JNathanK wrote:
One factor I feel determinists always seem to ignore is consciousness. They say its only a secondary phenomenon, but I think its actually at the forefront. If everything was purely mechanistic, there would be pretty much no need for an observer at all. There is one, though, and I think its a good chance that this observer is proof of free will and proof of something that has the power to create and shape reality in a limited capacity.
I used to think that consciousness was at least good circumstantial evidence for the human soul and that - in survival of the fittest it was not only useless but counterproductive. That last part I think still holds true but additionally though I do see where its clear that it sculpts certain kinds of behavior in individuals (mainly via added needs), in society, its stuff that you couldn't make up if you didn't have that dynamic in you. I think that's about the extent of it though. IMO even with consciousness, whether or not its linked to a human soul can be a different issue, its impact on behavior and events is still as marked and as fixed as anything else. Even if its extradimensional and something not directly of any kind of matter that we're used to observing, it reacts to chronological events and in real time. Its because of that that I'd have to debate that it has no effect on free will. It reacts IMO like anything else.
I thought about this quite a bit last year, even with a heaven and a human soul inside each body, count as many spiritual truths as you want to be real, the soul and heaven still are on time lines that interact with ours, heaven perhaps on a slower time line but it still flows at a certain ratio - the 'stuff' gets more complicated but that stuff still exists within, space, time, etc., much like the world we experience here does. Hence it may be more complicated and the behavioral dynamics and makeup of humanity might be as well but the same result comes to pass - linear behavioral paths, the mind only has so much to work with at a given time, and we're ultimately looking at the same groove of life - past is history, future is history yet to be enacted, now is the play point - whether you happen to be in heaven or on earth tucked inside some sentient life form.
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The loneliest part of life: it's not just that no one is on your cloud, few can even see your cloud.
27 Jan 2011, 7:04 am
