Page 5
To which Mr. Overbye replied:
My essay on quantum mysticism and What the Bleep has provoked what I might immodestly call a torrent of mail, much of it thoughtful, and all of it polite (even from people who think I am hopelessly deluded and materialistic). Many of the letters reveal a sophistication about psychology and philosophy far exceeding beyond my own. And it would take me the rest of the year to read all the books that have been recommended to me for my further elucidation.
What most of you want to talk about is free will. Even those who agreed with my dismissal of the science in What the Bleep, (you can judge for yourself whether that is a majority), as well as some of my best friends and my wife Nancy, a psychology writer, took me to task for saying that free will was a myth not supported by physics and neuroscience. What do you mean? they all ask. And if so, why DO I get out of bed in the morning?
Somehow, they suggest, I have shortchanged the potential of humans. But I think the rest of you have shortchanged the potential of matter.
So I thought I would lay out my thoughts here, before trying to respond to individual letters and comments. It won't take long, nor do I think anyone will be convinced. For the record I proudly stand by my materialism.
As far as I know, I am composed of the same stuff that makes up the rest of the universe, matter and energy. My muscles and nerve cells are composed of atoms and molecules. These things behave in accordance to the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, information science and so forth.
Just because we might not be able to compute the outcome of, say my waking up or ordering a meal, doesn't mean that what is happening is not in accord with those laws. After all we can't really predict the weather in any detail either, but nobody doubts that anything it does violates the laws of physics. We humans are vastly more complicated than the weather.
Some people would like to take refuge in chaos theory or quantum uncertainty to avoid determinism, leaving a wedge for randomness and novelty. But I'm not impressed, it seems like a sort of "God of the gaps" approach to free will. I don't think randomness is a substitute for the independence and dignity that we associate with freedom.
People who would say there is something more spirit, soul some nonmaterial essence of ourselves, need to say how that stuff would interact and connect with the very material stuff of my body. How are people who claim to have "left their bodies" able to look back down upon themselves on the operating table when they have no sense organs to focus and decode the narrow range of electromagnetic waves that comprise our usual images? Why not infrared images, for example? Continued on page 6
