Waking Life

In a way, in our contemporary world view, it's easy to think that science has come to take the place of God. But some philosophical problems remain as troubling as ever. Take the problem of free will. This problem has been around for a long time, since before Aristotle in 350 B.C. St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, these guys all worried about how we can be free if God already knows in advance everything you're gonna do. Nowadays we know that the world operates according to some fundamental physical laws, and these laws govern the behavior of every object in the world. Now, these laws, because they're so trustworthy, they enable incredible technological achievements. But look at yourself. We're just physical systems too, right? We're just complex arrangements of carbon molecules. We're mostly water, and our behavior isn't gonna be an exception to these basic physical laws. So it starts to look like whether its God setting things up in advance and knowing everything you're gonna do or whether it's these basic physical laws governing everything, there's not a lot of room left for freedom.




So now you might be tempted to just ignore the question, ignore the mystery of free will. Say "Oh, well, it's just an historical anecdote. It's sophomoric. It's a question with no answer. Just forget about it." But the question keeps staring you right in the face. You think about individuality for example, who you are. Who you are is mostly a matter of the free choices that you make. Or take responsibility. You can only be held responsible, you can only be found guilty, or you can only be admired or respected for things you did of your own free will. So the question keeps coming back, and we don't really have a solution to it. It starts to look like all our decisions are really just a charade.



Think about how it happens. There's some electrical activity in your brain. Your neurons fire. They send a signal down into your nervous system. It passes along down into your muscle fibers. They twitch. You might, say, reach out your arm. It looks like it's a free action on your part, but every one of those - every part of that process is actually governed by physical law, chemical laws, electrical laws, and so on.



So now it just looks like the big bang set up the initial conditions, and the whole rest of human history, and even before, is really just the playing out of subatomic particles according to these basic fundamental physical laws. We think we're special. We think we have some kind of special dignity, but that now comes under threat. I mean, that's really challenged by this picture.



So you might be saying, "Well, wait a minute. What about quantum mechanics? I know enough contemporary physical theory to know it's not really like that. It's really a probabilistic theory. There's room. It's loose. It's not deterministic." And that's going to enable us to understand free will. But if you look at the details, it's not really going to help because what happens is you have some very small quantum particles, and their behavior is apparently a bit random. They swerve. Their behavior is absurd in the sense that its unpredictable and we can't understand it based on anything that came before. It just does something out of the blue, according to a probabilistic framework. But is that going to help with freedom? I mean, should our freedom be just a matter of probabilities, just some random swerving in a chaotic system? That starts to seem like it's worse. I'd rather be a gear in a big deterministic physical machine than just some random swerving.



So we can't just ignore the problem. We have to find room in our contemporary world view for persons with all that that entails; not just bodies, but persons. And that means trying to solve the problem of freedom, finding room for choice and responsibility, and trying to understand individuality.

INTERIOR DESIGNERS

I have four drafts and like two actual posts; I fail at blogging. I don't have much time because I have a wonderful two days planned ahead of me! I have to decent-fy myself, then hopefully grub with a dear friend, wrapping presents for my sister's birthday and Christmas!, family dinner in honor of my sister again, cookie baking extravaganza with Ashley overnight, work in the morning (YES I SAID WORK, TOTAL GOD STUFF TOO, MORE LATER), then some crazy thing at some crazy place Tuesday night.
So, you could say I'm pumped. also, my dad told me yesterday that next week he's taking me for a shopping party at ikea for my room!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you know me, you understand the excitement and the happy butterflies in my tummy when I think about getting to redo my room. I'll talk more about that later, too.

BUT I need some help with this room business. I'm getting this huge wall mural/tapestry thing that's a picture of the world. All the countries are white and the oceans are bright orange. Now, the poopey light blue I have no isn't gonna cut it next to this awesome piece of fabric. I need color ideas! they can't be too dark, and I already went through my purple phase. I'm thinking teal-ish? does that match? I don't know- calling all fashion gurus!
I hope you have a wonderful day/week/year/life if I don't write again soon :)

unodostrescuatro!

I'm not good at keeping up with what I'll say I'll do. The goal was to not neglect this....but I did. I just got so happy about my most-recent post that I forgot I had anything else to say! I hate finals I think they should go away. I also think that Christmas Break will be GRAND! Nothing exciting has happened lately, though. I'm ready for summer and I'm ready for Bigstuf Camps...but I have to convince my pastor that Bigstuf is 10000000000001 times better than CIY, which I hated. I haven't made a wishlist for Santa yet, and I'm willing to bet my parents will buy crazy ugly things for me. I started some shopping for friends though!!!
I got my dear little lady Chelsea a really cool journal just because see look:

actually that's a joke. I wanted to find a picture of it so I looked on the reciept to see what it was called but they just gave me coupons and no reciept!? WHATS GOING ON WORLD?!?! I guess thats okay. but it's off the chain. Its black with lots of doodles and shiney swirls. I'll continue searching for the picture...don't refrain from sleep on that account.

p.s. I think peopleofwalmart.com was made for finals week. :)

English Angora

Please Santa, bring me this adorable little bunnie!!!!

Hello Friends!

Well friends, I have finally created a blog. about time! I don't know what I'm going to say in it, and I can't promise it is worth your time to read, but I do believe it will be fun. First of all, I guess I should explain where I'm at in my lovely road of life. I shouldn't/can't say it has been all lovely, but it is how it's supposed to be.
I'm just a kid, a baby really. I love Jesus and I want my life to scream that loud and clear to the rest of the world. I mess up. I'm mean and I take things too personally. I laugh wierd and make wacky faces. I have a freckle in my eye and I think it's cool, sometimes. I think sparkling grape juice is a miracle and rightfully deserves a spot in the top 5 coolest little things on the earth. I don't know what I want to do with my life or where I want to do it and I'll tell ya that. I wish I did, but I don't. ACPUSH isn't as life-threatening as I make it out to be sometimes. And most importantly of all these, I am because He was and is.
Now, take this as a warning: this is where I'm putting my thoughts. Which means I may not use the right grammar and sometimes I won't capitolize junk and it won't always make sense to you. but just pretend you're watching Glee and this is a clip of 'That's How Sue Sees It'. I love Glee, you should know that too.

Anyway, I wish we didn't live our lives so fast. These past few days have been Thanksgiving Break and I have never been so tired emotionally as well as physically before EVER. All my mom's side of the family is togethor running around our itty-bitty house AND ITS CRAZY. When I say crazy, I mean the neighbors called the popo on us because we stand in the street every night and yell goodbye. So we've been trying to keep everybody happy and entertained and fed. That's hard work I'll say. We run all over looking for a good deal when we're shopping or get take out because we don't want to waste time eating inside at a table that would actually accomidate all of us. I don't want to complain, either, but what would happen if we turned off technology and just sat still. That makes me feel bored just thinking about it. Are you that way?I think the world would be a better place if we all took a little bit of time and just were. That's an area I need to work on for sure; finding time for God and anything spiritual I can't do on the computer or in front of the tv is one of my deepest struggles. So if we're buds, encourage me a bit, will ya? I'll return the favor. Over the summer I decided to challenge myself by memorizing a whole book of the Bible. It was pretty solid for the first month, and then I just got too busy. I don't wanna believe in too busy anymore. I've got 32 days before New Years and I'll have every stinkin' word in my brain forever. THATS AWESOME! So to sum it up, no more excuses. Things of this earth are not the priority, and I don't want them to be no matter how small or big they are.
That's all.