So they're totally over the edge now in claiming free will is only an illusion - just look at this poor guy who was apparently forced by the laws of causality to make this video (if you can endure his rambling for nearly half an hour; I worked on my new beadwork while listening).
Here's what I wrote about it when I posted it on Facebook:
#1 fault: Right in the start he suggests that our subconscious is part of our brain, which is false. #2: Calling it "absurd" that a particle might have no definite momentum and position at the same time while making the claim that an abstraction of "reality" based on very incomplete data supersedes reality as experienced first-hand - the latter is certainly a larger degree of absurdity. In any case it is based on a far too simplistic idea of the universe (or multiverse) which may well include backward causality, acausality, and things I couldn't even possibly think of...
Once again, consciousness that denies its own existence.
In fact I've come across claims that even consciousness itself is thought to be an illusion - which is no surprise really as it ought not to exist, according to the materialist view. Not that I'd mind it when their claims get more and more absurd, quite to the contrary...
Rupert Sheldrake to the rescue. I really enjoyed reading his book The Science Delusion, I had expected it to be somewhat redundant after watching his video lecture but which wasn't the case at all, it still has many more exciting insights and food for thought to offer, all the while rectifying the way to view the world, bringing it back to life. Knowing he's a Christian doesn't deter me - a very moderate Christian, of course, who won't preach or try to convert; the only times he mentions God is when relating what the mainstream view in times past used to be, when the dogma was held by the Church and denying God was heresy - he's a scientist, after all, even if the indoctrinated fools insult him as being a "pseudoscientist", now in these days when denying materialism is the new heresy.
The argument against free will boils down to determinism which used to be the dream of scientists during the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, until along came quantum mechanics, and it came to stay. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle tells us that we have to be content with probabilities instead of certainties. And still they're flogging the dead horse of determinism?
In any case the argument would only work if you suppose that minds are material, and Sheldrake did not need to convince me they are not. In his book he wonderfully unlocks the cramped, dark dungeon of the human skull in which the mind is deemed to be incarcerated and he sets it free again to roam the universe. He gives evidence that speaks strongly against the idea that memories are thought to be stored as physical traces in the brain. He also points out the missing heritability problem and that genetics apparently have far less effect on human (and other animals') traits than commonly thought - in other words, your genes do not control you, something I've always felt cannot be quite true since even intelligence is commonly thought to be inheritable, in which case the only possible explanation for mine would be that I got mixed up with another baby at the hospital, something that's probably not happening much nowadays - or back in the mid 80's, that is.
It is strange, I have thought about how, being a Satanist, I might actually welcome all these people denying their souls - being fully aware that this extreme materialist view certainly has arisen in reaction to religion, especially to likewise extreme and fundamentalist forms such as creationism. Strange how the fronts can shift, how extremism breeds extremism, and how creationism and materialism now both attack reason from opposite sides. The materialists even admit to take on this hardline perspective by choice, even in the absence of hard evidence.
Here's a quote by (materialist philosopher) Daniel Dennett: "I adopt the apparently dogmatic rule that dualism is to be avoided at all costs. It is not that I think I can give a knock-down proof that dualism, in all its forms, is false or incoherent, but that, given the way that dualism wallows in mystery, accepting dualism is giving up."
By "giving up" he apparently refers to giving up the chance to arrive at a complete understanding of the universe. It's beyond my own comprehension though how such complete understanding could be that above-all-else important - even above one's own consciousness, free will, and immortal soul!
I may even be just as stubborn in my own absolute insistence on having/being an immortal soul as the atheists are in denying it for the sake of a supposedly complete understanding. But I must also admit that my quarrel with materialism is because I've been struggling to break free from its oppressing and depressing grip, from its "firm foundation of unyielding despair," as Bertrand Russell so very aptly worded it. I've grown up with a scientific world view because science was what I read about and was interested in, and I still am. However, I see my immortal soul, and a meaning to this existence, as far more valuable than such supposedly complete understanding of it - other species and also other human cultures have been thriving happily without the latter.
...which brings me to the next book I've started reading, A Separate Reality by Carlos Castaneda. It's the sequel to "The Teachings of Don Juan" which I read earlier already, and I liked it very much - at least the main part about the actual teachings of don Juan Matus, the old Yaqui Indian shaman of Mexico - only the concluding "Structural Analysis" part I couldn't make much sense of. And now in the sequel it becomes clear right in the start that it's because Castaneda still got it all wrong at that point. He always showed great respect for don Juan and followed his instructions, but he still tried to interpret the experiences in our common, mainstream scientific view, in fact more or less the materialist view. This sequel book is called "A Separate Reality" because he still has to discover that this is what it really is...
When talking about knowledge, Castaneda realized that the two of them were on different tracks again as don Juan was referring to direct knowledge of the world, as opposed to abstract, academic knowledge. Castaneda concludes, "he [don Juan] succeeded in pointing out to me that my view of the world cannot be final because it is only an interpretation."
I'm highlighting this because I think this is a very important insight to take away!
Also, "the warrior's way", as explained by don Juan... the warrior will not worry once [s]he has taken a decision but will simply move along with it. That's the way I do it...
Also he says, the warrior will think of his death when things become unclear. Castaneda admits that,"we never think of it," that most people will avoid thinking of it really.
I have never avoided it. I have in fact never seen Death as an enemy. In the contrary, Death has always been a companion in some ways, so much that it's become so natural... that I have to pause and realize how death or the beyond are elements in the lyrics of most of the music I've ever cared to listen to, not only in obviously Satanic black metal but also much gentler forms of music that I listen to (NO EMO CRAP THOUGH, in my world there's no room for wimpiness and self-pity) - I like quite a broad spectrum really, such as Gothic (Sisters of Mercy: Black Planet), medieval (Schelmish: Ouwe War), dark ambient (Ulf Söderberg: Nattstaden), folk rock (Garmarna: Varulven), electronic (Kirlian Camera: Eclipse)... trying to give a beautiful example of each here from my favorite songs - but there's nearly always at least some mystic element in my music, something that hints of worlds beyond or of bygone times. I've never liked anything too cheerful and mundane.
The path of the warrior has always been mine, by pure nature and instinct. I've been faring quite well in finding my path so far, by just this instinctive and natural way and nothing else. I can feel that I'm alive in a natural world that is alive - and life doesn't mean just biological function, life isn't robotic or mechanical, life is always something spirited.
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