Actually, I hope this happens, because I want people who disagree with me to read my blog, and read it as though they thought I believed it.
Which I do.
But to anyone who finds themselves engaging in imaginary debate with what they think I'd say, what I'd actually say is, "shut up and listen". I do that all the time when I read things I disagree with, and it never gets me anywhere either. If I wanted you reading things I didn't write, it'd be easier for me not to write anything, and it would give you more to read.
And if you make it all the way through, there's a poem there which might make your reading worthwhile. You can read it first, if you want.
Having said that...
Some Scientists Seem Silly
See? There you go. I make one three-word statement and you're already reading into it. Maybe I'm reading into you too much. I'll cordially desist and get on with defending the preceeding statement.
I assume you believe science works. I believe science works. If science didn't work, engineering would just be a bunch of guesses, and I would have paid a whole lot of money to be taught about guessing. Science has described the universe to incredible detail, from the motion of galaxies and planets to the transmutations of the smallest of particles. I think it's wonderful the way science is able to talk about how plants grow, how rocks fall, how tides work, how light bounces, how gas diffuses (*breathe*) how stars burn how ice melts okay I'm done.
Notice what I said, and compare it to what somebody else (the effigy of your choice) would have said. Notice my terminology: I used the words "described" and "talk about". Many other people would say "discovered" or "told us how". The public opinion holds science to be a thing that reveals the world; I hold science to be a thing that describes it. And this is a much larger difference than you may realize.
How to Speak Math
Mathematics is a language, written with letters and symbols on paper just like English . It is possible, in some cases, to translate everyday sentences in this language. For example,
"I have four rocks and Eric throws two at me. How many do I throw back at him?"
becomes
4+2-400=-394
because I have to teach Eric a lesson.
But seriously, to translate English (or your language of choice) into mathematics, you have to make some assumption (4 refers to four rocks, not four chickens), chose the correct symbols and put them in the right order. We do all this stuff when we translate into other languages as well.
Mathematics is simply a way to describe the world. Science is a systematic (sometimes) method by which to describe the physical world in a language (usually mathematics), and scientists are the people who do this.
Most people, however, seem to think that science actually tells us how the world is, not just how it seems (which would be a description.) They think this because science has predictive power: I can drop a rock and tell you exactly how long it will take to hit the ground. I can mix two chemicals together, and my roommate Austin could tell you what they would make, and how quickly. (I'm not very good at chemistry.) They think that this means science has penetrated the black box of nature, not only describing its actions but deducing its nature.
This is not necessarily true (I think not true at all), and to demonstrate this inconsistency, I'm going to take it to an extreme. It's what I do.
A Most Entertaining Enlightenment
Picture a world exactly like ours. (That wasn't too tough, was it?) Now imagine each of these scenarios: immerse yourself in it. We're going to do a thought experiment, and I invite you along!
Imagine that, in this world, everything is dumb, in the sense of "not aware or free". They're just a bunch of particles (or waves, whatever) that bounce around interacting in random ways. Basically, imagine the world as most people think it is. We call this the "dumb universe".
Now, compare it to a world where everything is alive, in the sense of "aware and free", basically that everything in the world has a mind. Imagine that these minds have received a set of commands that describe what their actions ought to be, and that they find complete fulfillment in obeying these commands. We call this the "free universe".
Would you be able to tell the difference? I think you would not. We judge things to be free when we cannot predict their actions: I can't be sure what my fiancee will do in every situation, so I think she is free.
But if she was completely happy to walk around the pond behind her apartment at a leisurly pace, I could predict her motion. She'd be walking around the pond. I could also, given her initial velocity and position, predict where she would be at any point in the future. I couldn't tell her to do something else, because, being content, she wouldn't want to. I could model her mathematically to any degree of accuracy you paid me to achieve.
Now imagine not a fiancee around a duck pond, but an Earth around a Sun. The pond is a slightly different shape, but the same logic applies: we couldn't tell the difference between the Earth as a dumb, spinning sphere and the Earth as a free, contented sphere. But this is exactly what science assumes.
But many scientists (materialists we call them) go even further. They say that, since every particle in the universe is dumb, and our brains are made of particles, that we are not free. When I (whatever that means in this context) complain, "but I feel free", they say that this freedom (and, indeed, all my experience) is simply an illusion. "An illusion to whom?" I ask, but the scientist has already deemed my questions beneath his answering.
I think this is dumb.
The only thing I really know is that I have a mind, that I have experiences and feel things. To tell me otherwise sounds an awful lot like the claims that the world is hollow and run in secret by lizard men who control us through vaccines and it just seems like everything is normal. That's fantastic stuff for Mulder and Scully and web sites with black, starry backgrounds, low-rez government logos and green text, but none of that stuff is taken seriously, so why should this be?
Actual Reason
And in fact, which is more reasonable? We have never seen a "law of nature", nor could we in principle. We do not know what it's like "to be" an elementary particle as a current physicist would talk about an elementary particle, nor could we in theory experience it, since an elementary particle, in current opinion, is not the kind of thing that has experiences. And so we postulate the existences of things like "laws of nature" (we don't know what kind of things they are, just what they do)
But you might say this thought is dumb. Doesn't Occam's Razor rule out the assumption that every single thing in the universe has a free will of its own? For those of you out of the loop, Occam's Razor is a principle of logic, which states that, given two hypotheses, the one requiring the fewest assumptions is the better hypothesis (until proven otherwise).
Well...
For the "free universe" model, we must have minds and things which the minds perceive as as physical ( whether or not there's real physical things is a different topic which I think I ranted about earlier.) Notice that, if we go with what we intuitively know, we already have both of those things. There are minds (I am one, at least), and there are other things with which they interact (because I'm typing this on the internet.)
For the "dumb universe" model, however, we not only have to assume the existence of "dumb particles", which we can't directly experience [1] and "physical laws" which we can experience even less, and which interact with these dumb particles in some unknown manner, but we also have to assume the non-existence of the things with which we are most closely aquainted, our minds and their experiences.
For one, we don't have to assume anything. For the other, we have to assume everything. Which does Occam really raze?
[1](in the sense that, when I sense a "green chair", I really just see a bunch of colors and shapes, and feel some textures and maybe lick it (?) but can't experience the chair for itself, if it is a thing which triggers these experiences)
[EDITOR'S/AUTHOR'S/MY NOTE: There may be one way to tell if the particles in the universe were free. If they were given leeway at some small scale, not large enough to throw everything into utter chaos ("freedom") but small enough to maybe be noticed, things at that scale would be uncertain. Here's a blank space where you can draw your own conclusions.
That is all.]
The Real Reason
If you've made it to the bottom of this post, congratulations! Hopefully you didn't smash your straw man, and if you did, I sincerely hope you don't have hay fever, because that itches something fierce.
But now, why I actually believe that the universe is free, either consisting of innumerable free minds obeying a single mind or of the outporings of a single omnipotent mind.
From what I read, the most brilliant mathematicians and scientists don't do science the way they're supposed to. Instead of starting from the beginning of things and working their way up through logical and mathematical deduction, they take giant flying leaps that they know to be true and prove them afterwards. Many times, these leaps don't even come while during math, but while waiting for a train or walking through a garden. Sometimes they're so certain it's right (coming as it did from nowhere) that they don't even write it down until it's convenient.
This, to me, sounds like they were told, like they're building the Stairway to Heaven from the top. I think this because I have had similar experiences, where knowledge was imposed upon me without my deduction or wisdom. One of these times I was made certain that God exists.
And one of these times I wrote a poem that triggered all the preceeding thought.
Here it is.
The Dance
"The matter is solved", so the scientists say
"By the facts our conclusion is clear.
Your brain is a set of material points
Just like coffee, and couches, and air.
And physics determines the motion of these,
So by logic, we surely can tell
Your spirit's a spectre, your mind is made up
Your freedom's illusion as well.
It ate at my mind, but was not satisfied
For my mind was shown not to exist.
"Wherefore," then I cried," if I'm atoms inside,
Does my mind find the means to persist?
I must find a solution, must quell this debate
But whose wisdom my thought should imbue?
And what if I find my mistake of a mind
On this quest never thought to pursue?
But as I in my madness stepped into the night,
By concerned contemplation consumed,
A nearby door opened, unleashed beaming light
And the sound of a rollicking tune.
I stepped to the portal and through it advanced
And the scene set my soul free from glum
For there on the floor was the liveliest dance
Danced in perfect accord with the drum
The masses were moving, and flawless in form,
Each second step flowed from the first,
And the men spun the women. The women, they spun
As though they'd been spinning from birth.
They dipped and they ducked, and they twirled and lept
Each knew the next step he should take
And he took it with glee, and the rhythm was kept
Synchronicity free from mistake.
But they did it with joy. This awakened a thought
Which was absent upon my first glance
They were able to stray, and yet stray they did not
Though none was required to dance.
They frolicked so freely, yet so well in step
The wills in accord with the ball
Almost as though dance marked their movements with power
Which wasn't a power at all.
At that moment I knew just the mage to pursue
And where for my wisdom to go
I cried, "You, oh Universe, I will ask you,
For you of all people should know."
Are you determined, is your future so bound
By the chain of events in your past?
How could my perception be so turned around
As to freedom be holding so fast?
The universe answered, much to my surprise,
"Of course! It's our joy to explain
Why all of our courses seem fixed to your eyes,
And why our strict routes we maintain.
You must have such sorrow to know not the joy
To never decide to fulfill
The call of the Master and step to His song,
And dance to the tune of His will.
"Why must you keep budding," I questioned the tree
"For winter will always destroy
The leaves on your branches. Does it sorrow thee
This Sysiphian, aimless employ?"
The tree bent his boughs to the breeze blowing sweet
"I never have felt such a thing!
My crown of red-gold I would lay at His feet,
A thousand times more for my king!"
I asked of the cloud of his watery wealth,
"Why empty yourself of your rain?
You fill yourself full, then you pour out yourself
Why could you not chose to refrain?"
"Refrain?" asked the cloud," Why I certainly could,
But I chose to remember my source.
He who created intends me for good
I am fully content with His course."
"Why do you keep spinning, wherein is your mirth?
And are you forbidden from fun?"
I asked of the moon as he turned 'round the earth,
And the earth as he turned 'round the Sun.
"How can you continue, it surely seems old,
This regular daily humdrum?
Is there something at issue inside of your soul?
Insane, uncreative, or numb?"
They guffawed at my folly, continued to spin
And the planets joined in their elation.
"You reason us dumb by a premise so thin
As the absence of our deviation?
How dare you assume we could be malcontent
In our calling? For nothing is greater
But to freely revolve in the Dance of the Spheres,
Choreography of the Creator!"
"Why do you continue?" I asked to a rock,
"He gives you no thanks nor reward?
Why would you keep sitting there, stiff as a stock
How are you not utterly bored?"
"No Thanks?!" cried the rock,"What more thanks could we want!
We could have no more gracious reward,
'If these were kept silent, the stones would cry out!'
We were praised by the mouth of the Lord!"
Then all of creation joined in with one voice,
Singing, "Glory and Honor to He
Who is scribing our dance and is calling our steps
Makes us graceful, and beautiful; free!
Come and join in our concord, our pure promenade
Which the Heavenly Father commands!
For the nature declareth the glory of God
And creation the work of His hands!"
Such pure adoration! Such perfect content!
The universe hears and obeys
The Will of the Word, every whisper and hint
To the end of the Ancient of Days!
Such sorrow for us! Unabashed regret
We are selfish and wicked as well
Why give we not glory where glory is due
And join in the dance for ourselves?
Here's a paper arguing for the consciousness of each particle in the universe. http://philpapers.org/rec/ARGNCO
ReplyDelete