Expressions of Causality

The problem with free will, as I see it, is that people have the wrong impression of what it means.  Free will is not all it’s cracked up to be but there’s no doubt we have a modest form of it.  I prefer to call it “self-determinism”.  This self-determinism is empirically proven every time we conceive and execute a plan. I’ve found this is hard to explain because so many people assume that any free will must contradict causality and, thus, determinism.  I claim that the only free will we have is actually self-determinism and that it isn’t in conflict with causality: in fact, it’s a product of human intelligence interacting with causality.  I’ll try to explain . . .

I maintain that “free will” is an awful term to express the independent agency humans possess to define purpose for themselves and pursue it. Our choices aren’t free in a libertarian sense: they’re free within the constraints of our heredity and experience (which are both products of causality).  Perhaps Arthur Schopenhauer summed it up best: “Man can do what he wills but he can not will what he wills.”  We can do, in the present, whatever our experience has prepared us for.

Experience represents the past.  Experience — what we’ve learned — is all we know.  With the exception of instinct and reflex, I believe it’s virtually impossible to think or act beyond our experience.  Even inspiration comes from experience. Where the rubber meets the road is in the present.  This is where our human brains interact with the world around us to form the conceptual continuity of consciousness: our identity.  Experience influences us so much because it’s been layered into our identity just as the present will be.  THAT is the self in self-determinism.

Don’t get me wrong . . . causality rules.  We might think we’re in control until that fire or disease or earthquake or tsunami or accident or economic crash changes our lives.  Causality is the ultimate big dog.  We can make choices to maximize security but we can never be sure we’re secure.  We can’t anticipate everything.

So how do you explain the fact that, despite the pervasiveness of causality, we can still map out our own futures and achieve our plans (if they’re any good)?  How do you explain how we, for the most part, hack our own paths into the future?

Feedback.

Mental feedback is the key.  Without it, we could not have memories or analyze problems or learn or make plans.  Without it, we could not understand causality or anticipate it.  Intelligence and consciousness itself hinge on mental feedback.  Mental feedback gives us a temporal advantage over causality by allowing us to anticipate it and plan for the future accordingly. THAT is the determinism in self-determinism.

It lacks the flourish and romanticism of unbridled, libertarian, free will but self-determinism has its own beauty revealed in the paradox of independent agency in a clockwork universe. Causality determines the scope of our abilities and actions and we use those abilities and actions to hack our own paths into the future.  We’re so good at it, we’re getting cocky. But we’re not masters of causality . . . merely expressions of it.

Check out http://atheistexile.posterous.com/expressions-of-causality (forwarded from http://AtheistExile.com). Showcase your essays, art, music and more with our Publish feature. The problem with free will, as I see it, is that people have the wrong impression of what it means.  Free will is not all it’s cracked up to be but there’s no doubt we have a modest form of it.  I prefer to call it “self-determinism”.  This self-determinism is empirically proven every time we concei ...

Neuroscience and Free Will

Neuroscience and Free Will

The Vatican Battles Satanism

According to an article, by Nick Rees, in The Daily Telegraph, the Catholic Church conducted a conference in Rome to combat the dangers of Satanism.

A conference for demon-busters?

This is, apparently, not a joke. There were Catholic clergy, doctors, psychiatrists, teachers and social workers – ostensibly grown adults with college educations – all gathered together in a coordinated effort to do something about the insidious, dangerous, threat of devil worship.

Traditionally, any priest could perform exorcisms to cast The Devil out of a possessed person but 3 years ago the Vatican decreed that such supernatural purging should be left to professional exorcists.

Professional exorcists?

I guess parish priests aren’t up to the task. Do grown adults really believe people can be literally, physically, possessed by The Devil? Do they really believe that The Devil’s possession of a victim is so potent that only a professional exorcist can force him out? What does it take, I wonder, to become a professional exorcist? If parish priests aren’t up to the task, where does one start their quest to specialize in demon-busting?

One such specialist is Father Nanni of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. He says that one should first have a “moral certainty” of an actual possession before calling in the big guns. Apparently, moral certainty is not an oxymoron within the church but I suspect it has become cliché, even among clergy, with overuse. In case you’re not sure how to identify such moral certainty, look for freaky changes in behavior or voice.

Sudden glossolalia (speaking in tongues) often accompanies possession, so the professional exorcist must be careful to ensure he’s not mistakenly exorcising a Pentecostal charismatic. A mistake like that could lead to some really bad publicity. I guess that’s one of the reasons the Vatican requires exorcisms be performed by professionals.

The professional exorcist knows the intricacies of his craft and is undaunted by victims that “scream, dribble and slobber, utter blasphemies and have to be physically restrained”. A real pro is even prepared for supernatural phenomena like vomiting “shards of glass and pieces of iron”.

According to the Vatican’s chief exorcist, demon possessions are so insidious that Satan even lurks in the clergy and the Vatican itself. That’s right: the Anti-Christ is attacking the Holy See. As proof of this, Father Gabriele Amorth pointed to the sex abuse scandals that have engulfed the Church. Need I say more?

Exorcism is serious business at the Vatican and is “wholeheartedly” endorsed by Pope Benedict XVI.

Scary. Isn’t it?

God is Flawed

This satirical piece challenges Christians to take a serious look at their dogmas and doctrines.

God tells Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If this was the only way they could understand the difference between good and evil, how could they have known that it was wrong to disobey God and eat the fruit?" ~Laurie Lynn

Have you ever done something you regret? If so, how does that compare to eating a fruit from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”? If all sins are the same to God and all sins are disobedience to God, then eating the apple was, by God's own terms, a pedestrian sin.

Yet God condemned all of us to death because of a single sin: the first sin ever sinned. Are you guilty of Eve’s sin? Of course not! No more so than for Hillary Clinton’s sins or for mine. Right off the bat, common sense tells us that the Bible, in Genesis, is preaching a twisted morality. It puts us in opposition to ourselves by claiming our nature is sinful.

I'm no genius but I know a scam when I see one. Biblical sin is God's heads-I-win-tails-you-lose con game: it's a sham used to manipulate and control us via fear and guilt. I reject the neurosis of biblical sin: I believe our nature is basically good but we sometimes make mistakes. Hell, if we believe we're not good, we probably won’t be.

But that’s definitely not what the Bible preaches, is it? We’re ALL unworthy, wretched, sinners.

The Bible says God created the universe and everything in it, including Adam and Eve. He did this in 6 days; executing his allegedly perfect plan on schedule and without a hitch (except that Eve was an afterthought). Adam and Eve were pure and sinless: they had all eternity, in Eden, to bask in God’s glory.

Unless, of course, they pissed him off.

And it doesn’t take much to piss off God. No sir! And second chances? Forget about it. One mistake and you’re history. By the way, all of your offspring, forever, will also be cursed with death. How do you like them apples?

Because of Adam and Eve, we’re all born guilty of “Original Sin”. So much for God’s perfect plan (let’s call it, “plan A”). In fact, Original Sin made the human condition so intractably degenerate that God had to wipe out all life (human or not) with a catastrophic flood so that Noah’s family could start humanity anew, from scratch. This was God’s idea of plan B.

Well guess what? God’s plan B was all for naught. A few thousand years later, humanity had repopulated itself from Noah’s incestuous Ark and – surprise, surprise – was no better than before. I guess that’s what inbreeding gets you. You’d think God would know that.

Time for plan C.

This time, instead of genocide, God chose suicide. He came to Earth personally, as Jesus, to act out a script he divinely inspired, in biblical prophesy, that ended with his own trial, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension back home to heaven.

Why did God do this? Original Sin. Because of Original Sin, we can never be innocent enough for eternal life. We must be forgiven before heaven’s gates will open for us. If you know your dogma, you know Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross so that we may be redeemed from sin (and have everlasting life). Because God eternally cursed mankind with death, he had to provide some means for our redemption. The alternative was to abandon us. Quite a conundrum God put himself in, no?

Basically, God had to “save” us from the curse he imputed upon us to begin with. I’m amazed that so many people don’t see through this preposterous charade. Perhaps the pretzel logic is too tangled for most to unravel. The Bible would have us believe – and doctrine upholds – that we are all miserable wretches who will be granted eternal life only if we love Jesus. Of course, this assumes we can trust God not to resort to a plan D or E or whatever. After all, God is perfect and all-powerful: who’s going to stop him from tossing out plan C if he decides, yet again, that he still hasn’t gotten creation right?

God must regret cursing mankind with death. God is perfect, so we can’t say he makes mistakes; I prefer to say he has regrets. Anyway, I suppose God was hot-headed in his youth; the Old Testament clearly depicts him with a short fuse. So once he imputed death upon us, he couldn’t “un-impute” it. I mean, he’s God! Right? His word is law and immutable. What kind of self-respecting God would change his mind? If God is love, then I guess it’s true that, “love means never having to say you’re sorry”.

Eventually, God found a loophole in his own immutable law: leave mankind cursed but offer individuals an exemption by redemption. Yeah, that’s the ticket! For Christ’s sake – why didn’t God think of plan C before plan B? After all, if redemption is a workable plan, God flooded the Earth and wiped-out humanity for nothing. I hate when that happens!

From Original Sin to redemption, the story twists a pretzel-logic plot of servile spiritual entrapment, with a theme of self-loathing morality.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think the Supreme Being should be an elected position. Surely we can put somebody with more compassion and foresight onto the throne of the Ruler of the Universe. At least, if we elect poorly, we can vote for a replacement next time.

© Jim Ashby, AtheistExile.com