All Things
It is obvious that the above theories are mutually incompatible. Their coexistence shows that the problem is far from solved. Moreover, all those who follow some of these philosophies in theory, act in their ordinary life as if none of them were true, as if they really believed in human free will. This gives rise to a blatant inconsistency between their thinking and their way of life, that few of them ever think about.
- The Dilemma Determinism Versus Freedom
In one of my mystery novels (El Zahir de Quetzalcoatl) the protagonist must solve three riddles, as in the classic fairy tales. The third puzzle consists of three statements that cannot all be true or false. This enigma is what you might call a trilemma.C.S.LewisA...
- The Mystery Of Too Many Variables
Standard theory of particle physicsWe have now two great physical theories: · On one side, quantum mechanics, which applies primarily to very small objects (those scarcely affected by gravity), and is...
- About The Problem Of Evil
The Auschwitz concentration campIn a previous article on the hunting hymenoptera I mentioned the problem of evil, often called the problem of pain, the well-known title of a book by CS Lewis. Although this question is mainly ethical or philosophical,...
- The Multiverse Does Not Solve The Fine Tuning Problem
Atheists use the multiverse theories to escape the need to accept God?s existence as the cause of a universe which seems to have been designed to make life possible (fine tuning). While they do this, they are contradicting one of their most beloved arguments...
- The Grand Design
In 2010, the media gave a lot of coverage to a book on popular science by Stephen Hawking and L.Mlodinow, The Grand Design. I think it is time to make a few comments, which I am going to introduce by means of quotations of the book:· Philosophy...
All Things
Inside Out
The materialist atheist philosophy has a problem: it cannot explain human free will, the existence of which has been a universal consensus among philosophers and individual human beings. So, they are bent on denying its existence. Is there an easier way to solve a problem that deny there is one? Thus they offer a number of theories to explain it away. I will cite a few:
- Free will is just an appearance. We are really the toy of our feelings (joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust...). The Disney-Pixar film Inside Out could be an example of this philosophical stance.
- Free will is just an appearance. We are really the toy of the interaction of two basic impulses: the sexual instinct and the fear of death. This is more or less the position of Freud and his followers.
- Free will is just an appearance. We are really the toy of our neurons and the connections that bind them, which in turn have been developed during our training as adult human beings through education and social interaction. This is the position of Skinner and the behaviorists.
- Free will is just an appearance. We are really the toy of our genes. We are actually programmed machines and our software is our DNA. This is the position of the geneticists.
 |
| Grazing ostrich (Adamantios) |
- Although we are influenced by many internal and external factors, in man there is a background of freedom. We do not know how it works, but its existence is clear, we know it from experience.
Recognizing that we don?t know something is not a dishonor. On the contrary, it is a challenge, the prerequisite for scientific research. To deny the existence of problems is to apply the tactics of the ostrich (burying one?s head in the sand). Tactics which, incidentally, are uniquely human; ostriches never do that.
The same post in Spanish
Manuel Alfonseca
- The Dilemma Determinism Versus Freedom
In one of my mystery novels (El Zahir de Quetzalcoatl) the protagonist must solve three riddles, as in the classic fairy tales. The third puzzle consists of three statements that cannot all be true or false. This enigma is what you might call a trilemma.C.S.LewisA...
- The Mystery Of Too Many Variables
Standard theory of particle physicsWe have now two great physical theories: · On one side, quantum mechanics, which applies primarily to very small objects (those scarcely affected by gravity), and is...
- About The Problem Of Evil
The Auschwitz concentration campIn a previous article on the hunting hymenoptera I mentioned the problem of evil, often called the problem of pain, the well-known title of a book by CS Lewis. Although this question is mainly ethical or philosophical,...
- The Multiverse Does Not Solve The Fine Tuning Problem
Atheists use the multiverse theories to escape the need to accept God?s existence as the cause of a universe which seems to have been designed to make life possible (fine tuning). While they do this, they are contradicting one of their most beloved arguments...
- The Grand Design
In 2010, the media gave a lot of coverage to a book on popular science by Stephen Hawking and L.Mlodinow, The Grand Design. I think it is time to make a few comments, which I am going to introduce by means of quotations of the book:· Philosophy...