On Causality and Free Will (patch)

Note: the following except is a patch to the original excerpt (on Causality and Free Will) on the topic of truth. While both excerpts seek to integrate objective epistemology and subjective ontology (as advocated by science and religion), i feel that the concept of experience (ontology) was not well elaborated in the original excerpt.

This patch would have to do away with the precluding thought experiment on truth, knowledge, and belief and summarized Moore's Paradox into a single paragraph. I believe that the essence is still kept, but should you wish to have a greater insight into Moore's paradox, you may still refer to it in the original post which is still made available within this blog.


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From our previous posts on Science and Religion we had left with various open conclusions. Re-capping, we see that both the faculties of secular science and theistic religion advocate to the existence of an objective truth. Science is practiced epistemologically by realists, and henceforth all theories formulated in the field of science tend to be true, or approximately true. Religion on the other hand, is an act of ontological personal conviction, and from Moore’s paradox we know that it is impossible to disassociate conviction from (subjective) truth. We cannot say “I know the sky is blue, but I don’t believe it”, similarly, we cannot say “I believe the sky is blue, but I know it isn’t true.”

Now, that we have seen the both advocators philosophy in regard to Truth, the fundamental question that would naturally arise would be as such: Why the irreconcilable discrepancy? This question in general may have sounded nostalgic, especially to those whom have taken the General Paper at A level. The fundamental controversy of this topic lies in the debate on whether 'There is a conflict between Science and Religion'- or rephrased in today's context, 'can there be a convergence between the two philosophies of Truth'.

Can there be? We have started this discussion from the acknowledgment of a singular objective truth, and from there we had sub-categorized to objectivity and subjectivity. And in the second excerpt we see that such objectivity and subjectivity comes in two primary forms- namely epistemology (theoretically) or ontology (experientially), and that such derivations may be realistic (materialistic) or idealistic in nature. Science being a logical (epistemological) manipulation of empirical data is seen today to clash with Religion, which derives the bulk of its truth from a subjective metaphysical (Ontological) faith. Of course both advocators have very different roles in bringing what kind of Truth to our lives today, but if we were to trace back such contrasting philosophies of Science and Religion back to their parent concepts, we see that there would ultimately be a convergence of the two contrasting philosophies at the end of the day-

That being the ultimate convergence to the Truth.

How is that possible? Moreover, why should we wish to reconcile this eternally bickering couple married by Truth and separated by objectivity, subjectivity, epistemology and ontology? Now we have to reflect the fundamental philosophy of this project, and Truth. The living best is an ideal state of life that many before us have attempted to seek out, and in project RN we wish to join them in ranks to search for this objective idealistic goal. It is imperative that we have to live in goodness and truth should we wish to live our best, and henceforth it is imperative that we have to holistically embody whatever that is true to live the full truth of truth. Indeed, truth as we know today has been sub-categorized into objectivity, subjectivity, epistemology, ontology, realism (materialism) and idealism today; with various advocators siding unconditionally that their respective takes of truth be that complete objective truth itself. We have to transcend such notions should we wish to see the full picture, and definitely such transaction can only be fulfilled by reconciliation, integration and moderation.

Naturally, the first set of concepts we have to integrate today is between empirical science and metaphysical religion.

If we were to look in greater detail between the issues that had arisen in argument against this proposition of integration, we see that of such, the most pressing issue would probably be the long-standing debate on Free Will and Causality. Science, being logical in nature- generally advocates the theory of causality; In other words, everything that exists today is actually a produced effect of some cause in the history of time. Now if everything, including us, is subjected to the laws of causality, where would the personal ontological experience and Free Will that religion advocates then stand?

From here, I would like to channel your attention to the concept of Determinism and Compatibilism.

Indeed, the argument I had addressed in the previous paragraph is one of Determinism- Determinism proposes that every event, including human cognition (thinking) and behavior, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. A ball moves as such because it is acted upon by a set of forces that determines its path of motion. We apply the brakes in a car because the car in front has slowed down, and this is in turn determined by the earlier braking action of a previous car; should we wish to trace this chain of prior occurrences, we see that it goes on ad inifnitum. Applying to the context of Free Will- Determinism suggests that whatever 'free will' we may have is completely caused and determined by earlier forces of either 'Nature' or 'Nurture', and that such determinism goes all the way beyond our existence. For that manner of speaking, we see that the ‘free will’ does not stem from us but beyond us, and that we are never 'free' in the first place.

So, are we free? And if not, how determined are we determined?

Indeed, hard-determinism had reigned supreme during the classical era of Newtonian Physics. From the electron to the heavenly bodies, physical laws reigned supreme in perfectly determining the cause and course of action. It was inevitable for the scientific community to assume that everything (including ourselves) would one day be mathematically and physically determined just as long as we have enough knowledge to embody these concepts. There was little room left beyond the imposition of determinism for randomness, unpredictability and free will. There was even less room for a God, let alone a human soul to intervene with events ad libidum.

Hard determinism had softened with the advent of relativity, and the underlying philosophy of relativity has made freedom for free will and the self to exist within a world of causality. Relativity has alluded a concept of a ‘self’ and the ‘others’, making room for subjectivity to exist while hard determinism has its loyal place in objectivity and universality. Previously, to move forward only means that one must be compelled beforehand; but today the experience of moving forward by the individual is physically valid- we know time slows down for the moving individual while not for the ‘others’. Although subjective, it is still truth that individuality exists and has its own place and time within our universe

Moreover, we should have been all aware by now that recent studies in quantum physics have found proof that not everything in this universe are subjected to the laws of causality. This can be especially seen in the behavior of quarks and strings when they seem to 'disregard all known laws of physics'. Moreover, the basic concept of radioactivity has already baffled many determinists- indeed, the decay of nuclear particles are caused by the instability of the nucleus, but there is virtually nothing that determines which particle decays at which point in time (the nucleus seems to have a 'free will' in choosing when to decay itself)

Hence, while the philosophy of science tends to that of Determinism, many of our scientists actually tend more to the philosophy of Compatibilism. Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are actually compatible ideas, and the 'Free will' in compatibilism is taken to be a 'hypothetical ability to have chosen differently if one had been differently psychologically disposed by some different beliefs or desires.' We could generally portray free will as the choices one can make in a game of chess, where we are still determined by the moves the opponent makes, but still have the free choice to choose which countering moves we wish to make on our part. It is interesting to note that the concept of Compatibilism is also portrayed in both Jewish and Christian Theology, as stated succinctly:

Compatibilism in this context holds that the sovereignty of God and the free will of man are both biblical concepts and, rightly understood, are not mutually exclusive. The all-knowing God (who sees past, present, and future simultaneously from the perspective of eternity) created human beings (who have the subjective reality of making choices in the present that have consequences for themselves and others in the future) in such a way that both are true: God is ultimately sovereign and therefore must have at least permitted any choice that a human could make, but at the same time God is right to hold humans accountable because from their perspective within the confines of serial time, humans make moral choices between good and evil.

From the above we begin to see a true world with room for both the experience of the individual self (as in the form of subjective ontology) and the (objective) determinism of the system. This world is universal and independent of our individual whims and fancies as we side unconditionally on one over the other. But while science and religion are both right in their philosophies to truth, and that subjective ontology and objective epistemology are indeed one in essence, we of course would not take the above discussion as objective proof to a conclusion that there will inevitably be a perfect integration between the two advocators.

But even with the integration of such concepts of epistemological logic and the ontological free will we know that the resultant truth is still incomplete. Even within the above mentioned concepts, we know that there is still a realistic and idealistic dimension to them, of which we will have to integrate should we wish to paint the full picture of truth. In the next post I would make a second integration between the real (material) and the ideal, basing it on the same set of examples we have discussed today; and subsequently from there see that our lives are equally dependent on such aspects just as those we have acknowledged today.

On Determinism and Chaos

Note:

This post is a patch to Part 1: Truth and comes immediately after the excerpt "on causality and free will". While "causality and free will" (I will modify its contents in the near future) focuses on the integration and moderation of epistemological logic and ontological feelings, this excerpt will focus on the prevalent need of integration of Realism (materialism) and Idealism. This excerpt also focuses closely on the scientific faculty of real and ideal epistemology; for more information of ontological realism and idealism, please do refer back to the excerpt "on Love".

As most of the following concepts are congruent to my current university module on the Chaos Theory, which i do not have a prior knowledge to initially; hence I apologize for only being able to write this excerpt 3 months after we have left the topic of truth. While what is presented here is not a complete summary of the Chaos theory, and neither is it a full account of determinism, what stands is its relevance to the moderation doctrine- and of course a personal reaffirmation and reconciliation between school, project RN, and the general knowledge.


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The basic concept of radioactivity has already baffled many determinists- indeed, the decay of nuclear particles are caused by the instability of the nucleus, but there is virtually nothing that determines which particle decays at which point in time…

-On causality and free will, on determinism and chaos

Determinism is the philosophical belief that every event or action is the inevitable result of preceding events and actions. Determinism establishes the idea of causality, or what the layman considers as ‘cause-and effect’ or ‘action-and –reaction’. The rules of determinism govern all motions and structures on the logical level.

On the previous account we have considered in greater detail on biological determinism, theological determinism, and their corresponding regard to ethics and free will. An integration of both philosophies, in the product of compatibilism, was concluded to set the first moderation of science and religion- the advocators of epistemological logic and the ontological soul. In this excerpt today we will attempt to look at another aspect of determinism, this time with respect to order and chaos, to see the second moderation between the real (material) and the ideal.

Now for a start, what is real and what is ideal? At first thought we assume real things as tangible things- things that we can sense ontologically and explain with simple laws and relations; ideal things would be considered as abstract concepts, things that are supposedly there and yet never there, and no more than thoughts of a deranged mind. While real things exist in the ‘here and now’, ideal things seem ‘eternal’. Oxygen and nitrogen are quite real, and Ideal gases… the name really explains it all.

But most importantly- ideals are perfect in nature, while real (materials) are never perfect enough to follow fundamental laws of physics and mathematics. That be the reason why even as humans we ourselves (being real) are imperfect, but the one difference between human knowledge and natural stupidity is our ability to understand idealistic concepts. The theist draws reason to the soul; since it is in God’s image and idealistic in nature, to be able to discern perfection and idealism from the materialistic imperfections of the world. The atheist believes that such idealism stems from the human fragility and cognitive deductions. The true reason behind this is subjective but unimportant currently.

For a start humans know many things. We know that two plus two equals four, we know that squares have straight sides, that circles are round and a shove can send a person accelerating at an acceleration that is proportional to the force exerted in that same direction. We know that the earth orbits around the sun owing to the gravitational force between the two planets, and many a time we have taken all these facts for granted as the complete objective truth. While Newtonian physics sets the deterministic nature for the dynamic aspects of our objective world, logical determinism and assumption sets the causal rules of our cognitive knowledge of such materialistic phenomenon.

But we also know that the true material world, although deterministic, is imperfect. While the perfect world is idealistic, this reality that we live in, being real and materialistic, is far from it.

Counter-cognitively, it is not the determinism of the world that influences us to an idealistic logical determinism that two plus two equals four, that squares and circles are as such, or that the earth goes around the sun in ellipses. Rather, it is our idealized deterministic cognition that interprets the true dynamics of our world to our current disposition. While we can assume that the mass of two similar pairs of mandarin oranges theoretically summates to a mass four times the individual orange- we know that there is no two orange that is congruent in size, shape, and identity. Practically, the mass of an infinite pair of oranges can never be a perfect multiple of two, and if we were to weigh them out one by one we will get a string of answers that approximates to four, but in a random manner.

Four in this case, is an idealized truth- and the erratic results that normalize to four (as we assume it to be as such) are the essence of realism, of materialism, and chaos. Materialism entails the lack of idealistic perfection, and the lack of it entails chaos, complexity and disorder.

Similarly, we know that straight lines and perfect circles are no more than idealized Euclidean geometry. Where the naturalistic world tends to such ideals, it always leaves a compliment of imperfections and chaos behind for us to crudely assume as negligible. The planets move in a trajectory that is theoretically impossible to define even with the most extensive knowledge of Newtonian physics and calculus, owing to the constant flux of feedback influence the gravities of planets impose upon each other as they move around the sun. For a fact we are actually just within a window of stability of a chaotic system, and from our perspective of knowledge we believe that such windows of stability are universal and chaos being a window of error instead.

Then why still tend to the idealized determinism of Newtonian dynamics and mathematics? Why learn the impossible if the real world never produces a perfect four to a summation of a pair of twos? Why go to the science laboratory and assume air resistance and turbulence as negligible when we know that the answer will never be perfectly objective? We might as well reject all physical laws and assumptions and return back to empirical statistics.

On the other hand we could always live with the delusion that all imperfections are negligible and continue believing that the universe is run by an idealistic set of rules. We can always strive for an ideal world, abolishing imperfection along the way, and suit the real (materialistic) world (and even ourselves) to a fanciful and unattainable ideal of perfection and harmony. We can deem chaos, which is inevitable with the real world, as an aberration- a mistake to that perfect picture we had painted while we were children with our blindfolds still on.

To which truth do we subscribe to? Do we subscribe to the real world of imperfection and chaos, or the ideal world of simplified laws and assumptions from our current perspective?

Intuitively, we know that we need to subscribe to both realistic (materialistic) and idealistic interpretations of truth should we wish to understand the complete truth of things. While epistemological (ideal) knowledge can allow us to see linear relationships and trends of perfection in our universe, empirical statistics can explain to us the chaotic (indefinable) nature of things- of what’s not, in our understanding of our world and ourselves. Without an acknowledgment of materialistic chaos our knowledge is, as above, no more than a subjective delusion of the truth. Without an acknowledgment of deterministic-idealistic laws of Newtonian Dynamics, Euclidean Geometry, and Mathematical Calculus etc. we will never be able to discern patterns within this soup of chaos and disorder, nor can we go beyond the initial complexity to find out higher knowledge and truths.

Just like a series of numbers between 1 and 100, indeed, we can never find the governing laws of multiplication for prime numbers; and it is owing to this reason why prime numbers are distributed chaotically and stick out like a sore thumb in a complex mathematical equation when simplification is key. But we cannot neglect them if we want to consider each and every natural number between 1 and 100. It is the integration of both prime numbers and the other numbers (with idealistic factors) that forms the full truth of numbers between 1 and 100.

Similarly, it is the integration (or moderation) of both the reality and idealism of issues can we see the full truth of what is, and what isn’t of our world and of ourselves. This concept is partially overlapped by the complimentary doctrine- which states that a full understanding of the system can only possible when one understands both the strength and flaw of the system; of what is perfect, and what is imperfect; and ultimately what is ideal and real.

With this we have made an acknowledgment of the need of integration of epistemology and ontology, as well as the real (material) and the ideal. These two set of integrations (moderations) forms the basis of the moderation doctrine, in which we will consider in our next discussion on the ‘Introduction to the Moderation Doctrine’. We will subsequently scale down such lofty concepts to the individual perspective, and from there recreate an objective identity in answer to our quest for the living best.

On Love (rephrased for easier comprehension)

Note: there was considerable feedback that the last patch was very difficult to comprehend, even for those whom had read on 'the living best'. For easier comprehension for ALL readers, the excerpt has been rephrased to simpler English, much effort has been been exerted to ensure that the information within is preserved as far as possible.


“Man’s two greatest purpose of living is of work and love” – Some cheem guy.

What is love again?

From the previous topic of Identity we get to see what love is. Love is an experience that brings together two or more individuals (or things); when we define love personally, love becomes an emotion that brings about some sort of affection, and attachment. Love unites relationships, and indirectly affects one’s sense of self and social identity. To ‘like to do something’ comes from loving yourself, and you need to learn how to love your neighbor before you know how to love yourself.

Summarizing, love makes you know who you are, and brings things together. It is from the idea of love that humans can socialize, and from socializing we get our Ethics and Morality. Ethics and Morality are stuff that we ourselves and society takes to be important and valuable. From ethics and morality we ask why we exist and what are we doing on this earth, to finally ‘does God exist?’ We wouldn’t be bothered with such cheem stuff for the time being- for now; let us look deeper at Love and its related ideas.

Love itself is just an experience, and no amount of theory can make us understand this as a few seconds of ‘being in love’ can. We cannot learn love from books, and neither can we describe love into words, pictures, film etc. Even television and books, the love that the author (or director) tries to show (by the novel, picture or film) has to be inferred. We must have experienced love before we can understand what it means for people to be kissing, hugging or saying ‘I love you’.

But even if it’s just an experience, love is still real and ideal. An example would be when we are talking of ‘true love’ or the love that comes with a kiss (we call this passionate love): True love is ideal, and passionate love is real. We need both loves to come together if we truly want to experience love. Now we know what a passionate kiss or a hug is, so we know what real love is. Ideal love is slightly difficult to understand, this is because like ideal gases, it cannot be sensed immediately

Now, what is idealistic love? Do allow me to quote a phrase as analogy:

...There are easy farewells like 'see you tomorrow'. And there are sad farewells when we know we will never see each other again. But no matter what kind of farewell it is, I want to believe that even if we can't see each other, even if death parts us, our feelings will never change...

-Mai, from a film

I am sure we all have seen such lovey-dovey phrases before, and okay, this phrase is called idealistic love. We know that love unites, and farewells splits people up physically; but we know that ideal stuff can exist forever and everywhere. In this case Mai believes that her feelings will not be affected by ‘not seeing’ and ‘death’. Therefore we can say that whatever she says is about idealistic love

Now, many people say that ideal love is ‘True Love’ or ‘unconditional love’. We know that a simple ‘I love you’ might not be true love, because the boyfriend might ditch the girl when time passes or when things happen and another girl comes into the picture. Idealistic love goes beyond that kind of ‘I love you’, because since we cannot create love by words for fun, it can only happen when we are already in love. We all already know that when Mai says those words, she had already actually fallen in love in him by the time.

Henceforth, since ideal love has to be based on real love for it to exist (we cannot anyhow create it), we commonly heck care real love and jump straight to ideal ‘true love’. Strictly speaking, true love can only exist when love is real and ideal at the same time. Most people think ideal love is nonsense, or thinks that ideal love can be created as and when we like (since it’s just ideas), and that’s why we all say that the world lacks ‘true love’.

As for which kind of love came first, we all have different views. Christians say that comes from the soul, and shown by our body actions. The soul is eternal and dimensional-less, therefore the love that comes from it is ideal too. The body, makes this ideal love real like itself. Others may say that it’s because the human mind that wants the feeling of love to last forever, therefore making the real love ideal. Either way, we don’t really care what comes first, but we care that both need to come together.

We all know that this world don’t know what true love is. This is because we’re materialistic and selfish. Now, we have to ask why- As stated by a priest, it is because of the idea of ‘the survival of the fittest’. Therefore we all want to show our stronger side, and that we have power and are in control. Rephrasing, it is because we all want to survive, thus we stop being considerate to others and become materialistic with things (instead of idealistic), we say that idealistic things are just empty castles in the air. So we all become selfish, and become superficial and greedy.

While being selfish and materialistic lets us be powerful and successful in life, we all misunderstand love to be a form of ‘dependence’, no more than a passion and a ‘weakness’. Love is only said by priests. Love is an excuse humans give to run away from the fact of ‘survival of the fittest’, or to some teenage girl with her childish romance drama serials. As observed by some scientists: this world has no time for such childish ‘lets-pretend’ games such as true love, equality, morality and God. We all struggle to survive or die, let alone all the bullshit of meaning and equality…

It is because of these kinds of views that had led us to abandon love, to another weakness of human nature today. Selfish materialism lets us find a good way of living, but it results in loneliness and a meaningless life. We all want to earn money initially because we want to live a successful life. But when we become rich, are we already successful? We don’t know, and so we start earning money for the sake of earning more money. When we become old and think of our past actions, we find out that we have been selfish and unproductive; and we would just die a disappointed person.

While love, and the experience of love is seen as a stumbling block on our quest for knowledge, achievement, power and success- actually, we need such experiences, on top of the logic of wanting to be successful, if we really want to be successful. From the discussion from the previous project, we know that truth is theory and experience, and should we want to live our true ‘best’ we need to put feelings and beliefs and logic and theory together. Also, we have to love our friends just like how we love ourselves. Naturally love, which allows us to feel and be close to our friends, must come in to our selfish world of materialism if we want to be the best.

There are two reasons.

The first reason holds that while materialism gives us a method to earn more money and be successful, feelings from experiences makes us more committed to follow the method. It is only when feelings and logic come together can we know ‘what’ something is about and ‘why did it come about. Know what and why lets us know something fully. This point is well re-quoted as follows:

“One who does not know what love can do, can never be powerful. Love itself is something we cannot laugh at and think is bullshit; the experience of love brings about a belief, and a strong belief brings commitment and will-power. Power alone without commitment can never be truly powerful, and remains no more as ideas and meaningless moves (think kung-fu). We must be committed to our actions, and then can we really become really powerful and do good work.”

Christians believe that when God worked and created the universe, he used his infinite wisdom to create them, but the reason why he created was because of love. This is why Christianity says that ‘work is a usage of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, done in the service (love) of the community, to build up the church- the body of Christ’.

The second reason would be slightly harder to understand- known as the complimentary doctrine of life. Recalling from above, we all think that love is a form of ‘dependence’, ‘acceptance’ and ‘weakness’- although we all misunderstand it to be just weakness, we’re still quite right that if we love, we need to ‘hold our horses and rely on the map’. While we find the logical method to become successful and powerful in life; love brings us back down to earth by letting us experience and feel ourselves. Love also makes us less selfish and be share the good rewards (should they come) with our friends. We get to sit back and appreciate where we are currently in life, we get to see people’s good points, and we know what we still lack or don’t know in life was we try to be that better person.

The complimentary doctrine says that in any journey, the journey can never considered complete unless one knows the distance left to go, as well as the distance already travelled. Yes we can deduce that we are human beings from knowing that we are not a chimpanzee or an orangutan (or any other primate), but cannot be truly know who we really are until someone tells us we are a Human being. Similarly, we cannot be truly successful and powerful by finding methods to make us earn more money or improve our strength, but we also need to sit back, experience, appreciate where we are and love ourselves. This can be re-quoted as follows:

Acceptance of one’s strength and weakness is needed for if we want to be truly powerful. We cannot become infinitely clever or powerful to know that it is impossible to be perfect. You will never understand fully what you can do, until you know what you are still unable to do. Strength without acceptance of weakness is bullshit… and so is maturity without acceptance of our child-like ways… you may as well compare who’ll get the first pimple-

-Some girl

Of course we are not as extreme as that girl has made it to become, but we can see she has the same idea that we have today. Whether it is from commitment, or appreciation, the experience and love are very important if we really want to be successful and powerful, or do good work.

As a conclusion, we have discussed on the love and how does it influence work, success and the ‘living best’. In the next post we will dwell in greater detail into applied love and work, in the form of morality and ethics; to hopefully seek out the meaning behind these actions, and ultimately the meaning of life.