Tuesday, June 18, 2013

The Delusion of an Illusion - free choice and free will...?

Is free will an illusion?
You do get to witness your own actions like you are the conscious author of these "free" choices. You are lucky you can watch the awe inspiring natural world or the jaw dropping wonders of the cosmos, but you have no say in its outcome or any real control over these external events, so what about ones own decisions. New convincing neurological and other scientific evidence supports total determinism other sources leave a small possibility that a small part is your choice - freewill is being unraveled at the level of the brain.

If you think you call the shots in your life, you do, in that it feels this way. You have no say in random external influences, or in your genetic makeup or in your unconscious mind. Which all play an autonomous role in deciding what you will think of next. So if you don't consciously know what your brains going to bring from your unconscious mind to your conscious mind, and the thoughts it can bring into conscious awareness are random events that happened prior in your life and then add the X factor of your genes (that you did not choose): there's very little room for you to freely choose. Is Freewill dead? - It may be too early to say.

Christopher Hitchens was once asked if he believed in free will, he quipped "Do I have a choice?". A line which perhaps will always carry weight. So knowing you are on autopilot, may seem scary to some - i want to reasure you that it is not to be feared. The truth about freewill - whatever that may be should not frighten us. So relax as whether we are free agents or not your actions and beliefs still matter and have real effects.

As a short addendum, I should add that I had NO say in writing this piece, I had no choice - but it didn't feel that way.

Morality in the 21st Century

I think a 21st century conversation about moral truth, on what's truly right and wrong should happen. For centuries our moral flourishing has been restricted by dogmatic 'dusty' pre-scientific books written by men, but allegedly published by god (he's an author btw, not the best writer/editor in my view if I am honest) So Gods commanding what's right and what's wrong to pseudo-historical illiterate peasants and we must take their word that this is as good as morality gets!
 Its true murder and theft are immoral, in my view, but these texts claim its immoral to say 'gods a cruel idea' -perpetrators must be punished by death and often can have no appeal. Stoning naughty children, that's ok too morally speaking, slavery, well, that's not immoral, but there are limits to owning slaves, and what one can do with them. The moral line is drawn in beating them to death, as God does have his moral standards too. If any modern morality can be found in these ancient texts, morality that is still relevant today. I submit it is possible to discover these without recourse to cruel, counterintuitive morally hypocritical scribbling's.
 Any modern literate person knows god was wrong on the slavery issue, but he got thou shalt do no murder right so that's ok? Well no its not OK, God fails to condemn torture, rape, child abuse, animal cruelty etc the list is enormous. God does give ten rock solid commandments that any educated 10 year old today could improve in 10 minutes. How about instead of forbidding graven images, why not make slavery or genocide immoral? With all the knowledge now known- (that the human authors of these texts didn't know-and it shows) and the fact our 'moral' holy books often are guides on how to commit atrocities and acts of sadism. Then these pre/iron age morals forged in the name of ignorance with a sprinkling of thou shalt not kill doesn't redeem the grotesque acts they condone, one human sacrifice doesn't make anything right or better, not then, certainly not now, probably not ever. 
So amongst all this depravity and the deplorable immoral depths to which old books on morality plunge, it is not recommended to base a 21st century moral system on them, rather we should outgrow them for humanity's sake. Humanism as a science of morality is the future, if our species is ever to live up to half its full potential.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Dogma is Humanities Worst Illness.









