God/1st Law of Thermo, Part 5, Free Will

[billvon 3,120]

>1) Daydreaming - thoughts skit from one to another. Change is happening.
>2) Concentration - thoughts shine light on a subject matter. Change is happening.
>3) Still mind - very difficult state to attain. No change is happening.

I'd say that in all three cases, about the same level of biochemical "change" is happening. Your brain is still active. When you concentrate your brain activity _changes_ but you don't use very much additional energy (oxygen or glucose.)

>When change is happening in our thought process, specifically those
>thoughts we control via what I will refer to as "free will", what are the
>reservoirs of energy involved?

The 'reservoirs' are literally the chemical gradients that nerves maintain in their resting state. When nerves fire (i.e. are active) they depolarize; they use the stored energy of the chemical gradient to transmit the message the length of the nerve.

>If you believe that free will is biochemically based, then essentially
>humans are worm food waiting to happen.

>But, what if free will isn't biochemically based? What are the reservoirs of
>energy involved in the change? In simple terms, we don't know.

You have to define what you mean by "energy." Is it an unknowable, non-observable form of energy? Then you're right; we never will know. But that's sort of a tautology.

I think this is something of a dead end path, though. You could use a computer to design a space shuttle. But if you took that computer apart bit by bit you'd find nothing but silicon, dopants, copper etc. You wouldn't find any 'magic inspiration' that allowed it to 'understand' space travel. The computer itself is nothing but a device to run a program; the program (which literally does not exist in the real world of matter) is doing the work.

(Also, saying the computer is "junkyard fodder" isn't all that useful. Sure, it will break and/or become obsolete. Doesn't detract from the job that it does.)

Similarly, it doesn't matter what "hardware" the human mind runs on. (Although right now it will only work in a human brain.) If you could accurately simulate a brain down to the atomic level, _and_ accurately transfer the state of someone's brain at a given moment, it would think, remember, hope etc just like an organic brain did. Not because you've created life in a computer, but because the mind is "running" on a different piece of hardware. It would be the mind that we would consider alive, not the machine it runs on.

A mind is a representation of everything a brain is doing at any given time. It's part chemical, part electrical, part physical wiring. I don't think there are any additional 'sources of energy' involved.

>God is NOT some divine entity that sits above us and judges us. It's
>a great flow that IS. You interact with it via your free will.

That's not a bad way of putting it, I think, although I don't think you need to postulate as-yet missing reserves of energy to make it a valid outlook.

[billvon 3,120]

> Imagine an ant. Sitting on the anthill, involved in ant life... the shadow
>of a truck passes over. Will the ant know what the driver of the truck was
>thinking.... or will the ant even recognize that the shadow belonged to a
>truck.... or will the ant just be glad that it isn't dark anymore and go on his
>merry ant way?

This is one of the central problems I have with the many anthropomorphic views of god. Compared to the difference between a universe-spanning onmiscient omnipotent god and a human being, that ant and that truck driver are identical twins. They both live in a purely physical world, both need eyes to see, both experience gravity, both can die, both can be killed by others, both need water and oxygen, both experience the universe from one spatial location and one linear time sequence etc.

Yet as you say that ant cannot understand that truck driver. I think it's a bit of an anthropormorphic conceit that we not only claim we understand god, but that he looks and thinks pretty much like we do - a being that can be killed, must poop every day, who falls down when he trips, who needs big legs to stand, who needs oxygen water and food etc.

From the point of view of spreading religion that sort of simplification is completely understandable. You can paint someone that looks a lot like you, and worship the painting (or statue.) You can claim that god gets angry when you don't pray. "Heck, I get angry at my kids when they misbehave; god must be like a parent, and I can understand that!" Understanding such a god is easy, because everyone is equipped with the means to understand other people at least to some degree.

So I am suspicious of any such representation of god. It's sort of "the easy way out." It's what you get when you need a religion to be popular enough to take over from other religions, especially in the sort of "free market of religion" that some countries (including the US) allow.

[StreetScooby 5]

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God.... difficult concept to understand, even despite (or maybe because of) the Catholic Schooling.

Agreed, it is difficult. I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian religion (Southern Baptist, one step up from Church Of Christ). What I was taught turned out to be crap, and it was very emotional difficult to realize that.

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Our ability to directly percieve other realities/dimensions is limited. However... it's not to say that we can't, in time, learn to "see" better.

Agreed. And our current established religions will never help us "see" better.

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*I've recently read Running from Safety by Richard Bach (author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull)

Richard Bach is one of my favorite authors. I'll have to check this book out.

Thanks very much for the feedback!

We are all engines of karma

[StreetScooby 5]

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I'd say that in all three cases, about the same level of biochemical "change" is happening. Your brain is still active. When you concentrate your brain activity _changes_ but you don't use very much additional energy (oxygen or glucose.)

Agreed that the vast majority of the change is driven by biochemical reservoirs of energy. But, if all of it driven by biochemical reservoirs of energy? If so, we as humans are probably worm food waiting to happen.

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You have to define what you mean by "energy."

I'm using energy as defined by our science - energy is the capacity to produce change.

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Is it an unknowable, non-observable form of energy?

If free will is not biochemically based, then our science has not yet identified those reservoirs of energy.

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Then you're right; we never will know.

We may know if our language ever gets to the point where reproducible observations are produced in this area. But, this is very much the domain of established religion, and that language is not going to change. Thus, to explore this area, you must step out of th realm of established religion.

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I think this is something of a dead end path, though.

Why do you think I decided to climb in my inner tube and keep the cooler close by? It reached a point where I had to do that, or go crazy

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Similarly, it doesn't matter what "hardware" the human mind runs on. (Although right now it will only work in a human brain.) If you could accurately simulate a brain down to the atomic level, _and_ accurately transfer the state of someone's brain at a given moment, it would think, remember, hope etc just like an organic brain did. Not because you've created life in a computer, but because the mind is "running" on a different piece of hardware. It would be the mind that we would consider alive, not the machine it runs on.

Humans are much more than their thoughts. Our day to day experience is dominated by feelings. Feelings are generally grounded in our gut (the human intestine has as many, if not more, neural connections than the brain). True balance in life comes from balancing thoughts and feelings (see Percival, Thinking and Destiny).

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A mind is a representation of everything a brain is doing at any given time. It's part chemical, part electrical, part physical wiring. I don't think there are any additional 'sources of energy' involved.

You might be right. Having had a couple of out of body experiences, I tend to doubt that view, though. But, that's based upon my own personal experience/observations. The language describing OBEs is not something that's common in most cultures.

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>God is NOT some divine entity that sits above us and judges us. It's
>a great flow that IS. You interact with it via your free will.

That's not a bad way of putting it, I think, although I don't think you need to postulate as-yet missing reserves of energy to make it a valid outlook.

I've been told I can complicate things, and this could be just one of those areas where I have. Where's my cooler?

Thanks for the feedback!

We are all engines of karma

[StreetScooby 5]

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From the point of view of spreading religion that sort of simplification is completely understandable. You can paint someone that looks a lot like you, and worship the painting (or statue.) You can claim that god gets angry when you don't pray. "Heck, I get angry at my kids when they misbehave; god must be like a parent, and I can understand that!" Understanding such a god is easy, because everyone is equipped with the means to understand other people at least to some degree.

Well put.

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So I am suspicious of any such representation of god. It's sort of "the easy way out." It's what you get when you need a religion to be popular enough to take over from other religions, especially in the sort of "free market of religion" that some countries (including the US) allow.

Again, well put. I've discussed this thread with an ex-priest whose a very close friend of mine. He agrees with my view. Then, he adds "And God loves you". I call it the First Law Of Al (his name is Al). I simply cannot get my head around it, though, with my outlook.

We are all engines of karma

[Croc 0]

Will is an aspect of desire, a desire to be or not be something. Man does not have free will because man is not free; men are slaves of their desires. Were men free men would have no desire, no will. Thus the term "free will" is an oxymoron.
God, who IS (your definition, I think) has no will, no desire. What could God desire? God is ALL. (Again, your definition, I think.)
Perhaps your thoughts would be clearer if you dropped the "free will" idea and just say that when our minds are focused we are "nearer to God." A focused mind is very "quiet," having only one subject.
"Be still and know I am God." Isaiah, I think. In that sense, I think you are right.

"Here's a good specimen of my own wisdom. Something is so, except when it isn't so."

Charles Fort, commenting on the many contradictions of astronomy

[StreetScooby 5]

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Perhaps your thoughts would be clearer if you dropped the "free will" idea and just say that when our minds are focused we are "nearer to God." A focused mind is very "quiet," having only one subject.

I like this train of thought, as it sounds like something out of Percival. But, I'm struggling with the "driving force" behind the focused mind. What would you call that which we use to focus the mind? That's what I'm calling free will.

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"Be still and know I am God."

Yes, I have often looked at that verse since "developing" my thoughts on this matter. It just seemed to confirm my personal conclusions.

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