Very great article. I just came upon your substack and it's a total gem - thank you!
"...offer a linguistic switcheroo, "To define “God” simply as “the inherent characteristics of the universe”.
This sidesteps the most compelling question - why are these characteristics there, and are they inherent? This is where Aquinas' "ipsum esse subsistens" seems to rub up against where you've stopped.
I've asked Bl. Nicolas Steno, father of crystallography and modern geology, to pray for you!
I need to read Aquinas. Nicomachean Ethics is on my reading list, and I think it would be good to follow it with Aquinas' "Commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics", then his other writings.
"why is God?" seems almost beyond human cognition. I will continue to wrestle with "what is God?" before I decide to boggle my mind even further!
Have you considered how our free will is often coloured by emotions which are a response to chemicals and homones levels in our bodies? Moreover, as sentient beings humans are also endowed with the ability to do abstract thinking. One might say that free will is a product of at least a biological urge to promote or sustain oneself and philosophical contemplations about why the world exists and how to act accordingly.
But since lower forms of life which are not sentient also exhibit free will, perhaps free will does not so much depend on the ability to do abstract thinking.
It is likely I haven't fully understood the arguments here, but I thought the axons in nerve cells merely acts as electrical transmitters as to relay stimuli from one end of the body to another. That they contain Pi-stacking to accomplish this is no more peculiar than graphene sheets that are also electrical conductors.
Regarding the ORCH OR theory maybe there is an uncountable number of parallel universes, each of which is a manifestation of a particular Orch OR state?
"A decision or choice is absolutely being made, and this choice is free, being completely undetermined and non-computable, but there is no agent in the classical sense."
Isn't that clawing straws? The passive noun in this sentence here might as well be substituted with an active noun, such as the universe or God, if you like.
:-)
" Most world religions decorate the core spiritual concepts at the heart of theological inquiry with extra stuff that probably isn’t true. I don’t believe that Yahweh empowered Moses to actually part the Red Sea. "
Some religious scriptures can better be understood allegorically, say the first chapter of Genesis which merely describes a human being from infancy (unselfconscious) to gaining self-awareness.
Thanks for your comment Robert. Sorry I must have missed the original notification hence my very delayed reply!
I think the chemical inputs to neural processes doesn’t contradict the free will idea. We certainly do react to many things, sometimes more deterministically than other times. But there is undoubtedly space for genuine de novo decisions.
I think it makes sense that abstract thinking and free will don’t have to be causally linked, but they probably both emerge from large highly structured brains, so I reckon they correlate quite closely.
I imagine the modulation of neural processes by quantum affects in microtubules is probably separate to the simple binary signals of action potentials (which I’m pretty sure just go along the cell membrane and nothing to do with microtubules). So you have a binary computer-like electrical system that is overlaid with a much more complex and subtle system involving microtubules and quantum effects. But actually the separation between the electrical impulses and the microtubules makes me doubt the OrchOR theory a bit
Yup if you go for the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics then the free will aspect is a decision of which universe the agent decides to experience. Many worlds kind of breaks my brain and I don’t like the messiness of it to be honest!
You could make it an active decision, rather than a passive decision being made. But then you need to define the agent, which is hard to do. Is it “me” or the soul, or God, or the Universe. Could be any or all of the above. I guess either way it is still free will
Regarding religious scripture - yeah I agree with you to be honest. And they’re much more valuable when the appropriate genre is selected for the different parts. I guess that part of the essay was to try to bridge the gap with the hardcore atheists and the more religiously inclined
Very great article. I just came upon your substack and it's a total gem - thank you!
"...offer a linguistic switcheroo, "To define “God” simply as “the inherent characteristics of the universe”.
This sidesteps the most compelling question - why are these characteristics there, and are they inherent? This is where Aquinas' "ipsum esse subsistens" seems to rub up against where you've stopped.
I've asked Bl. Nicolas Steno, father of crystallography and modern geology, to pray for you!
Thank you!
I need to read Aquinas. Nicomachean Ethics is on my reading list, and I think it would be good to follow it with Aquinas' "Commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics", then his other writings.
"why is God?" seems almost beyond human cognition. I will continue to wrestle with "what is God?" before I decide to boggle my mind even further!
Interesting, thoughtful and well written essay.
Have you considered how our free will is often coloured by emotions which are a response to chemicals and homones levels in our bodies? Moreover, as sentient beings humans are also endowed with the ability to do abstract thinking. One might say that free will is a product of at least a biological urge to promote or sustain oneself and philosophical contemplations about why the world exists and how to act accordingly.
But since lower forms of life which are not sentient also exhibit free will, perhaps free will does not so much depend on the ability to do abstract thinking.
It is likely I haven't fully understood the arguments here, but I thought the axons in nerve cells merely acts as electrical transmitters as to relay stimuli from one end of the body to another. That they contain Pi-stacking to accomplish this is no more peculiar than graphene sheets that are also electrical conductors.
Regarding the ORCH OR theory maybe there is an uncountable number of parallel universes, each of which is a manifestation of a particular Orch OR state?
"A decision or choice is absolutely being made, and this choice is free, being completely undetermined and non-computable, but there is no agent in the classical sense."
Isn't that clawing straws? The passive noun in this sentence here might as well be substituted with an active noun, such as the universe or God, if you like.
:-)
" Most world religions decorate the core spiritual concepts at the heart of theological inquiry with extra stuff that probably isn’t true. I don’t believe that Yahweh empowered Moses to actually part the Red Sea. "
Some religious scriptures can better be understood allegorically, say the first chapter of Genesis which merely describes a human being from infancy (unselfconscious) to gaining self-awareness.
Robert Oeffner
Thanks for your comment Robert. Sorry I must have missed the original notification hence my very delayed reply!
I think the chemical inputs to neural processes doesn’t contradict the free will idea. We certainly do react to many things, sometimes more deterministically than other times. But there is undoubtedly space for genuine de novo decisions.
I think it makes sense that abstract thinking and free will don’t have to be causally linked, but they probably both emerge from large highly structured brains, so I reckon they correlate quite closely.
I imagine the modulation of neural processes by quantum affects in microtubules is probably separate to the simple binary signals of action potentials (which I’m pretty sure just go along the cell membrane and nothing to do with microtubules). So you have a binary computer-like electrical system that is overlaid with a much more complex and subtle system involving microtubules and quantum effects. But actually the separation between the electrical impulses and the microtubules makes me doubt the OrchOR theory a bit
Yup if you go for the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics then the free will aspect is a decision of which universe the agent decides to experience. Many worlds kind of breaks my brain and I don’t like the messiness of it to be honest!
You could make it an active decision, rather than a passive decision being made. But then you need to define the agent, which is hard to do. Is it “me” or the soul, or God, or the Universe. Could be any or all of the above. I guess either way it is still free will
Regarding religious scripture - yeah I agree with you to be honest. And they’re much more valuable when the appropriate genre is selected for the different parts. I guess that part of the essay was to try to bridge the gap with the hardcore atheists and the more religiously inclined