Admittedly Off-Topic: Cosmology, Pragmatism and Free Will
I urge readers to sign up for the dictionary.com “word of the day.” It usually takes just a few seconds to process each morning, and sometimes it’s an important learning experience.
Today’s word: cosmology \koz-MOL-uh-jee\noun
1. the branch of philosophy dealing with the origin and general structure of the universe, with its parts, elements, and laws, and especially with such of its characteristics as space, time, causality, and freedom.
2. the branch of astronomy that deals with the general structure and evolution of the universe.
Here, we’re reminded of the age-old question: Do we really have free will, or is absolute causation the only operating principle in the universe, despite our innate feelings and beliefs to the contrary?
IMO, this is resolved best by the school of American pragmatism, of which I was a big devotee in my younger days. (See below for a really good explanation and example of what all this means.)
The founding principle of pragmatism is that the truth of a statement is determined by its usefulness. Re: cosmology, we have no access to the mechanisms that govern the universe, but we can nonetheless establish certain truths, on the basis of the utility of the ideas.
Think of going through life believing that every thought and action we have is the result of a very long chain of physical and chemical processes that were set into motion at the dawn of the universe. There would be no reason to celebrate virtue, to work hard, to make an effort to live a decent life, and there would be no justification for punishing criminals as they, just as we, are unable to change the course that is set for them in life. Our perception of our own free will is so fundamental to deriving any meaning from our lives that it must be true in any meaningful sense of the word.
As promised, here’s the opening paragraph from William James’ seminal essay “What Is Pragmatism” (1904).
SOME YEARS AGO, being with a camping party in the mountains, I returned from a solitary ramble to find every one engaged in a ferocious metaphysical dispute. The corpus of the dispute was a squirrel – a live squirrel supposed to be clinging to one side of a tree-trunk; while over against the tree’s opposite side a human being was imagined to stand. This human witness tries to get sight of the squirrel by moving rapidly round the tree, but no matter how fast he goes, the squirrel moves as fast in the opposite direction, and always keeps the tree between himself and the man, so that never a glimpse of him is caught. The resultant metaphysical problem now is this: Does the man go round the squirrel or not? He goes round the tree, sure enough, and the squirrel is on the tree; but does he go round the squirrel? In the unlimited leisure of the wilderness, discussion had been worn threadbare. Every one had taken sides, and was obstinate; and the numbers on both sides were even. Each side, when I appeared therefore appealed to me to make it a majority. Mindful of the scholastic adage that whenever you meet a contradiction you must make a distinction, I immediately sought and found one, as follows: “Which party is right,” I said, “depends on what you practically mean by ‘going round’ the squirrel. If you mean passing from the north of him to the east, then to the south, then to the west, and then to the north of him again, obviously the man does go round him, for he occupies these successive positions. But if on the contrary you mean being first in front of him, then on the right of him, then behind him, then on his left, and finally in front again, it is quite as obvious that the man fails to go round him, for by the compensating movements the squirrel makes, he keeps his belly turned towards the man all the time, and his back turned away. Make the distinction, and there is no occasion for any farther dispute. You are both right and both wrong according as you conceive the verb ‘to go round’ in one practical fashion or the other.”
You seem to advocate a perspective that in a universe where everything was fated there would be no motivation. I like to think a philosophy that included destiny as a tenet would be be something like being an actor in a play. The script is set. The internal reaction of each party, the internal dialogue, and the motivation to play your part as well as possible can always be there.
And then there is another possibility. That both free will and destiny exist but in multi-verse. In this case every choice you make already exists in some universe.
There really are a lot of different ways of looking at this other than my own. Here’s a very good summary: http://aphilosopherstake.com/2012/08/13/the-free-will-problem/
This is why I never took the whole subject of metaphysics too seriously (and the reason that Georgetown recommended that I didn’t go on for my PhD in philosophy). It’s arguing about things to which we don’t have access. It’s no different that arguing about how much money is in a safe that can never be opened. As I like to say, “I have problems–and that’s not one of them.”
“Access” can be a tricky word. Just ask the handicapped. When a very early me was crawling around I didn’t have “access” to door knobs. I recall how time changed that. Similarly “access” may sometimes seem denied by the tools of logic and reason. The mind alone also does not have access to most door knobs. It requires that we use our physical abilities.
Metaphysics may require different abilities for access. Some seem to suggest that concentration, meditation and contemplation allows that access, but I might more simply add “belief” and “faith” to that list. Or more exactly the ability to trust a “belief.” That “belief” can start with something as simple that “I am more than what can be observed.” Science admits this but stops short because of lack of “access.”
I am a strong advocate of logic, reason and even science but “believe” that every tool has the correct application. Sometimes we do fall into the trap of “having a hammer and see every problem as a nail.” It would be good to know that we are using every tool and ability available to us.
This is profound stuff. Thanks for the contribution.