• Were the world society an elementary classroom, the teacher, the principle, the superintendent and the whole school board would be accused of incompetency!
• Mankind has struggled with "something" throughout its history.
• In its attempts at containing this "something," mankind has tried religion, atheism, communism, capitalism, democracy, republics, dictatorships, monarchies, oligarchies, theocracies, fascism, education, etc., and for the thousands of years of incredible effort, all mankind has to show for this effort is what we have today: genocide, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, war, threat of war, insane distribution of wealth, abject poverty, malnutrition, starvation, executions, abortions, nuclear proliferation, pollution, alienation, social stratification, greed, arrogance, oppression, and countless more examples of social cancers that have placed not just mankind, but all life on this planet, on the brink of extinction.
• Something's wrong, and has been wrong for a very long time.
• The late Benjamin Libet,* in 1983, placed conscious awareness .327 sec. after brain function.
• Chun Siong Soon,** in April of 2008, placed conscious awareness anywhere from 7 to 10 sec. after brain function.
• Not only does brain function occur independent of conscious awareness, it is brain function that actually creates conscious awareness.
• Conscious awareness does not produce brain function. Man does not consciously determine his actions, feelings, or thoughts.
• However, in defiance of the determined nature of the universe, mankind has throughout its history lived as though it did consciously determine its actions, feelings and thoughts; has founded its social structures on the assumption it did consciously determine its actions, feelings, and thoughts.
• Regardless of bruised egos, and there will be countless many, ours is an unequivocally determined universe which means there is no such thing as free-will.
• That's big! That's very big! No! That's very, very, very huge! This reality will be embraced with much less enthusiasm than was global warming!
• For all of its history, mankind has been living in a determined universe as if it were a free-will universe. When one stops and lets that sink in, it's frightening!
• That's bigger than huge! That's so incredibly large it could easily explain why mankind's social structures inevitably produce social dysfunction. It is so humongous it handily explains why mankind is seriously entertaining planet-wide extinction.
• I propose that the "something" mankind has been struggling with throughout its history is free-will.
• This probability can be either breathtakingly refreshing, a ray of hope, or incomprehensibly threatening depending on the role free-will has played in whatever success one has managed to accrue. As regards extinction: There isn't much we can do about an incoming asteroid, but there is much we can do about the way we think. One thing is certain, if mankind is to change its social mindset to one which compliments the determined nature of the universe, there isn't much time left to make the change. rko
www.beneficentparentalism.com
* research scientist in the physiology department of the University of California, San Francisco,
** associate of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstrasse 1A, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Charite´ – Universita¨tsmedizin Berlin, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Haus 6, Philippstrasse 13, 10115 Berlin, Germany.
Return to Philosophy Content Page
