The invention of robot humans
Free will vs. determinism
by Jon Rappoport
May 13, 2015
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I love it when people tell me philosophy isn’t important. It makes me feel like a shark in a pool of farmed fish.
I’ll put this simply. If a person doesn’t think having his own philosophic stance is important, then he should consider that other people have philosophies, and they are bent on creating reality FOR him…and in doing so, they use that philosophy “thingo” he doesn’t think matters at all.
And one of the great philosophic issues—it flies under the radar—is free will versus determinism. Determinism means: events and lives and reality itself are a parade of happenings entirely devoid of choice. No freedom.
In labs all over the world, brain researchers are pushing this notion, believing that someday they will be able to control the brain to an absolute degree. For them, you see, it really doesn’t matter what they do to that organ in our skulls and how that will affect the global population…because they’re sure people were never free to begin with.
Get it? So nothing much is riding on the question of free will vs. determinism except the future of the human race.
In the next 50, 100 years, will we see billions of fully-programmed, “new-brain” human androids everywhere, or will freedom survive?
Armed with a philosophy of determinism, researchers will try to install whatever programming they want to, “for the good of all.” And they won’t feel even a twitch of guilt.
I was searching through a 1929 Saturday Evening Post interview with Albert Einstein. I found an interesting quote:
“I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will…Practically, I am, nevertheless, compelled to act as if freedom of the will existed. If I wish to live in a civilized community, I must act as if man is a responsible being.”
I’m always shocked but not surprised when I come across statements like this from scientists.
I guess after Einstein escaped from the Nazis in 1933, he eventually came to America because our brand of no-free-will just happened to be better. Or something.
So I decided to pull Einstein back from the past and engage him in conversation.
Every time I do one of these interviews with dead people, somebody thinks it’s real. I don’t know why. So again, for clarification, this is fiction. However, sometimes fiction makes a point more clearly.
Does free will exist?
Q (Rappoport): Sir, would you say that the underlying nature of physical reality is atomic?
A (Einstein): If you’re asking me whether atoms and smaller particles exist everywhere in the universe, then of course, yes.
Q: And are you satisfied that, wherever they are found, they are the same? They exhibit a uniformity?
A: Certainly.
Q: Regardless of location.
A: Correct.
Q: So, for example, if we analyze the brain into its constituent elements, we find those same tiny particles, which are no different in kind from other sub-atomic particles anywhere in the universe.
A: That’s true. Actually, everything inside the human body is composed of these tiny particles. And the particles, everywhere in the universe, without exception, flow and interact and collide without any exertion of free will. It’s an unending stream of cause and effect.
Q: And when you think to yourself, “I’ll get breakfast now,” what is that?
A: The thought?
Q: Yes.
A: Ultimately, it is the outcome of particles in motion.
Q: You were compelled to have that thought.
A: As odd as that may seem, yes. Of course, we tell ourselves stories to avoid that conclusion.
Q: And those “stories” we tell ourselves—they aren’t freely chosen rationalizations, either. We have no choice about that.
A: Well, yes. That’s right.
Q: So there is nothing in the human brain or what some would call the mind that allows us the possibility of free will.
A: Nothing at all.
Q: And as we are sitting here right now, sir, looking at each other, sitting and talking, this whole conversation is spooling out in the way that it must. Every word. Neither you nor I is really choosing what we say.
A: I may not like it, but it’s deterministic destiny. The particles flow.
Q: When you pause to consider a question I ask you and what your answer will be…even that act of considering is mandated by the motion of sub-atomic particles in the brain. What appears to be you deciding how to give me an answer…that is a delusion.
A: The act of considering is not done freely with a range of possible choices. I know that sounds harsh. It may be hard to swallow. But there is no free will.
Q: The notion of considering is, you might say, a cultural or social delusion.
A: I guess that’s so, yes.
Q: And the outcome of this conversation, whatever points we may or may not agree upon, and the issues we may settle here, about this subject of free will versus determinism…they don’t matter at all, because, when you boil it down, the entire conversation was determined by our thoughts, which are nothing more than the products of atomic and sub-atomic particles in motion—and that motion flows according to laws, none of which have anything to do with human choice.
A: The entire flow of reality, so to speak, proceeds according to determined sets of laws.
Q: And we are in that flow.
A: Most certainly we are.
Q: But the earnestness with which we try to settle the issue of free will versus determinism, the application of feeling and thought and striving—all that is irrelevant. It’s window dressing. This conversation actually cannot go in different possible directions. It can only go in one direction.
A: That would ultimately have to be so. Yes.
Q: Now, are atoms and their components, and any other tiny particles in the universe…are any of them conscious?
A: Of course not.
Q: Some scientists speculate they are.
A: Some people speculate that the moon can be sliced and served on a plate with fruit.
Q: What do you think “conscious” means?
A: That’s hard to say.
Q: Is imagination made up of the same tiny particles that inhabit the whole universe?
A: That’s an odd idea.
Q: Let me broaden it. Any of the so-called faculties we possess—are they ultimately anything more than particles in motion?
A: I see. Well, no, they aren’t. Because everything is particles in motion. What else could be happening in this universe?
Q: All right. I’d like to consider the word “understanding.”
A: It’s a given. It’s real.
Q: How so?
A: The proof that it’s real, if you will, is that we are having this conversation.
Q: Yes, but how can there be understanding if everything is particles in motion? Do the particles possess understanding?
A: No they don’t. They just are.
Q: And does “they just are” include understanding?
A: No.
Q: Then, how can what you and I are saying have any meaning?
A: Words mean things.
Q: Again, I have to point out that, in a universe with no free will, we only have particles in motion. That’s all. That’s all we are. So where does “meaning” come from? Is it just an automatic reflex, a delusion, as “being conscious” is a delusion, as “understanding” is a delusion?
A: “We understand language” is a true proposition.
Q: You’re sure.
A: Of course.
Q: Then I suggest you’ve tangled yourself in a contradiction. In the universe you depict, there would be no room for understanding. There would nowhere for it to come from. Unless particles understand. Do they?
A: No.
Q: Then where do “understanding” and “meaning” come from?
A: They are facts.
Q: Based on what?
A: …I don’t know.
Q: If we accept your depiction of a universe of particles without free will, then there is no basis for this conversation at all. We don’t understand each other. How could we? We are not truly conscious, we are making sounds, we are “going back and forth,” the outcome is not within our choice, and we don’t understand what we are saying to each other. Again, there is no room for understanding in your universe.
A: But we do understand each other.
Q: And therefore, your philosophic materialism (no free will, only particles in motion) must have a flaw.
A: What flaw?
Q: Our existence contains more than particles in motion.
A: What would that be?
Q: Would you grant that whatever it is, it is non-material?
A: It would have to be.
Q: Then, driving further along this line, there is something non-material which is present, which allows us to understand each other, which allows us to comprehend meaning. We are conscious. Puppets are not conscious.
A: But that would open the door to all the religions that have fought with each for centuries.
Q: Why? Does “non-material” of necessity translate into “religion?”
A: Well, no, I suppose not. But non-material consciousness would certainly be a mystery.
Q: Is that acceptable?
A: The mystery?
Q: As we sit here talking, I understand you. Do you understand me?
A: Of course.
Q: Then that is coming from something other than particles in motion. And freedom would be another quality, a non-material quality that exceeds the “grasp” of particles in motion. In fact, without these non-material qualities, you and I would be gibbering and pretending to understand each other. And both the gibber and the pretense would be no more important than a rock developing a trace of fungus after a thousand years.
A: You’re saying that, if all the particles in the universe, including those that make up the human body and brain, possess no consciousness, no understanding, no comprehension of meaning, no freedom, then how can they give birth to these qualities of understanding and meaning? There must be another factor, and it would have to be non-material.
Q: Yes. That’s what I’m saying.
A: Well…
Q: There are many people who would say this conversation is terribly old-fashioned and outmoded—and much newer concepts on the frontier of exploration have relegated what we are talking about to the dustbin of a bygone era.
A: Yes. But I could also say the notion of solid objects is passe, because we know nothing is actually solid. However, as long as I can stub my toe on a rock and break the toe, the notion of solidity is still relevant.
Q: So you believe what we’ve been discussing here is significant.
A: I do.
Q: And you admit your view of determinism and particles in motion—this picture of the universe—leads to several absurdities.
A: I’m forced to. Otherwise, this very conversation is absurd to a degree I can’t fathom.
Q: You and I understand each other. What we are saying has meaning.
A: I had not thought it through all the way before, but if there is nothing inherent in particles and their processes that gives rise to understanding and meaning, then everything, and I mean everything, is gibberish. Except it isn’t gibberish. I see the contradiction. The absurdity.
Q: And if these non-material factors—understanding and meaning—exist, then other non-material factors can exist.
A: For example, freedom. Yes.
Q: And the drive to eliminate freedom in the world…is more than just the unimportant pre-determined attempt to substitute one delusion for another, one reflex for another.
A: That would be…yes, that’s so.
Q: In one way or another, there is a great impulse to deny the non-materiality of the qualities that are inherent to human life. There is a reason for this impulse. Scientists, for example, would be absolutely furious about the idea that, despite all their maneuvering and discovering in the physical and material realm, the most essential aspects of human life are beyond the scope of what they, the scientists, are “in charge of.”
A: It would be a naked challenge to their power. You know, I don’t like leaving this mystery hanging in the air.
Q: Which mystery is that?
A: We’ve come to agree that basic qualities of human life—meaning, understanding, consciousness, freedom—would have to be non-material. But where does that leave us? “Where” is the non-materiality?
Q: It’s certainly not going to be in the physical universe. By definition, that would be impossible.
A: I know. I can see that.
Q: Let me suggest that your capacity to understand, your ability to comprehend meaning, your freedom, your consciousness, are wherever YOU ARE.
A: I’ll have to think about that.
Q: I could say, “Well, you see, throughout the universe there are other levels of energy, and they aren’t based on atomic or sub-atomic particles. These other energies are ‘spiritual,’ they are most certainly conscious, and they impart to us our capacity to understand, to comprehend meaning, to have freedom, to imagine, and so on. This other energy is part of our very consciousness, or our consciousness is an aspect of this other energy.”
A: You could say that, yes. But that’s just a convoluted way of asserting that consciousness, meaning, understanding, freedom, ad imagination are beyond the realm of physical causation. It’s a hypothesis that doesn’t open the door to actual research, to science. To me, it’s just a kind of passive, permissive religion.
Q: Not only that, it tends to allow the idea that freedom, free choice are not really our own, and therefore, we don’t have to pay any price for the choices we make. We can become passive and quietly pass the buck to “the universe.” I’ve seen that outcome in many people who take this “cosmic view” of energy.
A: I wouldn’t like that at all. If we’re going to let freedom in the door, then we need to act on it in a dynamic way, and also accept the results of the free choices we make.
—end of interview—
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)
Einstein disappeared in a puff of wind, and I saw a note he left on my kitchen table. I went over to it and read it:
“If everything in the universe is composed of sub-atomic particles, including us, then this conversation and its outcome are HG^&&%DSE^. Gibberish. If there truly is freedom, consciousness, meaning, and understanding, then each one of us is, at the root, a non-material being.”
I put the note down.
Finally, consider that, for a non-material being operating with a physical form called the body, perhaps his most valuable adjunct, aid, and “assistant” in that partnership is the brain.
Scientists and elite planners believe the brain can be programmed and reprogrammed and surgically altered at will, because freedom has never existed.
They believe they’re simply changing the specifications of a robot, an android.
Actually, they’re interrupting and changing a vital link between the non-material and free and conscious YOU and your brain, in order to make your potential actions simpler and less capable.
The result would be a civilization of androids.
Which says a great deal about the importance of that rejected item called philosophy.
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at NoMoreFakeNews.com or OutsideTheRealityMachine.
While I certainly can’t make the argument that there is no ‘spiritual energy’, I do tend to take the side that, indeed, every way our brains work is entirely mechanical.
I love philosophy. I love logic. I’ve taken plenty of logic and philosophy courses, and think about these things all the time.
However, one mistake I see made in philosophy all the time is that the arguments made make an assumption. They assume that what we currently understand everything. In other words, if we can’t make sense of something, then it must be incorrect. Why do we never consider that we simply don’t have enough knowledge about a topic to make an accurate conclusion?
The brain is extremely complicated. It has billions and billions of neurons. Who is to say that it can’t have such a structure to create imagination and we simply aren’t capable of comprehending it? What if our minds simply aren’t at a level capable of comprehending it? Did we consider that?
“Q: Yes, but how can there be understanding if everything is particles in motion? Do the particles possess understanding?
A: No they don’t. They just are.
Q: And does “they just are” include understanding?
A: No.
Q: Then, how can what you and I are saying have any meaning?
A: Words mean things.”
Let me show you what I mean. Particles can’t “see” anything, either. But of course, many, many particles create a neuron. A neuron can’t “see” anything either. But what if you have each neuron acting like a pixel does on a computer screen? It would be hard to display anything interesting on a computer screen with a pixel, but of course, the computer has millions of pixels. Our brains have billions of neurons.
What can happen when all these neurons are organized together? Well, I’d say humans are quite a bit more complex than bacteria. Why? We can do things bacteria cannot do, mechanically, using our muscles. Why? Cells can’t do that, can they? Not individually, no. But, you see, they formed together into a more complex structure that was capable of this.
And who is to say the brain cannot do this?
Unfortunately, your bogus claim there invalidates the rest of your fake interview as the rest is based on that very poor logic.
I’m sorry, Jon. I mostly agree with your articles – the vaccines, the medical cartel… in fact, you’ve even made me consider some things I haven’t thought of regarding climate change. I wouldn’t agree that climate change is not an issue, but I could agree that humans could use geonengineering to overpower it and create something even worse out of it (cooling the planet), although I can’t find many motivating factor for such a thing.
But this… this isn’t proper logic. You’ve failed to consider things that should be considered, and I’m disappointed.
But again, I can’t make the claim that our brains are 100% mechanical and there’s nothing else to it. I’m in no position to. I don’t know everything. I’m no “god”. Perhaps the entire universe is an illusion. Perhaps we’re all living in a dream, or it’s a holographic universe, or we’re all brains tied up to a computer (or, well, whatever we are…)
It’s food for thought, something to think about. I just feel you’ve come to a conclusion using poor logic.
“I wouldn’t agree that climate change is not an issue…” (Jason)
Jason, people do not control the climate. The SUN does. And the only constant thing on this earth, is that the climate always changes, it always did and always will. So don’t worry too much about that. Give your neurons a break, let them relax a bit.
Plus 1, well said FQ
“I do tend to take the side that, indeed, every way our brains work is entirely mechanical.”
“But again, I can’t make the claim that our brains are 100% mechanical and there’s nothing else to it.”
That’s called a contradiction.
When a process is not understood, assuming the process is mechanical is a hasty conclusion. So is assuming a conclusion must be wrong because you find fault with the reasoning used to reach it.
Maybe it’s even possible that some brains are entirely mechanical, while others are much more expansive.
Your response unfortunately adds nothing to the filosophical discussion or idea that was started by Jon. Instead, you thought it was necessary to use derogatory words and comments for your own enjoyment. You are probably content with yourself that you discovered “flaws” in Jon’s logic and conclusion. However, you actually haven’t because twice in your reply you state that we (naturally this includes you) don’t actually ‘know’ anything and yet you seem to think that Jon’s logic and conclusion is bogus. I hope you understand that this makes your comment beyond absurd. Your logic may or may not have some validity, however, you come from a place of arrogance and disrespect. This has no place in a filosophical discussion. Perhaps you have meaningful things to say about where “understanding” comes from. That would be helpful or at least a more appropriate contribution.
Here, let me add a few additional things to supplement my last post […]
1. This logic is incorrect:
Humans will use the idea of determinism very poorly and screw humanity over as a result, therefore we can conclude that determinism is incorrect and there must be something else.
2.
Your argument is as follows:
1. Particles cannot understand.
2. Our brain is made of particles.
3. Therefore, our brain cannot understand.
4. But our brain does understand.
5. Therefore, there must be more to our brain than particles.
6. That thing must be ‘spiritual energy’.
Consider:
1. Cells cannot lift objects.
2. Our muscles are made of cells.
3. Therefore, our muscles cannot lift objects.
4. But our muscles do lift objects.
5. Therefore, there must be more to our muscles than cells.
6. And what might that be?…
Would you use that logic?
I think Socrates would be embarrassed at your use of his method.
1. “This logic is incorrect”: (Jason)
“Humans will use the idea of determinism very poorly and screw humanity over as a result, therefore we can conclude that determinism is incorrect and there must be something else.” (Jason)
No, YOU are supposing that Humans will concluded that determinism is incorrect,and that there must be something else.
I think that Humans will surely questionned themselves to see if there is other possibilities, This is clear thinking.
” Your argument is as follows”: (Jason)
6. “That thing must be ‘spiritual energy’.” (Jason)
No, Jon said it that it COULD be coming from spiritual energy.
“Consider”: (Jason)
“5. Therefore, there must be more to our muscles than cells.
6. And what might that be?… (Jason)
It is the brain. The brain generates patterns of muscle activity .
To resume:
I see no flaw in Jon post and I believe that Socrates would be proud of him.
A car is made up of parts (particles), it needs a driver (until recently) and it needs gas (source of power).
Spirit is our power, soul (psyche or mind) is the driver and the body is our vessel (car).
I like that analogy.
This is one of your “great’s”, Jon. I feel sure I have read it before. It improves with each read!
Sometimes you just have to look at things in the “right way” for them to make sense.
A humorous post on my other blog:
https://exopolitician.wordpress.com/2015/05/13/do-aliens-poo/
Best
OT
This has been done for centuries. Determinism=organized religion.
CJ
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“This has been done for centuries. Determinism=organized religion.”
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And ‘freedom’? Another slogan for suckers IMO.Another bait to dangle in front of the mob as per every revolution of late(since at least the French Revolution).
Anything with the word ‘free’ in it probably isn’t free….that’s not saying all cases but just as it is mostly used.
Jon
I normally enjoy your articles and have learnt much over the years reading them.
I disagree with your position in this one though.
For a start, I am not interested in the mechanistic argument. I do accept that there is an inherent difference between animate and inanimate objects.
We are conscious and live in a stream of consciousness, a lived experience personal to each of us. We live in a physical world too but our experience of it and everything else is determined by who we are, and we cannot be anything other than who we are.
Just as an example, do you have any choice in the next idea that you think of? The next thought just emerges, no? There may or may not be an emotional association with that thought too. Do you control that? I don’t and can’t quite imagine how that would work.
Do we choose what we like? I don’t, I like what I like and I imagine everyone else does too. I can’t ‘choose’ to dislike what I like and vice versa. It may change at any time of course but till then I like it.
Do we ‘choose’ to fall in(or out of) love with someone? I say no, it just happens. Does anyone actually say to themselves I choose to fall in love with X or do they just do so? Same goes for hate and any other emotion too.
Do we ‘choose’ to believe something? I say no, we simply do or not or partially so, as it is an ‘alignment’ of many factors mostly unconscious with enough ‘evidence'(true or not) and bingo…we have our automatic response, belief or disbelief.
Actually to throw a question back at you, do we choose our wants? In the last couple of minutes while composing this I wanted to take a leak, then have a coffee, and then wanted to finish this post so I could do the former. No ‘choice’ on my part, simply part of the experience of life.
I could go on but that is how I see it, and to tell the truth, I couldn’t change it if I wanted to lol
Please keep the great articles coming, Jon.
In fairness to Jon, the arguments are framed as per the “materialist” mind set, so I think if another was interviewed sentiment, outcomes would be very different.
You are perceptive nonetheless in your belief that there is no difference (from the cosmic perspective) between “animate” and “inanimate” matter as “matter is matter”. Getting behind relationships that define existence is UNDERSTANDING GOD!
Have you read my book (http://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Existence-Decoded-Ozzie-Thinker-ebook/dp/B00UVQMNHG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1431672621&sr=8-1&keywords=beauty+of+existence+decoded)?
You say: “just as an example, do you have any choice in the next idea that you think of? The next thought just emerges, no? there may or may not be an emotional association with that thought too. Do you control that? I don’t and can’t imagine how that would work”.
Perhaps you don’t know how that would work but you do it probably every day. I agree that you can’t control or stop the thought or the emotion but you sure can control how you act on it. Example: if you have a thought to hit someone but don’t act on it, isn’t this an example of free will? Doesn’t that apply to any thought or desire you don’t or do act on?
Hi Lazlo
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“I agree that you can’t control or stop the thought or the emotion but you sure can control how you act on it. ”
“Example: if you have a thought to hit someone but don’t act on it, isn’t this an example of free will?”
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Maybe so…….or maybe more to do with social conditioning, habit, manners, delayed gratification, sublimation of primal urges etc, IOW, civilization. Most urges don’t even make it to the consciousness, so the whole process is unconscious anyhow. As an example, when was the last time you really had to restrain yourself from doing something extremely antisocial? For myself, I cannot even remember when I had to do that. So there were no choices involved.
As for the thought or urge to hit someone, if the urge or provocation is strong enough you hit them. If you don’t then all that means is that the initial urge has been diffused or mitigated subconsciously, so all that remains is anger or annoyance etc.
All I was getting at in my original post was that we all inhabit our subjective worlds and that is all there is. Yes, we do share a physical reality, but we each create a continuous experience that is ours and ours alone. We each create the meanings of that subjective reality and react to that as we must.
I do see this ‘freewill’ argument as merely ex post facto rationalization of what one would have inevitably done, a justification.
As another example…………we disagree on this topic. Each of us cannot see the other as being right………..which gets to what I am saying about the stream of consciousness we each are trapped in………we see what we see and experience what we experience……….and there’s no ‘choice’ involved whatsoever.
cheers Ron
Thanks Ron, I see and understand what you are saying. I have to admit that I am resistant to the idea that we have no free will because that disturbs me a little. However, at the same time this deterministic view goes so deep that it almost doesn’t even matter. I mean that the things that happen and that you or I do may at the deepest level not involve free will, you and I and everybody else surely feels like they are making conscious decisions all the time. When you are making plans for tomorrow or the next day or in a few years, wouldn’t you say those are conscious decisions even though at the deepest level they may not be? Aren’t most, if not all, things real because we perceive them to be real? If you believe in the deterministic view, doesn’t that automatically mean that you have to believe we can create an A.I. indistinguisable from a human? Or will there always be a difference?
Lazlo
Thanks for that response.
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“When you are making plans for tomorrow or the next day or in a few years, wouldn’t you say those are conscious decisions even though at the deepest level they may not be? ”
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When we make plans, for the next hour or day or year or decade certain images arise. Yeah, I want to do this and that and in order to do or get them I need to do X Yand Z blah blah on it goes.
All’s good with this idea of freewill and decision making…….except that in the next hour or day or whatever there is an infinite number of possibilities………..yet they are somehow whittled down to a very limited number…..and it is those that we ‘choose’ from. So straight up our choices have already been chosen for us……and the only reason they are chosen for us is that they somehow conflict and it is the conflict that needs to be dissolved.
Normally life flows, do A then B then C……it’s only when there is a conflict that needs resolving that there is any need for choice. As a living being needs arise and are dealt with on an ongoing basis from breathing to eating to shitting……..it’s an organic thing.
So for this idea of decisions, the question is what choices are involved, where do they come from and what determines them.
Another question is do we ‘choose’ our wants? Does it even make sense to say that we choose our wants? And if we say that we do choose our wants then what is the we(or rather I) that does the wanting? I can’t want something till that thought or urge has emerged into my consciousness but by then it has already been decided deeper down that I do indeed want X, and all that is required is conscious acknowledgement and a move to satisfy that want.
Just try noticing the stream of consciousness and when thoughts and feelings and desires come and go,
All this discussion is based on the idea of individuals being a blank slate, a tabula rasa, and we can somehow create ourselves out of nothing.
What if, instead, we each have a unique identity(whether it resides in the DNA or soul or some other mechanism) in the same way as an oak seed is destined to be an oak tree and not a pine tree. And our duty is to find and fulfil our inner destiny and that involves being truly who we each are and living in accordance of that. Of course that means surrendering to our deeper selves.
I sometimes really envy those who have known exactly what they really needed to do from a young age. A little kid sees a plane fly overhead and says to himself “wow, I am going to do that” and he does, as that experience has resonated with him to the extent that all other possibilities are excluded, and all he needs to decide is will any activity take him closer or further away from his goal……but it’s no choice at all as all he wants is to be a pilot. So does he have any choiuce in the matter? I say no. others may say otherwise.
There was no choice involved in writing this response lol, as I started and it just flowed……..no need to choose among the 800000 words of the English language…….see what I mean?
cheers Ron
@Ron
“Primal urges”? Nothing more than a pop theory/social control measure.
If that is the standard; there is no “consciousness” and our probability defying reality cannot exist.
Fortunately, empirics fails to understand cells (or atoms for that matter) so our reality is safe. Yay!
Don’t worry….be happy!
Ozzie
Are you Aussie or an Oswald? I am an Aussie but not an Oswald lol
Primal urges is pop psychology??? What the??? Go and pick a fight at the nearest pub and you can learn all about your primal urges lol Or anything to do with sex, love, aggression, or danger.
Or perhaps you meant something else?
cheers Ron
Are they “primal”? Really? I see no evidence. Undeniably there is an “emotional threshold” resource pool, which is discussed in my book in some detail. I would replace primal with “cultural”.
Ozzie
Perhaps you could offer some evidence that all is cultural? I used to be a believer in nurture over nature but now I don’t see humans as infinitely malleable. Primal impulses may be diffused or mitigated by culture/nurture but they don’t cease to exist. As per my examples above, when in a real situation with sex, danger or aggression we all revert to our instincts. It takes a lot of work to override them, for example in military training.
So care to expand on your ideas?
cheers Ron
Nickola Tesla also claimed that he posessed no free will.
He believed that his actions were determined by causality.
was this a Joke? Einstein that [NWO agent] Tool and Fraud! if you want interview someone interview Tesla!
This whole interview was rather pointless.
When you are not conscious of what is going on who is in the driver seat?
I’m going to throw this in for fun and hope I don’t get flayed alive.
Google “people with no brains” and read the evidence that a brain is not always necessary to function as a human being (as opposed to a human animal).
I’ve often wondered if dependency on a brain might be an old genetically engineered handicap to make the human being easier to manage as a form of livestock.
Mike
I have been aware of this for quite a while. I remember reading ages ago a young guy in Britain, quite bright and about to start at Oxford who was having terrible headaches. Eventually a brain scan was done and it was found that he had hydrocephalus and only had a 3mm layer of actual brain around the inside of his skull. And he functioned quite normally, at least for someone with terrible headaches.
But people die every day from brain injuries, road accidents, shooting etc so who knows?
Along these lines is cellular memory and even transplant memories where transplant recipients acquire new memories, tastes,interests and even talents of the donor.
Come on guys. Einstein was a fraud and an imposter. I never would interview him. Not about the theory of Relativity. And certainly not about consciousness.
Jon,
Werner Heisenberg and I read your interview of Mr. Einstein with great interest. It reminds me of my debates with him regarding determinism, though from a slightly different angle. That was in regards to a probabilistic model for quantum theory. Nevertheless, I’m glad you were able to add an interesting twist to discussion about cause and effect.
Niels