Human architecture - Part IV

A free will thought

In the pre-quantum, pre-chaos theory world of Pierre-Simon Laplace, he defended causal determinism with, "We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes."

I think the word 'free will' is such a general term, the ability to make a choice, think, act voluntarily without outside coercion or pressure -- it begs for a playing field to play upon. And so that is what we consciously (or unconsciously) do, we construct playing fields to fit how we are using (or understanding the use of) the term. The super intellect in Laplace's quote would have the broadest playing field for free will to play upon, and so, free will would be lost in the observation of the every cause and effect that lead to the 'free will' act.

I can imagine a spectator in the stands watching a baseball game, with full view of the play action, this spectator would have a great view and understanding of the complete game. Yet say a TV spectator is watching the same game, and say the camera is fixed upon the pitcher the entire game! What an entirely different understanding of the game this viewer would have.

We are living a TV view of reality, and our brain/mind can but gather a 'sample' of this reality, yet using this sample, it 'reconstructs' all the missing data. In this reconstructed world, I think we do have free will. It is real to the world we live in. Of course if we ever evolve to become like Laplace's super intellect, then we will have to deconstruct and rewrite this story.

Human architecture - Part III

Thought 1 (rethinking a previous thought)

I view all life infused, if you will, with potential, much of the inorganic too is infused with potential, potential in that elements can and will combine to create compounds, in physics scientist postulate that fundamental matter particles (quarks) combine to create protons, neutrons and hadrons. This 'potential' seems to be the given in the cosmos, we don't see a Big Bang exploding with a bunch of 'somethings' that forever remain separate 'somethings', but we do see a bunch of 'somethings' interacting, combining, mutating, structuring, building upon one another to create new 'somethings' that never existed before (or so we think). Darwinian evolution is all about potential. Life is all about potential. When you awake in the morning, once you open your eyes the world bursts forth with potential. Potential for what? Perhaps only our imagination can tell us that. To imagine what does not exist as if it did exist and further to exploit potential to make that imagination a reality, what do we call that? Creation?

Thought 2 (a new thought)

Perhaps 'God' is thoughtless? Of course most humans hold tight to the matter of 'thought' as if it were the nature of that which some call 'God' -- yet we are allowed to imagine -- and that in turn makes constructs within the brain -- in that something called mind -- and as every maker of things knows, the construction is normally limited by the tools and material at hand, so in our human minds we construct anthropomorphic imaginations of even that which we acknowledge is beyond the everyday stuff of the universe that we dwell within.

Human architecture - Part II

We are star dust

Carbon atoms, we are, originally from stars, exploding stars, carbon star dust, the building blocks of our every cell, the matter that makes us something, visible and touchable, the matter that most think matters.

But a thought is a matterless matter that 'real' matter fails to grasp, yet all around, the entire universe, the mundane of sameness -- sameness in all carbon atoms, one at the far-end of the universe and another in the cell of your fingertip -- mundane of sameness abounds, yet again, each of us that live, hold matterless matters within our skulls, bony carbon shells to protect the less (our existing right-now self awareness) from the more (the boundless universe of atoms and stuff).

Teeter-Tottering

Just as "God did it" is a closed door to deeper investigation, "I don't know" is a closed door to human imagination, yet "I wonder" opens all the doors, if one indeed is open to opening that which, when closed, provides so much superficial comfort.