I am too uneducated in philosophy to determine that. Anyway, despite a Ph.D. in physics, I fail in a huge way. Neils Bohr, a founder of quantum mechanics said something like “if you are not shocked by quantum mechanics you don’t understand it”. Well, I am shocked. Certainly confused, if that is the same thing, but I am not sure if the destruction of Newton’s classical view of an ordered universe changed my perspective, as it is too damn difficult to comprehend. While this observer based world of quantum mechanics was taking shape, a larger natural prediction of the universe was putting to rest some very progressive ideas of free will. Mainly this is that we are a part of a natural system, which can be predicted, with knowledge of enough of the variables. This is understood in probability. We can think of ourselves as containers of atoms, all organized by our genome. While there is a lot of complexity in this system, it is one that has been recorded, and can be studied. Our brain is also a cluster of atoms, cells (neurons) that are bundled in convenient groupings to create extremely efficient processing. Also, this is not completely understood but, the concept is directly observed. In essence through both the understanding of the genome and neuroscience, humans are shown to be natural, in that they are no different than any other matter, plant or animal, and can be studied and observed in the same way. This bundle concept, that the body is arranged in bundles of atoms, including the brain, does away with the concept of the soul, as the soul no longer has a place to reside. Our atomic structure is interchangeable with all other atoms, whether they make up a rock or a cock roach. So, does a rock have free will? From everything we know about rocks it does not. It rolls with classical certainty, breaks from predictable forces, etc. The same is true of humans. So this now the excepted way of viewing the situation, but as with quantum mechanics, it just never felt right, and was shocking.
So I have been thinking about those two problems, both being problems of intuition, not problems of science. Science makes clear that quantum phenomena occur, and also that free will does not exist, in any spiritual sense. I have also, at the same time been haunted by something that seemed unrelated. I nearly always remember several dreams a night, and have since I was a young child. Like most people (so studies say) a majority of my dreams are nightmares. They seem to be lifetimes in themselves, and each time, I am relieved to wake up. Psychologists often say that nightmares are a productive way of coping with anxiety, but for me I think they cause more anxiety than they cure. None of this gets me anywhere with this thesis, but it does set up my state of mind, which in general has led me to not wanting to go to sleep at night. I take sleeping pills, but still have these worries about the dreams. Then it occurred to me that my philosophical lack of intuition where free-will is concerned might be in some way informed by my fear of the dreams. Since I remember my dreams so well, I realize that the thing that is most disturbing about them is that they are completely out of my control, completely me, and completely personal. Often the bad, or even in the rare case happy, ending of my dreams may be known to me, or my character as experienced in the dream, before the end of the dream, which make it all the more frustrating. Unless I am having my yearly wet dream. Why should conscious existence be any different from unconscious existence? Perhaps it is this determined, uncontrollable outcome of life that makes the dreams so upsetting. Maybe I now can intuit what existence and lack of free-will feels like. It feels like a dream.
1 comment:
Hi Matthew. As requested, here's a bit of my personal philosophy:
I believe that my life unfolds in an interplay between fate and free-will...that, much like a rock, I'm rolling along and subject to physical breaks from predictable forces...but that, spiritually, I remain whole in large part because of how I choose to react to those forces. In other words, when an event happens, be it a blow to my bones or my psyche, I am not "at the mercy" of that event... the choices I make in reacting to it, shape my experience of it. I like to think of myself as a Co-Creator with God...moving towards my Destiny one choice at a time. But that's just me. ;)
xoxoxo Jenn
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