Of Mind and Reality: Part 1

Its been a long time. But today I feel to write. And so shall I.

My mind is presently once again entangled into the realms of the everlasting topic of free-will, destiny and choices. I had just decided to have a look at the Conversations With God site, from where I was rolled to the CWG forums, where I chanced into this topic, and the inevitable happened - I got entangled.

I went through some posts - where various people have posted their thoughts. From a wide age group. Interesting things - a man in 50s pondering on this, along with people just into their youths, all moved by the CWG books, same questions, ..... They were talking about Karma, astrology, will, destiny and even afterlife.

Do we make choices? Do we know what we want? Do we have free-will at all?

Before I state anything else, let me specify that I believe only what I see, and what I can reason with logic. Anything beyond that, I neither believe, nor disbelieve. It may, or may not be, but unless its proved with reason, mathematics and logic, unless its deciphered and predictable, I wont make my decisions based on those.

Well, I think I am trapped or enjoying one of the most interesting positions anyone can have on speculating on this matter. On one hand, I'm totally a science believer - studying computer science subjects with topics like Artificial Intelligence which aims not only to decipher the mind, but also to re-create it, while on the other hand, I've always ardently followed books about metaphysical concepts and theories, self-inspection books, 'moral reasoning' books and the likes. I absolutely love the feeling of philosophy where you revel in the realms of unknown (where I have lately come to think that it might be very well the desire of having unknown that leads to such speculations - i.e., you enjoy the 'creating' of more questions and an imaginary world where you can refuge, your present tense not being intellectually satisfying enough for you). I love the imagination of a unexplained 'other' world, the mysteries of the mind from the literary point of view, I revel in plunging into the abysmal depths of complexity of human emotions from the poet's viewpoint, and other similar things. But again, whenever I hear an opinion, I always get intrigued with one other odd question - I find myself asking why the person who is expressing something, feeling the way he does, and expressing the way he is doing. That is, what situation(s) made his brain to act like that? This puts me in a strange position where I'm not only faced with the reasoning of his expressed theory, but also questioning the validity and reason of that very expression being 'true' or 'false' (i.e. his true feelings, or just a self-deceptive manifestation) stemming from the speculations about what conditions made him express that. If there would have been a different expression by altering some situations, that makes everything about the expressed theory very superfluous. This takes the validity of the theory deeper down than what can be reasoned by just harping only on the theory expressed by the individual - in order to get a more real insight, one has to take in consideration a much greater timescale and social scenario and also biology, trying to decipher what exactly made the person express that theory.

This is in simple words, finding out which fraction of what a man expresses is really 'true' coming from his inner soul, and which part is just a manifestation of the conditioning effects he has been having from birth. The later are not his true feelings - upon close self-inspection and unbiased thinking, the person would have discovered that these later kind of expressions are not in harmony with his true feelings. So, when reasoning a topic in the quest of some greater truth or seeking some clarification, I find myself faced with this enormous task of first trying to seek out what the person really feels about this (a true culmination of all his physical and psychic experiences), and not what he states from his 'socially reasoning' mind. Even what a man thinks he really believes is sometimes just an illusion - the effect of repeatedly telling his mind something, thereby creating an effect of self-hypnotism.

Well, I'll again touch the original question of free will. Are what we do pre-mediated, or are these random. In this case, I again feel inclined to speculate on this topic on a very hardcore 'scientific' view. EVERYTHING all around are made up of extremely smaller particles (starting with atoms and electrons, etc, and then finding out still smaller constituent particles) and quantum of energy, which are interchangeable. That is, I'll talk of mass and energy as the same thing. And we also know the effect any two 'elements' (not the chemistry term, used in general meaning) will have on each other can always be calculated by studying the nature of the sub-particles making up these elements. That is, all reactions are predictable. Now, this is exactly what is the foundation of this present speculation - that everything occurring is a result of continuous reactions and hence everything is predictable. These reactions, as relatively perceived by the what we call the 'human mind' will go on 'eternally' (time and its measurement are relative) in a manner of chain reactions. Everything around here is just mass or energy (same thing) changing forms/states/locations. Even my writing this at this very instant is due to a set of chemical reactions in my brain. The feeling of 'solid', 'liquid' or 'gas' is just a set of molecules/atoms/sub-atomic particles exerting different amount of pressures on other molecules/atoms/sub-atomic particles. And In reality, the 'mass' is a very minute fraction - the largest amount is space all around us, even in our body. The feeling of any sensation (say heat) is just a set of particles in some specific state having some specific effect on other set of particles (say our hand), which in turn excites some other particles (say our nervous system). When we get stuck in a wall, its again a set of particles of the first set (the wall) exerting opposing force on another set (our body), not letting the formation of the other set (our body) mingle with the formation of the first set of particles (the wall). So, we cant 'move into' a wall. The word 'particles' or 'mass' in the above sentences can be changed with 'energy' to have same meaning.

So, I think everything is always predictable - if we take a 'snapshot' of the entire universe at any moment of time, we should be able to predict its state after a span of time. Its all a matter of time until human being discovers that empirical formula. Maybe, the time required to come to that is too long for human civilization, but I believe that formula exists. And its that formula that I like to call 'God' in literal meaning of the 'all-powerful and all-knowing' entity.

Well, it is past 3:45 am already. And got to wake up early tomorrow for college. So, I'll end this writing for the time being, hoping to continue it later on. With that thought I use the 'Part 1' in the title.

The links to some of the pages which I read today:
http://www.friendsofcwg.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6826&highlight=free
http://www.friendsofcwg.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8983
http://www.meaningoflife.i12.com/Freewill.htm
And the CWG forum:
http://www.friendsofcwg.com/forum/index.php

So far guys!!!