Physics and Free-Will

I learned about free-will from the diabolical Felician nuns at St Helen School.  I learned that if I made good and thoughtful choices, engaged in certain behaviors, and refrained from engaging in others, I was assured entry into Heaven.  On the other hand, if I felt like it, I could make bad and stupid choices, not do what I was supposed to, and do lots of what I wasn’t supposed to do.  I could do whatever I wanted to do, that what free-will was.

It would seem pretty straight forward, but it really isn’t.  Often it seems like there is no good choice.  You can act or not act, and each choice is equally bad.  And all bad things aren’t equally bad, and some stuff, that isn’t so bad, is fun.  Besides, examples of bad behavior being rewarded abound in every aspect of society.  The concept of free-will I was taught at St Helen School does not seem to be working.

I didn’t learn about Physics until later, and not all at once.  Except for the first semester of grade 12 Physics, I have had no formal training.  I gathered bits and pieces from books I read, and barely understood.  A lot of my research was conducted on YouTube, and I collaborated with the omniscient Google.  I just want you to understand, gentle reader, that I’m not making this up.

Everything in the Universe is energy.  No, the Universe is  energy.  Energy in the form of electro-magnetic waves, and matter, which is just bundles of energy.  One of the laws of Physics, or you might say, laws of the Universe, states: Energy can’t be created or destroyed, it can only change form.  Energy, like the Universe, just is.  The Universe, however, is not static.  The energy is in a constant state of flux, changing and interchanging, interacting and reacting.  This is the pattern of the Universe. Interacting energies interact as part of a pattern, according to rules of Physics (or the Universe).  Because there are so many energies in play at the same time, many interactions occur randomly.  Although the interaction might be random, the results of the interaction follows certain rules.  Action-rection.

And us folk, being meat therefore matter, are part of this of this pattern.  Unfortunately, too many folks see the Universe as something apart, and not themselves a part of it.  [note: 99% of our bodies are comprised of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen.  These elements also happen to be among the 10 most common on the universe.  We are the Universe, the Universe is us.]   Here’s the tricky part.  Interacting energies interact as part of a pattern, according to rules of Physics (or the Universe).

At any moment, at every moment, at this very moment everyone of us is at the vortex of any number of interacting energies: physical, emotional, psychological, psychic.  The interactions cause reactions which cause other interactions, etc., etc.  We are not even aware of most of these interactions, because they are so subtle, easy to ignore or overlook.

We think we are acting, when in fact we are reacting.  We react to the influence of interacting energies, and we justify our actions after the fact.  Free-will or not, we are not as much in control as we would like to be.  Most people live in a big bubble of delusion.  They imagine they are in control.  They ignore, or are unaware of natural processes.  They try to impose their particular version of reality.  Some of these folks, most of them perhaps, hope a Supreme Being will change or adjust natural laws if they ask real nice.

Seems to me physics makes more sense than free-will.