The Science of Extraterrestrials - Eric Julien-pages

Page 92 of 400

Page 92 of 400
The Science of Extraterrestrials - Eric Julien-pages

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85CHAPTER 15 Free at last? INKANT’SCRITIQUE OF PURE REASON ,he pre- sented his antinomies, one of which is related to the structure of truth.Freedom constitutes the thesis; determinism (natural causality) is theantithesis. The paradox of absolute truth is caused by the fact that“each act is always both the effect of a cause according to a certaindegree of determinism and the cause of an effect according to causal-ity through freedom. Paradoxically, every act is therefore both free anddetermined.” 26 Let me state the dilemma as clearly as possible. Which extreme solutions are within our reach? If causality through freedom does not exist, our choices do not make any concrete ripples in the universal pond. The results do notcorrespond to our expectations due to this lack of causality. Choosingis unnecessary, because it does not produce an adequate result. Dailylife clearly shows proof to the contrary. Strict determinism, caused by“lawful” causality, strips free will of its validity because every choice isas such the impersonal result of a series of causes that led to this appar-ent choice. In other words, our choice was predetermined. An Orientalproverb says that freedom does not exist, only the act of freeing our-selves! However, of what should we free ourselves? I believe in vari-able causality. If determinism was indeed a universal law, quantummechanics and its probabilistic nature simply would not exist. It is thisresearch method that endeavors to grasp the nature of the world. Freedom means leaving the deterministic path by gradually break- ing free from what we believe determines our choices: ego! Ego is partof a range of possible behaviors that we apologetically qualify as psy-chological, preventing us from developing the knowledge offered by