Def: paradigm - a framework containing basic assumptions, ways of thinking.
Def: robot - a person-like mechanism that acts and responds according to programming.
Def: freewill - made or done freely or of one's own accord.
Def: deterministic - the doctrine that all events, including human choices and decisions, have sufficient causes.
In my last post I wrote about a philosophic dilemma that I've been pondering for quite a while. The dilemma, given to me by one of my university professors, is that there is no freewill (the ability to choose). My teacher's argument is powerful: how can we have freewill in a deterministic universe?
The world we live in is, without a doubt, determined. As explained in my last post, without predetermined rules nothing would work. You wouldn't be able to build a house without the predetermined rules of gravity, no fire without predetermined laws of physics, no medicine without the predetermined rules of chemistry. Our bodies and our thinking are equally predetermined. Without predetermination, changing hormone levels would generate a random reaction, without predetermination of thought there would be no psychology. Everything must follow predetermined rules in order for science to work. This presents us with a horrible problem: following this line of thinking the conclusion is inescapable, we are not human beings at all, we are advanced robots working out a complex program called "life". Robots who kid themselves into thinking they're human.
Great! Except that that conclusion makes no sense.
If we are just robots working out a complex, evolutionary program then why would we make a Mercedes Benz? Is a Mercedes Benz the end result of an evolutionary program being run or did someone come up with a creative idea to make a Mercedes Benz? Two thoughts occur to me: a Mercedes Benz being the end result of evolutionary predetermination is absurd .. and creativity inside a deterministic machine (which this world and our bodies must be, otherwise it wouldn't work) is impossible. As I said, I have been trying to work out this dilemma for about twenty years ... I now have an answer.
I am faced with a choice: Should I wear the pink sweater or the black sweater. I love pink. I'm going with the pink sweater (choice of love).
I can go across 33rd street or 35th street. 33rd street is dangerous, I choose 35th street (choice of fear).
You say "I love pink, I have chosen it. I don't need some egghead telling me about cascading chemical reactions leading me to choose pink." (common sense).
My professor's reaction: "There is no choice inside a deterministic system." (reality)
Sherlock Holmes "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Conclusion: Our (quite real) choice between fear and love does not (can not) originate from inside this universe.
Part two tomorrow. And buckle your seat belts ladies, it's going to get crazy (just the way I like it).
"Rest now Neo, the answers are coming." Morpheus
