The Ineffability of Free Will
The Ineffability of Free Will
Introduction
In the previous sections regarding free will, we saw that if we limit free will only to processes known to science, then there is no inherently-free will and all our seeming free willed decisions are actually probabilistically-determined randomness (PDR).
As discussed there, even if all our decisions are PDR-based, one could still claim that by definition that if one felt free, one was free, and if one felt that one had moral responsibility for one's action then one did and if one intuited that life had meaning, it did. However, we concluded there that the type of 'moral responsibility' we (the author, and many other people) intuit is not compatible with this, nor is this the sense of 'meaning 'or 'freedom' we intuit.
We found that the type of 'meaning' we feel is that which would exist if there was an outsider perspective from which life indeed had meaning, that the type of moral responsibility and freedom we intuit is that which would exist if we were responsible and 'free' from this outsider perspective - indeed even from the perspective of a creator who had instituted the laws of nature themselves. Without "True free will", or inherently-free will, from the universe-Outsider Perspective there could be no moral responsibility, meaning and purpose.
From the outsider-perspective which we intuit, the existence of a moral being - a being with intelligence, a moral intuition and an inherently free will - is crucial to the existence of the universe: without free will there would be no Moral Reponsibility from the outsider perspective, no Meaning to human activity, and no Purpose to the creation and continued existence of that universe.
The cosmological ramifications of the existence of free will: If the assumption is made that indeed there is a true inherently free will, then this is a statement of great relevance to physics, not only to moral philosophy and questions of meaning and purpose. That is, the implication is that there are interactions in the universe that are not PDR even though according to known science all physical interactions are PDR at their most fundamental level. This has important implications for quantum physics and cosmology (Part IV)
Undefineable Concepts in Science: One of the difficulties in defining an inherently free will is the difficulty in logically delineating what it actually involves. However, some of the most familiar of concepts are similarly difficult or impossible to define, but are nevertheless intuitively understood, and therefore we will not be deterred by these difficulties of definition when approaching the concept of free will. An example of a familiar yet unprovable concept is provided in the following.
The Origin of the Universe and Unprovability
Not even all "physical events" can be dealt with by science. Since the scientific method requires an analysis of regularities, and an extrapolation from large amounts of similar events, science cannot deal with one-time unique phenomena - as for example the origin of the universe.
Indeed, even the concept 'the universe' is itself undefined. All entities which exist can be said to exist by virtue of the fact that there are other entities which are not it. One can in theory point to an entity, or set up an experiment which will detect that entity. However, the universe as a whole includes all measurement apparatus, and all observers as well. Therefore there is no way to point to the universe (from outside it), or to detect it using some measuring device, since all are part of it.
For example, if one speaks of the development of the universe as a whole over time, then since time is part of the universe, this is somewhat paradoxical. Furthermore, even if there were discovered a law that governs the development of the universe as a whole, it is not clear what it is that would regulates which laws operate, and whether or not they shold change or remain the same - the laws of nature are part of the universe, and cannot govern themselves.
Therefore, in a basic sense, 'the universe' is not defined scientifically, and therefore one cannot have a truly scientific theory of 'the universe'. Nevertheless, speculations regarding the universe a s a whole have given rise to theories which gave correct predictions, verified by measurement. Even where the roed is tricky regarding definitions, sometimes progress can be achieved nevertheless. We shall see that the same is true regarding the concept of free will.
The Complexity of the Concept of Free Will
There are some basic arguments which can be presented to the effect that free will is perhaps impossible to define, and which highlight the inherent difficult of the very concept of free will.
The Unprovability of Free Will: The Operational Argument
Neither determinism, nor randomness, nor free will can be proven.
If one can consistently predict the result of a process using a certain formula, we feel the event proceded in accordance with the formula - though even then one cannot prove that it will always be so, or that the event is 'forced' to do so even when it does follow the formula. For example, one cannot disprove the contention that the event decided freely to occur as it did, and for whatever reason it always decides the same way, so that it occurs always in accordance with a set formula (perhaps it chooses to follow that formula).
Just as one cannot prove that a process is determined, one can similarly not prove that an event is free or random.
Whatever event occurs in the universe, no matter how carefully it is monitered by the most delicate instruments, after the event occurs there is no way in which one could conceivably prove that the event could have happened differently than it actually did.
As P. W. Bridgman, the proponent of the philosophy of operationalism, wrote[1]:
"I defy you to set up a single objective criterion by which you can prove after you have made the [choice]...that you might have made [a different choice]."
Since there is no way that one can prove that one could have chosen differently than one actually did, according to the philosophical approach of operationalism there is no scientific meaning to the statement that one could have chosen differently, and therefore there is no scientific meaning to the statement that humans possess a free will.
["What is the meaning of human life, or for that matter, of the life of any creature? To know an answer to this question means to be religious. You ask: Does it make sense then to pose this question. I answer: The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life."Albert Einstein[2].]
In addition, whether one grants meaning or not to statements regarding free willed choice, one can see from this argument that no indisputable proof of free will could ever be offered since one could never prove that one could have acted differently than one did.
Even if one makes many measurements of the same type of event and finds that each time it occurs differently, nevertheless there is no way to prove about an individual event that it 'could have' happened otherwise than it actually did.
If no predictions are correct, or if it is shown that the results form a random pattern, then one still cannot say that any individual event 'could have occured ' differently than it did. Each event may well have only one way of occuring, the next time it occurs there is also only one way it could occur, and so on, and altogether the pattern is random. That is, all the events are determined, and they are correlated in such a way as to guarantee a random distribution.
The same for an allegedly freely willed decision. Even if the brain making the decision is carefully monitored, and it is found that there is no scientific explanation for the process, one cannot prove that it is free will - instead it may well be some as-yet-unknown phenomenon other than free will, which determines the result. And, there is no way in which one could conceivably prove after the fact that the decision could have been made differently than it was actually made.
The assumption of free will is therefore unprovable, and indeed is 'less provable' than that of determinism or randomness. A prediction of events which is always correct, whether it is about individual events or about the patterns that form in the aggregate, is quite convincing to us, and we can accept it as true even though not truly proven that events happen that way and could not have been otherwise, so that although unprovable, determinism can be intuitively convincing.
However, the case for free will is less convincing. Even if it is shown that no predictive statement can be made at all beforehand, then rather than concluding that free will is involved, one is only convinced that one does not know the mechanism involved - this lack of predictive ability need be nothing more than a proof of the unpredictability of the phenomenon, it need not be a proof that it is a free will process.
Although it may be intuitively true to us that we have a free will while other events are determined or random, none of this can be proven, and when we attempt to construct a picture of reality in which these are accepted as fact, we arrive at paradox. Our intuition that we possess a free will can be accepted as true, yet we cannot expect that reality should be such that this unprovably true statement should be consistent with all the provably true statements about reality.
This 'inherent unprovability' of free will illustrates one of the inherent difficiulties in rigorously defining 'true (inherent) free will'.
The Metaphysical Many-Universes Argument
When we say that we have true inherent free will, we mean that if we are faced with a moral dilemma, and must make a choice, there is nothing which determines our choice.
The question can be asked: If faced with the exact same dilemma under the same conditions exactly, would one again make the same choice? If time were rolled back, and we had no memory of the rolled-back time, would we again choose exactly as we did in the past?
Answering that we would always choose the same under the same circumstances seems to carry the implication that it is the circumstance which determines our response, rather than the operation of our free will. One would imagine that if we were placed in the same situation other times, we might choose differently.
To make more clear the problem this raises for free will, imagine that a creator creates an infinite amount of identical universes, so that every moral dilemma we have ever faced has been faced by an infinite amount of duplicates of us in these infinite universes.
If we do not have free will, and the process of choice-making in the brain is a determined one, then it would be expected that all our duplicates will act and choose exactly as we do.
If we do not have free will, but instead the choices we make are based on PDR interactions, then one would expect that in the otherwise identical universes, as an expression of the inherent randomness of the process underlying the choices, all possible choices will be represented. If these universes are only imagined in God's Mind, and then one is chosen at random and created from its mental picture, this universe will seem like one in which free will operates, but in actuality the choices are based on randomness.
Now consider an alternate scenario: all the duplicates in all the universes have a true inherent free will. In this scenario as well, one would expect that the choices in the various universes will not be identical. Indeed, if the individuals are truly free to make any decision, one could expect here as well that in an infinite range of universes, all possible choices will be represented.
Now choose one universe at random, and look at the choice made there. To the duplicate individual, the choice was truly freely willed. However to an outside observer who can see all the infinite number of universes, this scenario seems identical to the one with an infinite number of random-choice universes. To this observer, the free willed choice of the inhabitant of of one of the duplicate universes chosen at random, is simply one of the possible choices, chosen at random from among all the possible choices. Although free willed choice carries significance due to its unqueness, its non-determined or random charachter, when it is allowed to express itself to the fullest in an infinite collection of universes, the choices seem to lose their uniquness and therefore their significance.
Is there any significance to free willed action in any one universe, or in the whole, if all free willed choices are made in the totality of universes?
One could also imagine now that all the universes are destroyed except for one, chosen at random. Are the choices made in that universe free? Are the choices significant to the creator - after all, if the universe is chosen at random from among the infinite group of universes, then the choices are essentially chosen at random from among all the possible choices? From the creator's perspective, can there be meaning and purpose to such a universe?
We stated previously that if God creates a free willed universe, it is capable of possessing meaning and purpose. Imagine that after the universe comes to its end, another is created, and then over and over an infinite amont of times. Eventually every possible universe will have existed, and every possible individual will have existed and will have made every possible free willed decision. In what way is this collection of universes meaningful? And if only one is created, what makes it meaningful?
This argument illustrates the dependence of the value of free will on other issues, and is an exmple of the diffculties faced when attempting to get a handle on the nture of free will.
The Argument from Intuition
It is difficult if not impossible to understand how an event can be neither determined nor random. Especially a choice which is to be a rational and moral one would seem to necessarily involve careful reasoning, and therefore a determined chain of brain events.
If a free willed choice is caused by anything, then it is not free, whereas if it is not caused by prior thoughts and events then it is random and not reasoned. This is the crux of the problem - freedom of the will is actually counterintuitive.
Certainly, as a non-causal phenomenon, one could not necessarily expect that it would be modelable, mathematically describable. Therefore, no physical theory can ever be expected to encompass or describe free will. Indeed there may even be phenomena less radically nonmodelable than free will which will also never be modelable - such as a non-computable physical process - let alone free will which is inherently acausal.
As a result, there will possibly always exist some non-meshing of scientific concepts - concepts encompassable by scientific description - and that of free will, which science itself may eventually recognize yet consider out of its purview.
The Mind Body Problem
By definition, that which can be affected by the physical is itself physical. If the mind knows what the brain senses, what it feels, then it is necessarily physical itself. However, mind is by definition not physical. This paradox forms the crux of the mind-body problem[3].
The existence of non-physical phenomena in themselves present no paradox. One can imagine a universe which contains consciousness and physicality, and where there exists a paralellism between the two so that although there is no connection between the two, they are nevertheless correlated. This indeed was Leibnitz's solution.
However, if it is assumed that there is some interaction between the two realms, then the paradox arises. This interaction comes in two basic forms.
One form is the interaction of consciousness with the physical universe via the mechanism of free will. As the active ingredient of consciousness, it is free will which crosses the barrier between physical and non-physical, allowing the non-physical consciousness to affect the physical universe in a manner causing it to develop along a path which it would not have followed had it been affected only by the causes present in the physical universe by itself[4].
The other form of interaction is the emergence of consciousness where none was before, as a result of physical conditions - for example the evolution of a conscious being where none existed previously, or the development of a conscious being from non-conscious material, specifically a sperm and an egg.
Evolution and Consciousness
If all entities including atoms are conscious, then the consciousness associated with human brains is simply the combined effect of all the component consciousneses. In such a case, the consciousness in human brains is merely of greater degree than that in rocks or animal brains, and this is due to the greater complexity of the human brain. Similarly so if consciousness is inherent in the universe and was infused into the human when the human brain achieved the requisite level of complexity.
Conscious people originate in non-conscious sperm and eggs - the question arises as to at which point in the development of humans their consciousness emerges, and as to what physical cause this might have had.
The eminent neuroscientist Sir John (INSERT) Eccles states that no purely materialist theory will be able to account for consciousness. In his words:
INSERT ECCLES QUOTE
do conscious beings behave in a way that is different than non-conscious beings. This means that consciousness is not simply the passive registering of impressions, but that intentions which would not arise in a non-conscious brain can originate in a conscious brain and can be acted upon.
This however would mean that given the same physical conditions and information the physical output - such as action and behavior - is different for a conscious and a non-conscious brain.
If consciousness is not a physical entity, then a conscious and non-conscious brain can be physically identical[5]. If this is the case, then all the external and internal physical elements leading up to and involved in a decision by a conscious and non-conscious brain are identical, yet nevertheless the resulting decision of the brain and action of the body is different. This is however not in line with physical theory regarding causality, according to which identical causes give rise to identical effects.
Indeed, as soon as one postulates that a non-physical entity can interact with physical entities, one arrives at conclusions at variance with physical theory[6], and with ordinary intuition.
The Significance of Free Will
We have seen various aspects of the complexity of the issue of defining an inherently free will, and doing so within the parameters of science mathematics and logic. Of course the intuition we have of free will can attributed to illusion, and such has been done by some speculations of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology. Nevertheless our intuition that we are free willed is in many of us stronger than the belief that all must must be in consonance with present day scientific understanding, and therefore for most people the intuition that free will exists is too strong to ignore or to accept theories which explain it away. We simply believe more strongly in our free will than we do in evolutionary psychology, even if the latter can venture explanations for this too.
Free Will as the Active Ingredient of Consciousness
The significance of an inherently free will goes beyond the issue of moral responsibility. Without an inherently free will, humans are essentially conscious robots.
Can a consciousness interact with the physical universe via a brain-decision in a way which different than the interaction by a non-conscious brain? Would there be any physically measurable difference between a universe of conscious robots having an illusion of free will and a universe of conscious robots with true inherently free will?
If there is a measurable difference between the two, it must be that the difference is due to an interaction which violates causality, and only such an interaction can underlie what we usually mean by a 'free willed' decision: the decision is 'free' only if it does not depend on the input and physical situation as would a process governed by causality, but instead is 'free' of the constraints of causality.
Free will is the way in which consciousness affects the physical universe, acting in an intelligent manner which is independent of causality even though it is non-random.
Without some form of free-will type interaction, when there is nothing in the mind-state which is not a correlate of the brain state, or even if there is but there is no way for it to affect the brain, or the rest of the physical universe, then the mind is irrelevant to physics, to the physical universe. If there can be a mind-state which is not a correlate of the brain state, then this mind state is acausal, and therefore it is what we term 'free-willed type'. Further, if there is a way for this mental state to affect the brain, or the rest of the physical universe, then the mind causes an event in the brain which has no causal roots in the physical universe - it is self-caused from the perspective of the physical universe, a 'free-willed type interaction', and is very relevant to physics, and to the physical universe.
Without free-willed type interactions, no matter what complex and deep thoughts and emotions may arise in consciousness, the only effects of a person on the universe are due to the body, including the brain state - the mind state is essentially irrelevant to the course of events, and there is no effect of consciousness on the physical universe[7].
We saw previously that to ascribe the type of moral responsibility to human activity which most of us intuit, there must be an inherently free will, which we can see now must be based on non-causal processes. Similarly for the existence of meaning and purpose in the sense we defined them.
We can also now see that furthermore any philosophy which considers humans as more than material, as more than conscious robots, and which considers humans as entities which can affect the physical universe with the non-material aspect must incorporate non-causality in its world view.
The Nature of Free Will
Free Will and Self-Causation
When one makes a free-willed decision, there are many elements of reasoning backing up this decision - one would always be able to provide reasons why one chose that particular choice, so that it would seem that any 'free' choice, in order to be goal-oriented and meaningful, must be derived from a chain of reasoning. However, if this were the case, 'free' decisions are derived from a deterministic chain of cause-effect. Thus, in order for free will to be conceptualized in a non-self-contradictory manner, the concept of a chain of cause and effect - the concept of causality - would possibly have to be modified[8].
Free will can exist only if it is founded on processes which are neither random nor determined. If the processes underlying an allegedly free willed decision are actually random, then the result of these processes, the randomly-arrived-at decision, cannot be said to be the expression of a will, since it is random; if the underlying processes are instead determined ones, then the resulting decision is determined, and therefore by definition is not a free one.
We also saw that incomputability is a necessary but insufficient condition for free will. That is, all free willed processes are incomputable, but not all incomputable processes are free willed. Even if the free willed decisions are inherently unpredictable, for example based on non-computable processes, if these processes are at their fundamental level deterministic/random then the decisions they give rise to may be non-predictable but neither are they free[9]. Therefore, one must look elsewhere for the underlying physical nature of free will, and we will leave aside discussion of incomputability as not directly relevant.
If the brain state corresponding to a decision follows from prior brain states (and universe-states) in a chain of cause and effect following the same natural law governing other events, then even if the decision is inherently non-predictable by science or mathematics, it is no more free willed than is any other predictable or non-predictable event such as the falling of a drop of rain, the growth of a plant, or the orbit of an electron in its path.
Defining free will is very difficult, since our physical intuition is built up from experience with phenomena which are either determined or random, and it is not possible for us to mesh the physical theories we have of the physical universe - which are all based on determinism and randomness - with the operation of an inherently free will.
Even in mental terms the same problem arises. Free willed action needs to be based on logical considerations in order to be will rather than caprice, however if it is so based, then the decision is not free, but is rather dictated by logic. And, to whatever extent it is not logical, it is not will that is deciding, but rather some other factor. The question of the origin of a free-willed choice therefore presents a paradox, since if it is caused, it is not free, yet if it is random, it is not willed.
Even if one posits an extra-physical realm which interacts with the physical in order to produce free-willed phenomena, we are again involved in the mind body problem, the paradox of the physical and non-physical being able to interact. And in any case, the acausality of free will is inherent to the nature of the decision - that it is free - and an extra-physical realm may not provide a solution to this.
When a free-willed choice comes into existence therefore, if it is in fact truly free willed, it is not caused by something outside of itself, and as a result it is either acausal or self-causative.
Free Will and the Ramifications for Science
Consciousness is a phenomenon which by its very nature is inherently "other" than any other in the universe. The "otherness" of consciousness expresses itself in the fact that we can know of the universe at all only through our consciousness, and thus consciousness in a way "contains" the universe, and in a way is "outside" the universe.
Similarly the phenomenon of our consciousness which we call "free will" operates outside the normal laws of nature: in order for free-willed acts to be "free" they must violate the causal laws of the rest of the universe since they are caused by our will rather than by the previous state of the universe (which itself includes the previous state of our mind). Free will without this causality-transcendence is not free will as we mean it - true free will is therefore "self-causative".
To encompass free will there must therefore exist some interaction which has a level of acausality yet more radical than that of quantum physics.
Since the very concept of free will seems to be indefinable and even self-contradictory, in addition to modifying quantum theory to account for free will, one would possibly have to modify the concept of causality itself - the idea underlying all of science that one event causes another according to some law.
It can can be postulated that all phenomena in the universe except for free will are subservient to quantum probabilistic causality.
One can see a form of hierarchical structure: free will contains the probabilistic determinism of quantum physics as a special case where the decision of how to occur is taken at random instead of freely willed , while ordinary determinism is a special case of PDR where one particular way has 100% probability of occurring.
The general category of the interaction underlying the operation of an inherently free will - 'acausality'.
.Free Will and Self Causation
Free will is radically other than all other interactions, and if humans possess free will, then a radical difference exists between the actions of man and that of the rest of the universe. If humans possesses an 'inherently free' will they can decide on their activity and thoughts in a partially autonomous manner; using free will[10] a human can free himself from the deterministic/random universe and initiate activity (partially) independently of the prior state of the universe.
The crux of the matter is that free willed decisions are in some sense 'self-caused' as they are neither random nor totally caused by prior events.
Even if all else operates in accordance with the ordinary laws of physics, free-willed decisions by definition do not. The brain processes involved in making decisions between moral alternatives of right and wrong are in this view unique and significant in that they are autonomous, and are perhaps the only non random/deterministic processes in the universe. In a universe with free will, man's actions can be attributed to him, and not to the universe, nor to a creator. Therefore, in such a universe, it is not meaningless to claim that man may have a moral responsibility to choose the good over the evil.
Summary
Free will is in essence self-causation, and is therefore not encompassable within ordinary logic and physical theory - it is not modelable, nor is it provable or disprovable. Free will is independent of the causal chain of events, and the existence in the mind of an interaction with this self-causative nature and independence endows it with many intriguing properties and has important ramifications for quantum physics cosmology and philosophy as we shall see in the following chapters (Part IV).
The cultural source of the understanding of a "True free will" and its implications for 'Morality": the Creation and Eden Accounts
The Biblical creation and Eden accounts form perhaps the earliest scenario of an "Outsider" (God) to whom human free-willed choice is meaningful, with some aspect of humans (soul = moral intuition) being a reflection of the Outsider. It is interesting to analyze these accounts in the context of our discussions above. We will see that various aspects of the creation and Eden accounts, and of Biblical philosophy, mesh well with our elucidation of the basic nature of free willed interaction, and also with the above-mentioned implications for science.
Gensis presents the creation of a universe capable of moral responsibility and with a non-causal non-scientifically-encompassable free will, and in some sense - as we'll see below - the inherently non-scientific nature of the free will discussed there is reflected in the form of the account itself.
As we have seen, science cannot truly deal with the universe as a whole, or with one-time unique phenomena as for example the origin of the universe, or 'the actual emergence of the universe into existence', or possibly the origin of consciousness, nor does science yet encompass mental phenomena such as consciousness and free will. All of the above are however of course the subjects of the creation and Eden accounts.
We have seen that free will is seemingly beyond the rational: it is counterfactual and therefore non-disprovable; it is not causal, and therefore is unmodelable (no scientific theory of it can exist).
As unique events, concepts, and phenomena outside the realm of ordinary scientific inquiry, the issues of existence, the existence of the physical universe, the onset of purpose, consciousness, and free will cannot be encompassed entirely via the rational. It is appropriate therefore that the Eden account which deals with the emergence of free will has an imagery-oriented style rather than a rational historical one, and that these issues are dealt with in Genesis through the medium of allegory and allusion in the creation and Eden accounts.
MATERIAL FOR BOOK JACKET ETC:
Although the book is meant to be read in its entirety as various parts reflect upon each other, many parts can stand alone; those interested in particular topics can use the guide provided at the end of the introduction to choose the sections of particular interest to them.
Overview
The known laws of nature are insufficient(ly 'rich' or 'deep') to provide for the existence of true free will[11]. However, a certain type of meta-causality that we term acausality could, if it underlies the physical nature of the interactions within a brain, enable true free-willed descisions to be taken. The existence of such a phenomenon has ramifications for physics, cosmology, mathematics and philosophy.
We will see that we must go beyond present science in our explorations of the mental realm of the human mind and of the concepts/phenomena which arise therein: especially free will, meaning and purpose. The reality we will find is however not contradictory to that revealed by the scientific endeavor. Rather, what we find is supplementary to known science, indicative of a deeper richness to the fabric of reality as indicated by the human mind than has as yet been discovered by science in its investigations of the inanimate universe.
We will explore the parallel between the nature, emergence, and significance of free-willed consciousness, and the nature, emergence, and significance of the universe and life. On the way we will relate the underlying themes of the creation and Eden accounts, and of free willed-consciousness, not only to fundamental moral and philosophical questions but also to the concept of human creativity in general, as well as to some of the central ideas of many disciplines: philosophy, quantum physics, metaphysics, cosmology, kabbalah, and mathematics.
Summary of Book: better for a book review etc than for the book itself.
One of the most mysterious elements of modern physics concerns the nature of reality at the microscopic level and of the universe as a whole, particularly the rather metaphysical 'measurement problem' of quantum physics. We will find that our investigations of the nature of morally-relevant free will, and specifically the postulation of an acausal type of basis for free willed consciousness allow us to make some possible contributions to this issue, and to relate the type of free will which is capable of being morally relevant to processes of quantum physics and through it to cosmology.
We will find other points where the nature of free will as we define it has relevance to questions of the nature of existence, to the possible relationship of kabbalistic and cosmological concepts, to the anthropic principle, to the relationship between entropy, human creativity, the prevention of the possible eventual 'heat death' of the universe, and to other matters of cosmological significance.
In exploring various paths in these fields, we will always find ourselves led back to the issue of free-willed moral consciousness, and to the creation and Eden accounts.
Our understanding of the nature of free will also helps shed light on one of the central issues in philosophy: the 'mind body' problem. We will find that the acausal nature of free will which grants it the possibility of being relevant to moral responsibility also endows it with the role of the 'ghost in the machine' of philosophy, sparking across the gap between the mental realm of thought and emotion, and the realm of the brain and the rest of the physical universe.
We shall find this issue to be of relevance in discussions of the nature of consciousness, the evolution of consciousness, the question of the mental or material nature of the universe, human transcendence, and even to the nature of mathematical truth.
Among the philosophical issues explored are the source of moral obligation, objective vs. subjective morality, and the problem of evil. Kabbalistic topics concepts such as tzimtzum, shvirat hakelim, and the connection between the spiritual and physical realms are related to concepts of physics - the ideas of symmetry, the unity of the laws of nature, and the nature of physical reality - and to those of cosmology: the design of the big bang, and the origin, age, and heat death of the universe. In mathematics, logic and artificial intelligence we dip briefly into Godel's incompleteness theorem, the concept of mathematical truth, randomness, and the nature of creativity; in metaphysics we consider the design of the universe, purpose and meaning, and the emergence of existence from non-existence.
In addition, we shall develop an understanding of the creation and Eden accounts focusing on their being centrally concerned with the themes of existence, free will and MRMP (moral responsibility, meaning and purpose). This, together with our understanding of the nature of free will in turn enable us to see the two accounts as closely connected thematically rather than as obscure and perplexingly contradictory cosmogonies[12].
We also explore other questions which are central to the creation and Eden accounts such as: why the emergence of humanity is the culmination of creation; why each act of creation is seen by God as "good" (and the creation as a whole is seen by God as "very good"); why Adam is said to have been created 'in the image of God'; why he ate of the tree; whether or not prior to eating he had free will to choose whether or not to eat of the tree; why he is called 'Adam'; why Eve was created separately and how her role fulfilled her design as a 'helpmeet' for Adam; why the Eden account is juxtaposed to the creation account; why the accounts have the literary form they do; and the relationship of the two accounts to the rest of the Bible.
Several issues which arise in connection with contemporary science and its implications for the creation and Eden accounts are also discussed, such as: the question of the existence of God; the big bang and evolution theories; the origin of the universe and its age; the origin of humanity and the amount of time humans have been in existence; all this with the common thread being that of free-willed consciousness and moral activity forming a tapestry of physics and metaphysics against the background of the creation and Eden accounts in Genesis.
In the final sections of the book we will find that after clarifying the acausal nature of free will we are also in a better position to confront some of the major issues of general and Jewish religious philosophy
........................
[1] "The Nature of Physical Theory" p12.
[2] p11 bottom, of Ideas and Opinions, Crown Publishers 1954. based on Albert Einstein "Mein Weltbild" Amsterdam 1934.
[3] A later chapter discusses this in depth.
[4] A later chapter discusses this in depth.
[5] Even if consciousness requires an additional physical organ, it would not be the physical organ itself which introduces the significant factor, but rather the consciousness which employs the organ. Further, even if the existence of a conscious thought itself had an effect on the physical universe, for example if the energy content of the thought had a gravitational effect on the surrounding matter-energy, it would not be this effect which was significant, but rather the significant effect results from the conscious decision and its implementation.
[6] Particularly conservation laws such as that of the conservation of energy.
[7] Actually, to be more precise, we mean that without free will there is no intelligent effect of consciousness on the physical universe - consciousness may have an energy content which would affect the curvature of space-time as would any other energy source, and so on, but this effect would not be 'intelligent' in the way that conscious decisions are, and consciousness would not have the potential to change the course of events as it would if it were free willed.
[8] ibid.
[9] The fact that a decision process is non-computable does not make it more free or less free. Even in a non-computable process, components which are not random can be computed by a real-time simulation, and the fact that they cannot be predicted simply means that one can not determine the result of the simulation any faster than the events will themselves unfold. If by performing a simulation of a choice one can know the result of the choice, then even if the simulation is slower than, or as slow as, the choice mechanism itself, there is clearly no free will involved.
[10] From this point on, 'free will' will mean exclusively what we have termed an 'inherently free' will.
[11] Hedging, we could write instead: We will show why we feel that the known laws of nature are insufficient(ly 'rich' or 'deep') to provide for the existence of what we consider to be true free will.
[12] Cosmogony = a history of the origin and development of the cosmos.