Events leading up to ...
How often do we hear that?
“Very” is the correct answer.
We're confidently informed that this or that particular “chain of events” resulted in “x.” As if.
No, no, no.
Everything results in everything. It's like the Russian nesting dolls phenom discussed on page 48 [of the print edition]. The only reason there exists a smallest item when you start unpacking the figurines is that there is a practical physical limit when it comes to carving wood. So that example is symbolic, perhaps metaphorical, but granular? No. Ultimately—meaning “in reality, i.e. real reality”—the “dolls” would diminish in size until we reach the singularity—the eensy dot that existed the moment before the Big Bang.
Does this mean there is no free will?
Yes and no.
And isn't that interesting?
It certainly seems so to Evergreen Kelly.
E.G. ponders a lot. Thinking and then rethinking is his “thing”—a “thing” no one would ever have thought back when he was in school. Most of his cohort regarded him as thoughtless if they thought about it at all. [Personally, I don't think many did so-think.] But, obviously enough, thoughtlessness is a pretty blurry attribute.
“That was thoughtless of you!” [Jeez. I'm sorry.]
Then along comes The Buddha®, traipsing amidst bodies on the battlefield and encouraging his minions to seek “no-mind.” The goal, obviously enough, being “thoughtlessness.”
E.G. thinks about such things quite a bit while he's tinkering.
“With what?” [I hear you wondering.]
With clocks! Mechanical clocks! [Bet that was a shocker!]
Even in this digital age many people have a fond attachment to the timepieces of their youth, or those inherited. [If you are among them, E.G. is your man.] He understands the inner workings of all sorts of archaic chronometers, and can diagnose, disassemble, set the delicate works in order, then return the same, good as new. Alternatively, though with a heavy heart, if restorative surgery is impossible due to the ravages of time (odd how time's ravages can ravage a mechanical clepsydra)—largely preventable if some irresponsible owner had paid a bit more attention, just a wee bit—he will install an electric mechanism that will keep the gizmo moving as if all the old wheels were still at work. As if.
“It's a sad, sad shame,” he'll offer, “but it was the only way to keep the mighty hands of time on track.”
We're close, he and I, so sometimes I drop by his shop to chat whilst he's delving and plying. We banter about quantum physics and worm holes and probability theory. [The usual stuff two guys talk about when no one else is around.1] Oh, and special relativity. We're both pretty keen on that.
“Heisenberg was right,” he'll observe.
Then I'll come back with, “And Thomas Kuhn.”
He'll nod. “Right, Kuhn nailed it. And Gödel.”
“Especially Gödel,” I'll agree.
[After all, as Natalie Wolchover noted in Quanta®,2 “Gödelian incompleteness afflicts not just math, but—in some ill-understood way—reality.” Ultimately the obvious takeaway is that we can't conclusively prove anything at all.] [At all.]
E.G. will look away from the clock in current consideration, turning to me with pursed lips, then intone, “No one can fully fathom the meaning of incompleteness, y'know? I mean, you'll hear someone say that so-and-so is a 'complete idiot.' But that's impossible.”
“Got that,” I retort. “When the truth is he's actually an incomplete idiot. [Italics mine.] There's no other sort.”
“Then there's that whole line of books '… for the compleat idiot.' and incomplete idiots actually buy them!”
“Crazy world out there, E.G. Crazy world.”
What I like about these conversations is that I always leave feeling a little less certain, sort of like Heisenberg. As noted on page 39 [of the print edition], humility is one of the most useful realizations in a human life. In fact, I didn't think about it twenty-nine pages ago, but that amounts to a general rule.
General Rule #7: “Humility is one of the most useful realizations in a human life.” I'm pretty certain anyone over the age of, say, 45—when a brain finally gets its total groove—would have to agree.
Just this week3 the first photos from the James Webb Space Telescope® have been published. We can see further back in time than ever before, which also means further away, and the latest speculation—based on the new view—is that there may be a trillion galaxies out there. [Which means a lot—if your math awareness is a few bananas shy of a bunch.] Each with millions of stars. Which means there are something like a gazillion4 planets.
If that doesn't suggest a little humility, what does?
Back when we thought the solar system revolved around us it was easy to think we were, or wore, the crown of creation.5 But now, of course, we know better. We squat here on a smallish planet circling a middling star in an average cluster on the outer edge of a typical galaxy. If there aren't intelligent life forms out there who are way ahead of us in terms of drinkable boxed wine and sensible leisure wear I would be astonished.
But all this astonishment has sort of led us away from E.G. who is standing idly by, and who is presumably the subject of the current disquisition. [If not the “object.”] [How, actually, do we disambiguate that?].
E.G. is kind of an “odd duck,” though most of the guys who discuss the Fundamental theorem of arithmetic congruences6 with him might not realize that. [His conversational interests are perfectly normal—see above.]
What he hasn't told pretty much anyone is this: he believes “free will” is a very convincing illusion. [I only know about this because I invented him.] If you were paying close attention you might have noticed that he nodded pretty enthusiastically when I offered that “Everything results in everything.”
“That's it!” he thought. “The whole history of the universe has resulted in this particular clock spring that some incomplete idiot overwound. That reminds me of the Vonnegut® story in which the entire history of the earth, since Jesus® at least, has been guided by aliens7 in order to facilitate manufacture of an item, later discarded by a human, which constituted a repair part that would be needed for the alien's disabled spacecraft centuries later.
“I didn't 'choose' to do this repair, or to go into this business any more than Vonnegut's® character had a choice regarding the throwing away of the future alien repair part. But ...” and here we insert a pregnant8 pause … “it sure felt like I decided. The sense of having free will is very convincing.”
Very.
So there we have it, at least in the sense of feeling that we're in control, and, if everything, I mean everything, is determined by initial conditions, well, not so much.
Actually, not at all. Maybe only “free” in the sense of being given the illusion with no money down.
I thought you'd like to know.
Meanwhile this question from E.G. is a real stumper: “Where do thoughts come from? Hmm? You don't think them before you think them. So whence?”
SUBSEQUENT NOTE: In mid-October 2022 the Webb telescope detected oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exo-planet, both considered to be tell-tale signs of biological activity. Stay tuned!
***
NOTE PER FOOTNOTES: Substack starts off with new numbering each time I post a story. But Footnotes in the original book are continuous and often refer back to previous super important stuff. So original Footnote #s are included below in [#]s.
1 [146] Most guys won't admit this.
2 [147] A magazine full of things that no one actually understands.
3 [148] Writing this on 14 July, 2022.
4 [149] An even larger number if you lost track.
5 [150] Reminding me of the Jefferson Airplane® album of the same name on which the deepest, and maybe strangest, song is “Triad,” written by David Crosby and first recorded on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the album by Crosby®, Stills®, Nash® and Young®.
6 [151] The other thing two guys are apt to chat about when no one else is listening in.
7 [152] I don't recall if Vonnegut's® aliens were described as “mattress people.” [Substack readers will have to go back to the first story in this series from That’s Life to appreciate this reference.]
8 [153] Gotta wonder if pregnant pauses are affected by the 2022 SCOTUS ruling on Roe v. Wade. Can state legislatures now ban them like paused pregnancies? Will De Santis ban pregnant pauses in Florida?
Copyright 2023, Cecil Bothwell, All rights reserved.