Dover Beach

Here's an excerpt from one of my favorite poems: Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold. I first heard it while listening to a book-on-tape version of Fahrenheit 451, which is an excellent book by the way. I don't know if it was especially moving for me because of the delivery of the poem, the context in which it was used or simply because it's well-written, but here it is, enjoy.

The sea of faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To be before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Here's the poem in its entirety: http://poetry.eserver.org/dover_beach.html

The Supernatural Nature of Freewill

The implicit idea in my previous post is that, to truly be free, choice must be supernatural. I used the example of quantum particles exhibiting a measure of ''choice'' in their random behavior. And, that being a micro example, I think our own freewill serves as the macro illustration of this idea.

I see a connection between the behavior of quantum particles and our own freewill in that we choose from a limited amount a choices. The number and kinds of choices we are able to make are restricted by the physical world, which provides the framework in which we choose. Just as physical laws provide a quantum particle with a limited amount of choices, similarly we are limited by numerous physical variables. The physical world provides the boundaries, but the choice made within those boundaries must be a supernatural event if it can be considered free.

Let's say you had to choose to walk through one of three doors. The choice you make is limited to the physical situation you act in. For example, you certainly do not have the freedom to choose a non-existent fourth door, so in those terms your choice is somewhat determined; three doors have already been ''chosen'' for you by the physical existence of only three doors. But, consider the point at which you decide on one door out of the three. Is your choice dependant on the physical situation you act in? If so, the chosen door is just as determined as the original restriction of the existence of only three doors.

Remember, according to materialism, we exist in an exclusively material universe so that our minds are a product of material causes. So, in that worldview, there is no level of mental process that is free of a restrictive physical situation.

If the material causes occuring in your brain restricts you to one door (the door you seemingly ''chose'') then your apparent decision was only the expression of a materially determined process. According to materialism, your brain processes and any other physical variables at play must have applied a physical restriction to the point of choice because choice happens in a competely physical universe. But, at some point, the physical universe must stop providing material causes if our choices are said to occur independently of a closed casual chain. So if there is freewill, a supernatural event happens at the point of seperation between the framework of restrictions determined by material causes and a free choice.

Just as a quantum particle jumps from one point to another seemingly defying rigid physical restrictions, our choices are a supernatural jump from one link in a casual chain to another. In other words, quantum mechanices and our free choices do not follow a linear series of cause and effect. It is not A then always B then always C, it is A then {B, C or D}. And that jump from A to {B, C or D} cannot be explained in physical terms because once it is then it is again a linear series of cause and effect.

If every choice I make can be explained in physical terms then those decisions must have been arrived at based on the unwavering physical laws that govern all matter. But, if the potential to explain all choice does not exist then materialism must concede that freewill is proof for the existence of the supernatural. Simply put, if you can tell me what physically caused my choice then I am not free; if you cannot then freewill is supernatural and materialism is false.

Something must come from outside the physical chain of cause and effect for free acts and thoughts to occur. If freewill is natural it is physically determined and therefore illusory.

Your thoughts.

Quantum Freewill

This is a summary of a draft I wrote that ended up being waaay too long.*

Science is the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.

Materialism is not science. It asserts that physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena. Therefore, materialists believe that the supernatural, and therefore God, does not exist.

So, according to materialism, everything can be explained by material causes and is therefore determined by physical laws. Subsequently, the universe is a closed, interlocked system of cause and effect, which precludes freewill on the grounds that all phenomena are casually determined.

A counter to this is the ''freedom'' allowed in the apparently random behavior of quantum particles (QP). QPs behave according to a probabilistic framework. As the result of a coin flip can only be guessed at so is the loose framework governing the smallest pieces of matter. In general terms, there is a multitude of possible accelerations and locations that a QP ''chooses'' from seemingly independent of any physical cause/law.

So this is my question: is the behavior of QPs supernatural if they act free of material causes? And, what causes the QP to choose the way it does and, indeed, what causes it to choose at all? If that cannot be explained then the universe is not closed and there a supernatural ''back door'' to the physical universe. Is the universe a closed material system or not?

In my coin flipping example the act of picking up the coin and flipping it was the physical cause that forces it to ''choose'' a side and determines which side is ''chosen.'' If there is nothing that forces how a QP chooses (or to choose at all) then materialism has hit a casual and epistemological dead-end.

So, I see a crossroads for materialism in light of quantum mechanics:

1.) Material causes do not determine the behavior of QPs, everything is not trapped in causality and therefore freewill is possible but supernatural so that materialism's premise falls apart.

2.) Or, ｔhe behavior of QPs will be found to have a material cause but, once again, the universe would then be a deterministic cause and effect machine deviod of freewill.

Either everything in the universe is locked in a closed casual system or it is not, materialists cannot have it both ways. As iｔ stands, quantum mechanics should serve as the catalyst for materialism to re-examine its premise if it can continue to claim that science serves as the basis of its ideology.

*Note: Here's the rough draft of the original post:

Before quantum mechanics (QM), according to the materialistic worldview the universe could be seen as a rigid, deterministic machine wherein everything was part of an interlocked system. In this view, the fundamental physical laws govern everything in the universe and, as human beings with material bodies within that interlocked system, we too would then necessarily be governed by those fundamental physical laws. It seemed that the big bang set it all off and the rest of existence would be like a ball falling down the stairs. Therefore, all events, even mental events (i.e. thoughts), would have had to be arrived at or "pre-determined"; for example, me writing this post (and my belief in Christianity) would have been as unavoidable as an apple falling to the ground, and thus leaving no room for free agents within that interlocked system. Or, in other words, no free will.

However, QM gave a little breathing room for materialists. It stated that all building blocks of particles did not obey strict fundamental laws but that they acted within a framework of probable behaviors. In other words, a sub-particle could either go here or there at this or that speed, or any where or speed in between, seemingly on its on accord. Just as the result of flipping a coin is incalculable and only guessed at based on probability, so is the apparently random behavior of a sub-particle determined by what will only probably happen. But, because particles are made up of many building blocks, the law of averages applies and so particles only seem to obey fundamental physical laws because, in the long run, "the house always wins." So, what do the materialists leave us with? a physical world that is now not a deterministic physical machine but a fluid system steered by randomly swerving sub-particles. However, that does not seem to solve the problem of free will and indeed we begin to see how materialism is self-refuting. Materialism posits that nothing exists except matter and all things can then be explained by material causes. In other words, nothing can escape the law of cause and effect therefore causality can explain everything.

But we see in QM a cross roads where materialism wants to have it both ways. They want to say that all things can be determined by cause and effect but make allowances for sub-particles. In other words, materialism, when faced with something that doesn't seem to be able to be explained by cause and effect they don't redefine their premise based on evidence as sound science should do. Science, it would seem, has its own beliefs. Consider what materialists have offered us with QM. The conclusion is that sub-particles act randomly because their behavior is random. But that assertion is circular. You cannot logically explain an effect with an effect. I did not get sick because I got sick. If materialism is to stand it must come up with a cause to explain the effect called random behavior. Consider the coin flipping example, the coin did not get up and choose to flip and choose to land on a certain side. A person picked it up, flipped it (the cause) and its subsequent fall determined which side it would land on (the effect). But with QM we see that the observed effect (that the behavior of sub-particles is random) is also asserted as the cause. There is nothing that causes the sub-particles to choose a particular behavior.

So, as QM stands, materialism appears to have ended with an uncaused effect and thus found its own limitation. However, although QM might prove daunting now I assume that science might one day dig deeper and find a cause for the seemingly random behavior of sub-particles. But, to what end? I see that for materialism to be true there must be infinite regress, or in other words, an infinite chain of cause and effect, and if that is so then causality is again the deterministic law for everything in the universe and the existence of free will is again problematic. Also, even if the QM problem is solved, materialism has shown that instead of redefining its premise and allowing for existence of things outside of causality it will choose false logic and conclude that things just happen.

As we have seen with QM, even if an end of the chain of casuality is observed materialism, based on its dogma, will ignore the observation and assume that there is a longer chain. Materialism has precluded the existence of an uncaused cause. Furthermore, without an Intelligence behind that causality then that chain is inherently a blind, unthinking system. So, how then can that nonsensical chain of events give rise to reasoning minds? Indeed, if true, how can that unguided chain of events steered only by fundamental physical laws give rise to create materialists to observe that chain of events? I would then have to assume that inherent in the laws themselves there is the potential to create beings that can observe those laws, and that starts to sound a lot like an Intelligence.

Thus, either materialism has met its limitations in QM and a new kind of explanation of things is necessary and free will is possible. Or, materialism has not met its limitations in QM and will uncover the cause for the random behavior of sub-particles and thus we again encounter the problem of free will. And our minds, and everything therein, our thoughts, our beliefs, our feelings, are not our own but are only links in one big, blind casual chain with no beginning and no end.

Five quotes

I've been tagged by an atheistic intellectual sparing partner of mine, beepbeep. I assume that once ''tagged'' you must continue a certain theme in a post, which, for this tag, is ''your five favorite quotes.'' We don't agree on much but we share the common ground that our existence demands stringent inquiry and discussion. So, here's to you beepbeep:

1.) ''People like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live...[We] never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.''
- Albert Einstein

2.) ''My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards.
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I've had enough
What else can you show me?''
-from ''It's all right ma''' by Bob Dylan

3.) ''Christianity simply does not make sense until you have faced the sort of facts I have been describing. Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need forgiveness.''
- C.S. Lewis

4.) "I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon. I seek opportunity to develop whatever talents God gave me--not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence or my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any earthly master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say--'This, with God's help, I have done.' All this is what it means to be an American."
-Dean Alfange

5.) And one that belongs in every quote list:

''Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.''
- Oscar Wilde

Material Faith

Originally, I wanted to post something on evolution. I used the example of the eye to show the immense gap between the physical world and the creative potential of a blind chemical process. Although I realized that I need to do a lot more research before I about specific sensory examples. But generally, I wanted to show the huge leap that random variation of DNA would have to make to create the sensory systems of living organisms. The auditory system for example must be specifically tailored to the real physical world before it can give a living organism any survival information. Its many interdependent parts would have had to develop simultaneously to give a creature any sort of survival advantage. The subsequent general idea being that sensory systems have an irreducible complexity wherein if you take one part away then the entire system can no longer function so that a part-by-part evolutionary development would not be possible. But again, this is just a thought experiment because I need to do actual research on the workings and development of sensory systems.

Another side-point I wanted to make is; did random variation, the blind creative force behind evolution, attempt to "reach out" to non-existent things in the physical world before successfully creating any sensory system? Random variation cannot anticipate what is actually in the physical world so, it would seem, it would have to attempt an almost infinite number of variations to "grab a hold" of reality when creating the sensory connections to the physical world.

However, I realized that I was giving evolution far too much ground in placing the point of contention on the development of the senses. If evolution could give rise to organisms that could acquire senses then evolution might be able to create the connections between those creatures and their environment. So, the real point of contention should be the development of life itself. I need to do far more research on this also but, from what I've read, the precariousness and rarity of the chemical processes involved is astounding. And, to me, the amount of complex information existent in DNA screams intelligence.

As a side note:
(Materialism claims that it is a system of thought devoid of faith. It is the worldview that is the basis of all atheistic thought. It's main brainchild is evolution but I see a lot of faith in the gaps of evolution; therefore, I think that it is intellectually dishonest for materialists to argue that their worldview is faith-free.)

One of the main points of this blog is to paint my worldview. And, this is the picture that comes to mind when I read about the complexity of life:
Picture yourself walking alone on the beach. You consider the immensity of the ocean, which pulls your mind to the immensity of universe. You contemplate your place therein and you figure that in the vast expanse of all existence it would be possible for you to be alive no matter how improbable. You think that given enough random chance you could be made by unthinking physical forces. But then you look down and see your name written in the sand. Immediately you look around because you assume someone wrote it. A sentient being with the capacity to string letters together was there and wrote your name. What you do not do is figure that, no matter how improbable, this could have happened randomly given enough chances in a huge universe, you know that such thought is foolish. You do not think that the tide, the movement of hermit crabs and the interaction of water and sand created this ordering of letters that identifies you. In this case, you do not relegate the capacity to produce ordered information to the meanderings of physical forces. So why do so with the astronomically more complex information that manifests life?

Now, your DNA is so amazingly complex that the ordering of those letters actually creates you. It is a bundle of information that even gives you the capacity to see your name in the sand and supplies you with the reasoning to tell you that a person wrote it. It's an identity marker so ineffable and complete that it gives you your physical composition. In a sense, it is your name but a name that contains such virtuosity and complexity that, by it, you are. Given the sheer amount and complexity of information in DNA one could assume that it is actually more probable for your name to randomly occur in sand than for you to be alive to see it. So, why not look at DNA and assume an intelligence was responsible for the writing? DNA is your name in the sand and I think it wise to look around for the Author.

To me, it takes a huge leap of faith (or a blind commitment to materialism and atheism) to assume that an intelligence is not responsible for life. Your thoughts.

A Canvas for Dreams

Trying to lay out all my thoughts on the nature of time and eternity is proving to be a lot harder than I planned. So, in the mean time, I wanted to post this poem I wrote a few years ago that I recently re-worked. It's about our human condition leading to an existential crisis, and how our imagination is a tool to apprehend things we cannot immediately perceive so that we may have hope in the unseen. I've found that reading a poem out loud can really give it it's full effect. Truly, reading a poem hastily and silently is like pinching your nose while chugging fine wine.


A Canvas for Dreams

A coin fed to the slot
and the movie keeps showing.
A body fed to the world
and life keeps going.

Within these bodies boil
awakened minds like bare seashores
beaten by waves of ever-expanding reality.
People quarrel like toy soldiers in miniature dirt wars.
Toil and till and try without conclusion,
answers make more questions
until the end is disillusion.

What to do with such inquistive beings
but to give them imagination,
a window to infinity,
a canvas for dreams.

Let them sit together with canvas in hand
on safe peaceful shores of warm ivory sand.
Let them paint pictures
of fields without fences
and endless oceans without swells.

Let their canvases show them heaven,
and their flight from death and hell.

I saw I

Maybe a good place to start with this blog is to describe the first experience that gave me an eternal perspective on my life and how it changed me forever.

I was about 10 or 11 years old. While trying to sleep my thoughts bounced around to whatever topics are in the mind of a 10 or 11 year old. But suddenly, my thoughts seemed to echo just long enough for me to catch a glimpse of something I had never seen before. I, for the first time, observed the fact that I thought and could think, and that awareness burst into a chain of affirmations that rocked my young mind. I found out, in a profound, earth-shattering way, that I exist.

Needless to say, I continued to have trouble falling asleep. I didn't know how to proceed with this new found knowledge. This awareness became systemic and uncontainable. It spread like wildfire through my psyche. My self-aware mind became a kiln cooking the sand castles of my young consciousness and, in their place, left fortresses of reflective glass; every thought showed me my own mind and reaffirmed my existence.

Two main affirmations sprung forth from my self-realization. First, I am an individual being with free will who can choose to act and think independent of conditioning and, second, that emergent quality will exist forever. I cannot say that these affirmations came about by logic or rational inference, or that they were even completely comprehensible to me at the time, but I can say that they were self-evident in light of my self-awareness. Once I saw my mind the freedom and the eternal quality of it were intuitive and unavoidable.

And so, I was met with an existential dilemma. The prospect of existing forever came flooding in. The concept of eternity daunted me. It was similar to my self-realization but instead of renewing my mind it shed a somber light. Suddenly life was terribly real and almost onerous. I didn't want to live forever. Eternity looked like a purposeless abyss that nothing could fill, an existential black hole. I tried to hold my ideas of God and heaven up to eternity but even that could not assuage. So my spirit that had just been discovered already seemed dismantled. I broke under the weight of my existence, eternity and the bitter reality of it all. I didn't want to exist forever be it in heaven or hell, and so I cried.

For the first time, I cried with my body, my mind and my spirit. As a being standing defenseless on the doorstep of existence peering over the precipice of eternity, I had been broken. I admitted that I had no answers and fear welled up inside drowning me. In the deep unexplored corridors of my being I admitted my total vulnerability and defeat surrendering to whatever lay outside myself.

But that is when God actively stepped in and comforted me. I was not the active agent. I did not conjure up my idea of God and hold it to the harsh reality of existence for protection like before, God was the active agent this time not me. A personal, loving and caring God willingly rescued me. Before, I held onto my idea of God and expected that idol to do my bidding. With my prideful heart and arrogant spirit I thought I could wield God like a weapon and strike down my fear. But, only by a broken spirit and utter humility could I truly cry for God to step into my life, and He did.

I cannot prove it. I cannot completely understand it. But I feel God in the depths of my being in the same way that I know, intuitively, that my mind is free and that it will exist forever.