.......reality is an illusion — in some cases, a dangerous one.

I am not sure why we are so obsessed with the idea of free will. We exist in a dense plenum of realities and histories, all acting at different times, speeds, intensity, motivations, etc., from inside us and from outside. The mind sits and sees some of it, probably very little of it, really. And yet we presume that we are making choices to do this or that or say this or that and that we have all of the knowledge necessary to make this or that decision. That can't be true. Most of what we do and say and think occurs in a massive continuum of contingent realities, so that the notion of "free will" seems really irrelevant to understanding how humans "are" in the real world. Looking forward from a decision, say to eat a piece of toast or not. So many variables involved in the decision, which may come down to the dog needing to be walked and so no toast for me, even though, had contingent reality not intruded, I would have been able to assess whether I really wanted, needed, would enjoy, etc., etc. that piece of toast. That kind of decision, writ large across a life, such as say choosing a career, or choosing a mate, or just about any forward looking "decision" clearly is subject to vastly greater forces than some pipsqueak "free will" allowing me to choose one path over another.

Bottom line: immediately snatching from science an outcome of an experiment, without knowing much about the experiment at all, and leaping into tortured elucubrations is interesting, perhaps, but not particularly illuminating of the human condition. Grock the full dimensions of the science before gluing it to some quickly made kite.

All this began with the NYT and. . .

"Freedom and Reality: A Response

By WILLIAM EGGINTON

The idea that we can fully comprehend reality is an illusion — in some cases, a dangerous one."

The italicized above is from a comment on the post that precedes the one I'm noting above,

from : (re: re: re: like, heh heh)

Christina Forbes, Alexandria VA

Sounds like someone with whom to sit down for toast.

It's all fixed and you can't change it - still

An article in (on?) today's SF Gate, about bio fuels etc. My comment:

Bio-fuel harvests are destroying rain forests and critical habitat all over the Third World. Here, as some one already said, corn is a subsidy pretending to be a fuel solution. There is no such thing (italics!) as clean coal - a life destroying endeavor from start to power release phase. Hemp would be good, but. . .
However - all of these solutions involve burning something, at some point, with by-products. . .
Hydrogen (combustion by-product - water) is the cleanest, but maybe a new form of pollution to consider.

We need a new government funded Skunk Works to take on this problem. Total conversion of matter to energy. But they'd have to fund it through black-ops or some other 'secret' source, cuz the folk in D.C. remain in deep pockets and Big Oil wouldn't like that.