Wednesday, October 20, 2010
You Are a Machine
(3)
Whew. That out of the way I can now abandon my 'obligations' and focus instead on getting drunk. Sip. This fascinates me. (As I listen to COSMOS just now I am hearing the phrase, 'Let me not seem to have lived in vain.' It is Brahe's last request to Kepler. Touching.) (tap)
You are a machine. A biological machine. So am I. We have no 'souls.' We are machines. We therefore have no 'free will.' We function on the universal principle of 'cause-effect' in a deterministic universe. But it seems to us all that 'we have the power to choose.' That is an illusion. 'Free will' was invented by religious nutcakes who needed to justify God's willingness to burn 'sinners' in Hell forever for their sins. (God creates imperfect beings, then punishes them forever for their imperfections!? Huh? Makes no sense.) So the Nutcases invented 'free will' way back in the times of Thomas Acquinas: humans could choose good or evil. Therefore punishment was appropriate. And because their sins were 'against' an Infinite Being, Infinite Punishment (Hell) was appropriate. QED.
Utter nonsense, of course, but children will still believe it. Even adults will believe it. And notice that the punishment can be administered only after death, a condition from which none has recently recovered.
Given the fact that we are all biological machines, are we condemned to perform as machines? The 'determinists' would answer, 'Yes.' Ouspensky, on the other hand, would answer, 'No. We can awake from our deterministic sleep. We can create our own souls.' Was Ouspensky correct? We can't know.
But Ouspensky was a follower of Gurdjieff, the Mystic who investigated ancient Eastern Religions. And Gurdjeiff - if I am not mistaken - urged his 'followers' to interrupt the stream of cause-effect by stopping in their tracks consciousnesswise; by 'self-remembering.' Although Gurdjieff did not put it in those exact words, that is what he meant. He wanted his followers to 'interrupt the stream of nature' and 'become themselves.' Only in that way - he suggested - could one create one's 'soul.'
Whew. That out of the way I can now abandon my 'obligations' and focus instead on getting drunk. Sip. This fascinates me. (As I listen to COSMOS just now I am hearing the phrase, 'Let me not seem to have lived in vain.' It is Brahe's last request to Kepler. Touching.) (tap)
You are a machine. A biological machine. So am I. We have no 'souls.' We are machines. We therefore have no 'free will.' We function on the universal principle of 'cause-effect' in a deterministic universe. But it seems to us all that 'we have the power to choose.' That is an illusion. 'Free will' was invented by religious nutcakes who needed to justify God's willingness to burn 'sinners' in Hell forever for their sins. (God creates imperfect beings, then punishes them forever for their imperfections!? Huh? Makes no sense.) So the Nutcases invented 'free will' way back in the times of Thomas Acquinas: humans could choose good or evil. Therefore punishment was appropriate. And because their sins were 'against' an Infinite Being, Infinite Punishment (Hell) was appropriate. QED.
Utter nonsense, of course, but children will still believe it. Even adults will believe it. And notice that the punishment can be administered only after death, a condition from which none has recently recovered.
Given the fact that we are all biological machines, are we condemned to perform as machines? The 'determinists' would answer, 'Yes.' Ouspensky, on the other hand, would answer, 'No. We can awake from our deterministic sleep. We can create our own souls.' Was Ouspensky correct? We can't know.
But Ouspensky was a follower of Gurdjieff, the Mystic who investigated ancient Eastern Religions. And Gurdjeiff - if I am not mistaken - urged his 'followers' to interrupt the stream of cause-effect by stopping in their tracks consciousnesswise; by 'self-remembering.' Although Gurdjieff did not put it in those exact words, that is what he meant. He wanted his followers to 'interrupt the stream of nature' and 'become themselves.' Only in that way - he suggested - could one create one's 'soul.'
