Welcome back, to the fifth and final
entry in my series of everything. At this point I think it is important that we
take a look back at the reason I began this series in the first place. This is
the illusion of choice. It is a look at whether or not free will truly exists,
or are we just simply playing our parts in the script of life. For anyone that
persisted through this entire series, it should seem reasonable that choice is
just an illusion. Sure, you can change your mind about a decision, but
ultimately you were always going to have changed your mind. Now let’s not be
confused, we are not so much reading from a script, as no such script exists.
Really, we are just matter, behaving in a predictable manner to an interaction,
much the way an ice cube will melt when put in a warm environment.
Remember the theory of everything,
the idea that all physical interactions could be explained by a single
equation. Remember, that human consciousness is purely a result of our
experiences. There are, of course, predisposing factors, such as genetics, but
these still are results of the events that culminated in our existence. Factor
all of this together, and you will see that anything and everything we do,
choose, believe, everything that exists, has existed, or ever will exist, they
are all just a result of the events that preceded them. If you can account for
all of the variables, and I do mean all
variables, it is all predictable. In the end, everything was set in motion from
the very beginning. The big bang. That single event set the stage for
everything else. We can look back at events and think, if this, then this would
have, but really what happened was always going to have happened. Everything in
your life, and even before it, led to you quitting your job, or missing the bus,
or discovering the cure for cancer.
This is a difficult concept to grasp,
and understandably so. We cannot see the variables at play, and most of them
predate our existence. Take our melting ice cube analogy. Of course, we can
predict that an ice cube in a warm room will melt. We know the relevant
variables, the melting point of ice and the rough temperature of a warm room.
But maybe the ice cube doesn’t melt. Maybe there were more variables at play
that we didn’t know about. Perhaps the room was under incredibly high pressure
preventing the phase change of the water. The end result was still predictable,
had we all of the necessary values and equations, but without these, we can
only make educated guesses based on what values we do have, or even what trends
we have observed in the absence of any quantifiable information.
Let’s expand this to a
person deciding whether or not to buy an ice cream cone. This is a much more
complicated scenario with many variables. How much does the person like ice
cream, how much does the ice cream cost and how much money does the person
have, is the person on a diet, did they have a hard day, what is the
temperature today, are they alone or with friends, are their friends buying ice
cream or not? The list goes on and on. We could attempt to collect every
conceivable variable on this person buying ice cream, and with that construct a
consistent equation of whether or not this person would buy ice cream under any
given situation. But such an esoteric equation would hardly prove useful. What
if you owned an ice cream shop, though? You would certainly want to know which
factors were strong determiners of a person’s decision to buy ice cream.
Variables which do not play a significant role or which cannot be manipulated,
such as genetic factors, are of no use to you, but everything else is fair
game. Rest assured that any successful business is probably capitalizing on
these as we speak. The perfect evidence that choice is merely an effect of
influencing factors is how manipulable consumers are.
No one likes to think
that they are being manipulated though. Our minds don’t typically work on cause
and effect. Humans much prefer purpose based answers. For instance, an
experiment done with children, posed questions such as why do have sharp rocks?
Is it because the wind blowing on the rocks shaped them, or was it so that
animals would have something to scratch their backs on? You can imagine the
children mostly chose the purpose based answer. Adults exhibit the same
behavior, if to a lesser extent. For instance, snowshoe hares live in snowy
environments and have white fur. Why? Most people would say to camouflage
themselves from predators. This would be a purpose based answer and would also
be incorrect. Hares in snowy climates have white fur because they were able to
avoid predation there, and thus flourished. As for why their fur is white, that
is purely a genetic factor, likely a result of a genetic mutation.
This brings us to the
last topic that we need to cover. That would of course be god. There have been
numerous debates over the existence of such a being. These debates are largely
fruitless, however, as a being of boundless abilities is immune to logical
arguments. Any arguments against a god could be countered as simply, god is
capable of anything, and his will is beyond our understanding. As such, the
evidence against such a being usually boils down to a lack of evidence for such
a being. This is, of course, a backwards way of thinking. Analogous to
believing in ghosts because no one has proven that they are not real. As such,
arguments against the existence of a god are the wrong approach. Rather one
should consider the likeliness of a god being fabricated.
There is a long history
of gods of various abilities. I consider this one of the most compelling
arguments against such a being’s existence. The gods are not consistent across faiths.
They are merely independently created ideas unique to a group, but common in the
societal creation of myths. People love to come up with stories and it seems
probable that your god, whoever it may be, is no different than anyone else’s.
The idea of a god being real is a purpose based explanation for life and the universe,
but the idea of humans creating gods is a trend that has shown time and time
again. Even pigeons have been shown to be superstitious. Pigeons have been
shown, when given food in response to an action, to repeat that action. In one
of my all-time favorite psychological experiments, several pigeons were kept in
cages that dispensed food at random. The pigeons of course did not know this
and began to develop beliefs about what caused the food to come. They would
think that whatever action they were doing at the time the food was delivered
was the cause, and then repeat that action in the hopes of receiving more food.
Humans exhibited the same behavior in response to good crops, medical
breakthroughs, and anything else they couldn’t explain at the time.
In light of the question
is there a god, I say no. I say, there does not need to be a god for what has
happened to have happened, and that the persistence of belief in a god is
simply human nature. I also believe that the spread of science will one day
eliminate the widespread belief in a god. The fastest growing religious
affiliation today, is the nonaffiliated. Religion gave people comfort in the
absence of explanations. But we now know more than we could have ever imagined,
and are learning at an increasing rate. The ability to pass down information
more efficiently has allowed us to build our knowledge base ever faster, and it
is only a matter of time before we start finding more and more of the variables
that dictate our lives. Whatever may come to pass, though, remember that it was
always going to be, because in the end, choice is just an illusion.
-AMS
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