The Search

Not Interested

Nature has done its job so well that the vast majority of humans are not the slightest bit interested in understanding the truth of their existence - in their physical, biological or evolutionary source. Nature would have them not waste time that could be better spent on life’s material gains. Gains that improve survival and reproduction - the true currencies of natural selection. Truth and knowledge are not important in themselves, for evolution.

Searching

It’s not so much that you were determined, or that you have been determined, in your life. It’s that you are determined! Right now!

If you are pondering about how you got to be this or that sort of person, and what led to what, deterministically - if you’re pondering about that stuff, it’s actually that pondering that is determined. There is nowhere to observe from, and nowhere to hide. Your current pondering self is what is determined right now! And if that makes you feel slightly trapped, then that feeling is also what is determined.

Can you enjoy experience without determinism stealing it before you receive it? Do you receive it at all - ever?

Determinism Comes First

Determinism comes first. First in the universe and first in the moment. It is the moment. You can’t objectively look back at determinism or even study its real time workings because these observations are already determined, by determinism.

We are the result of deterministic processes and we can’t do anything at all, except exactly what we do.

And any attempt to understand it is determined.

Zen of Science

I know science is true. It’s always the best truth I can get. So why don’t I just say “yes!”, to it and get on with other things? I do get on with other things of course, but the “yes!” takes a lot of work to feel right. The science of life must be lived deeply day in and day out until, like a Zen koan, there is a sudden “aha” moment, and a shift occurs. For a time the restlessness and the searching disappears, the new understanding integrates, then new questions begin to form from this higher place.

Could I ever reach full understanding - even of what we now know? Not the details or the maths of it, but definitely the feel of it? The vast broad feeling of what I truly am in this universe? The actual feel of it?

Has anyone done that? The clever ones who make the knowledge possible are too tunnelled into their own path of work and expertise. The professional philosophers are paid to ponder and stay open for business. They see a major conclusion as a dead end.

Is there anyone, maybe in a cave somewhere, who really feels it and understands and could say it in a few words?

No one has said so.

Questions and Answers

Questions and answers must also be determined. Yet a question seems to be an open invitation for the recipient to consider possibilities, and choose the most appropriate answer. Or choose to continue discussing alternatives, to come to a considered decision.

If you say something to someone, they say something back. If you had said something different, they would have said something different back.

But there are no hypotheticals, only what happens, what is determined. Only one thing is happening. Like a huge clock. All the tiny cogs in the universe move in lockstep to produce a continuously determined outcome.

Programmed or Not

People are little machines obediently operating as programmed.

But some people are little machines looking into themselves and searching for what they are.

They also are obediently operating as programmed.

Intelligence and Logic

Having concluded that determinism is true, would you still bother to say to others that determinism is true? Maybe/ maybe not! It would all depend on what’s determined.

You might think: “all my thoughts and beliefs are determined, so I’ll just let things happen as they must”. Or you might think: “determinism is definitely true, and because I’m very interested in this, I’ll get vocal about it and tell others.

These thoughts are all determined of course - even before I thought them. So really, I am left in amazement at a determined world of cause and effect, appearing to be so influenced by intelligence and logic and reason and judgement.

If You Get It

There is plenty to ponder and research on your investigation into determinism. There’s hard determinism, soft determinism, compatibilism, biological determinism, neurological determinism, reductive materialism, eliminative materialism, and so on. But all you need is basic billiard ball determinism which includes all matter, life and thought.

At the point you realize the mind and its thoughts are determined you can stop and take stock. Do you need to go any further? Can you go any further? Because the free thinking, logical seeker you think you are is now exposed as determined by material events.

If you “get it” at that critical point (ie: the beginning), there’s no need to pursue it, except for the fun, pleasure or pain of it. If you don’t “get it”, the same applies. Getting it or not getting it, is determinism in action. All paths are determined in a neutral way and none is preferred. The present state of the universe decides everything.

Personal and Real

How can determined minds have determined thoughts that appear to explore philosophical complexities about the nature of consciousness and life and matter?

You can’t say those determined thoughts just pop out of nowhere. At the very least they are linked to a train of thoughts, or to a discussion between people, or to a web search.

But how could determined atomic particles come up with that line of enquiry, or any line of enquiry? Why would it arise? How could it arise? How could it feel so personal and real to the human brain experiencing those thoughts?

A human, (particles), may suddenly realize its determined nature, then immediately fall back into its total belief in its own autonomy and free will.

And this is in line with nature, because that’s determined, like everything else that happens.

Subjective Experience

I began to investigate

Subjective experience

This holds the key

I think

So I move up close and

Peer over the edge

Right into it

But all I see is

My own peeringness

This is not the answer

I want to 

Grasp

And have and hold

So I go off on a 

Long detour

Re-doing neuroscience and evolution

And philosophy

And linguistics

For the layman

All fields

Nearly hold the answer

Of why my existence

Exists

But not quite

Research and funding

Are gathering pace

With more and more questions

Needing

More and more solving

And schools of thought

Dividing 

Into opposing disciplines

Im excited

Then tired of reading

And sick of waiting

For experts

To agree with each other

And tell me

I want to be objective

About my subjective experience

But surely 

This is not the way

Dinner with your Wife

Once you have established determined particle behaviour - then everything else follows.

Big bang > fundamental particles > determined universe.

The only thing left to explain is sitting at the table having wine and dinner with your wife, and chatting about the neighbours.

There  needs to be a relatively short and logical way to link the above two situations (ie particle behaviour and human behaviour). Which links physics to the world.

It is almost obvious that physics is the world, or determines the world. But it cannot be held in mind as an explanation for human behaviour or reason for being, because we have evolved for survival and reproduction only, not for truth.

Is there a way of describing things that allows the truth of the physical world to be incorporated into the feeling body? So that a human can live with the knowledge of truth as their philosophical comfort.

Unfortunately, at this point, and at any point, determinism is remembered as the only operating force and all thinking and deciding are done for you.

However this does not preclude the feelings and experience of doing thinking and making choices, nor the feeling that understanding the truth is wonderfully satisfying.

If you are determined to be lucky you may be determined to understand. 

Hidden Insight

If you're lucky, when you remember what you really are, you can switch instantly from the intricate details of your human life, whoosh!, to a vast and objective grasp of particles being humans.

This insight may not last for long, but hopefully it will last for longer and longer over time. It is a hidden insight waiting to be found at any moment and in any situation.

If you forget to try and experience this insight, it will force its way into your life and bend you back to the search, believing the search to be real and fruitful once again.

The “Me” Machine

Is introspection the problem? Or self observation the problem? Or thinking about thinking the problem?

Ants don’t do it. Dogs don’t do it.

Even normal, uninterested humans could live a life without self exploration or doubting themselves, or needing a bigger picture or explanations of existence, or the meaning of life.

Needing meaning the problem? Or wanting answers the problem? A dog doesn’t want answers or meaning?

An ant is a robot that can even communicate, and a dog is the same but more complicated. A human is the same but even more complicated.

Our feeling of self and experience of thinking, these feelings of consciousness and the feeling of awareness - all of these seem to put us out of the robot class and into an autonomous, self acting, free will, free thinking class.

Even without the search for meaning, just being conscious and having the feeling of free will is enough to convince everyone to believe in their own free will and agency. And not believe they are a complicated robot.

A complicated robot believes it’s not a robot by having a built in “me machine”.

Asking questions

You can ask questions, but only because you have been asked to.

By determinism.

The Satisfaction

Include the total satisfaction of knowing about this path, this truth, this unintuitive but very very satisfying explanation of what we are, what I am, and what the universe is.

Even though the search goes on, which seems like dissatisfaction, it’s not - the satisfaction is there!

Both the Same

It’s the seeing/understanding that particle interaction and human interaction are the same thing. Imagine a room full of air on the one hand, or people talking in a coffee shop on the other.Both are clumps or arrangements of particles. Both took the same time to evolve to their present state. Both go forward moment to moment according to the same physical laws. Both states are caused by previous physical states. Both are totally determined.

It helps to be able to look at one situation, and then the other, back and forth, and understand that the sweeping differences from one to the other can be comprehended. Not two levels of understanding, but one.

It helps to view the world as determined particles as often as possible which may mean not very often, only when you're allowed.

Determined particles, communication, objects, thoughts, interactions, anything. There are only particles obeying the physical laws.

If you can’t see something in that way it’s because you can’t see it. It’s still happening, and even knowing that helps.

Reading to Search

Unless you’re willing to read a book on fundamental particles, and genetics, and evolution, and neuroscience, and determinism, even an entertaining book for the layperson, unless you're willing to read up you won’t find out the truth of what we are.

When you look at the above five areas of knowledge, it’s apparent that free will doesn’t need exploring because all events are explained by those five areas. But there is also free will and choice to read up on.

Determined Searching 

If your belief is in determinism, what’s the point of reading deterministic philosophy and refining your viewpoint and your arguments?

I’ll tell you the point - it’s because it’s determined. Determinism is behind every action. Before, during and after. This moment is what you get. And the next, and the next.

In the beginning were the laws. And the particles behaved accordingly. And it led to this.

Search but Relax

There is no evidence to suggest that anything in our lives or in our world can happen without a cause. Which means every event is determined by causal factors.

This is the bottom line. You can safely believe this. Then you can go about discovering and understanding the causes and connections between things. 

This can be hard work taking time and research. But at any time you can always relax and remember that determinism is a fact. And that fact already covers ultimate causes, reasons and meanings, whatever they are.

The overarching truth is known, and the rest is just filling in the gaps. Filling in the details.

Heart and Soul

It’s hard to put your heart and soul into a search that leads to a heartless and soul-less conclusion. But I am doing it, and part of the search (at least) is trying to find something good about sticking with the truth, rather than the hope of a comforting fantasy.

Although, in the end, none of that’s important, only truth is.

I am the Illusion

It’s all very well to say all is determined, including thoughts, opinions and beliefs.

But say two people are discussing a particular subject, and stating their views on it. Well, yes, their opinions and beliefs and consequently their verbal expressions, are determined by genes and culture and life experience, and are created in the moment as responses. As input, output, input, output. 

But how can you trace this determined discussion back through the past to yesterday, and a year ago, and pre Earth or pre Milky way.

The determined expressions and patterns of language must have had all that time, and those states of matter to bring them into fruition in the current present moments.

The discussion itself is made up of movements of fundamental particles. All of it. Including speaking, listening, muscle movements, brain processes, such as reason and logic. The sitting on chairs and the chairs themselves. 

The current state of the trillions of particles involved is determined by the previous states, all the way back to the beginning.

This human centered world of technology, culture, relationships and interactions is the determined product of the actual particles following their determined paths. That has to be it. There is no alternative.

It was particles in the beginning, and has remained particles to the present, 13.8 billion years later.

But in our human centered world we don’t give particles a thought. We are only concerned with our human priorities. Those priorities came into being as natural selection shaped and moulded our brains and behaviour for maximum survival and reproduction.

This process is still purely made up of determined particle behaviour. But with our obsession with ourselves we don’t take that on board. We believe in the free will and choice illusion which evolution has created for maximizing gene propagation. Whatever humans are doing, it’s always particles in action and is thus fully determined.

This is what’s hard to grasp. And the vast majority of people are not interested. They can live life quite nicely without questioning the underlying truth. Just as they have been programmed to do, deterministically.

How the world is, is already perfectly determined. But some of us do investigate and search for a more  fundamental truth, and come upon physical determinism as the mechanism. As the mechanism most favoured by science. And as the mechanism I was determined to find and believe, as well as the mechanism creating all my thoughts and beliefs and reasoning. Not me!

I am a determined vehicle for life processes, including movement, thought and choice. All with no free will involved. The feeling of free will, yes, but not free will itself. 

Given this puppet-like or robotic state I am in, can anything I say, think or do be trusted. The answer has to be no! And even that is already saying too much.

I am the illusion of a determined person.

The Silly Search

Given the determinism of the universe, and every particle in it, there is nothing to do, think or consider at all. All exhausting activities such as searching, pondering, trying , are all determined. Along with the exhaustion.

There’s nothing for you to do, except everything that’s already happening.

Even if it’s searching and trying.

No Idea

The universe has no idea what it has created. The universe can’t plan or think, yet organisms have arisen that believe they have free will, and they think they can think.

It’s true that something has happened, and we are unravelling it. But at present, what we think we are, given our feelings, and what we really are, given our research, are so totally different, it’s doubtful any truth can be integrated.

We are on to it

We are on to something, but how can the result of evolution (us), how can we understand what we are, and the process that created us, when that was not the aim or the idea of evolution at all.

We are so overwhelmed by the motivations programmed into us by evolution that even to grasp at the truth is an outstanding success. 

And we have definitely more than grasped - we are on to it.

It can Affect your Life

Having a certain belief about what life is and what I am can and does affect my life.

Some people believe they are creations of a god and act accordingly. Others believe they are master craftsmen or women and rigidly stick to that role. Some believe they are exactly the person they became in society and carry out that role with enthusiasm.

Believing you are a biological machine, as discovered by science, you lose a lot of certainty about your feelings and intuition, and you have to re-adjust. However it’s totally worth it because you can relax into a new certainty, and the mystery of life becomes clearer and clearer.

Knowing and Living

You can know the truth 

But not live it

At least you can know

Your not living it

But it’s there

What was that?

Even some (most?) well educated, wise, older people say about their life: “What was that all about?” Well, yes, you have to be able to have a better response than that to be satisfied. 

Lots of your energy goes into carrying out your plans, and it’s only at the end you might ask: “what for?”

Most people are walking, talking caricatures of themselves. Believing they are right in what they know. They strut around like some sort of finished product, but they haven’t got a clue.

Self doubt is the greatest source of wisdom. Searching for truth and meaning is the most honest occupation. Trying to grasp the impossible is the most courageous goal.

Even if the answer is a shock you still have to commit to the question.

Helpless Thoughts

When everything is determined, there is no solution to anything. All solutions are determined. That’s as much as you can say. But determinism may sometimes say the opposite. That’s how it is. And you are so caught up in it that there’s no time to even observe the process. Let alone understand it. The process itself is determinism. Determined thoughts. The thoughts are determinism itself. They can’t change or solve anything. They can only exist. They are helpless.

Yet the exciting and often pleasant mental story goes on, itself determined. The whole world of social and self interaction goes on. Including the search for truth.

The Origin of Everything

It’s not the theory of evolution that explained everything. Although that did take us to the molecular (genetics), and atomic level of existence. But it was the realization and the evidence that all matter, alive or not, is determined by the laws of nature.

The laws of nature began at least 13.8 billion years ago and are the same today. Determinism began in the beginning and this moment is the result. If we want to, we can try to understand how, but that would also be determined. 

That, and everything else, happens anyway - all by itself. The same goes for laws, formulae, explanations, theories and discoveries.

Everything happens itself,

In the search, by itself,

For itself.

The Purpose of  Searching

Ultimately, what is the purpose of my searching and seeking answers, and to understand determinism and the universe?

The answer is, there is no purpose because all of my actions are totally determined by the state of the universe - not by my will.

Because everything happens as determined, and not by human logical reasoning, there are no answers that I feel are deduced by me. There are not even any questions that are formed by reason, only by determinism.

Yet, could logic, reason, and knowledge, as developed by humans (but actually determined by laws of matter), be true in the realm of human existence and culture?

Is the huge gap between purposeless, non-reasoning matter, and “logical” human interaction and thought, really unbridgeable?

This question is too big! This is what the search is about!