SUBPOINT C: CREATIVITY AND THE OPENNESS OF THE FUTURE
Previously:
Part #1: Monads, Quarks..."I," and God
Part #2: Ultimate Becoming, Divine Process
Point #1: Bottom Up
Subpoint A: Choices
Subpoint B: Ethics and Human Rights
Remember, we left off last time delving into the extremely complex controversies of determinism versus ethics.
A large number of religionists (in history some Jews, the vast majority of Muslims, many Christians, nearly all Hindus) and lots of atheists think that everything is fated, that humans have no choice.
If everything that will ever happen in the future, down to the slightest movement of the smallest quark and atom was totally fated--completely determined at the moment of the Big Bang about 13.4 billion years ago—then we conscious primates exist
in a gigantic many trillion-zillion-kilometered
petrified swirl of amber.
All conscious entities in the whole cosmos including us homo sapiens (in the multiverse, if it exists) are but momentary infinitesimal aware specks in solid ‘granite’
—lock, stock, and barrel.
As so many determinists give the analogy--We humans are but only "shot bullets" headed toward whatever target. locked in, without any choice.
Everything is freeze-framed forever.
If so, then there are no ethics, no choices (the ability to choose between good and bad, rights or not), no creativity, no future as commonly meant, as defined by dictionaries.
Then, life is, indeed, absurd.
HOWEVER, don’t lose hope, don’t despair.
There are plenty of other scientists, philosophers, and deep thinkers who reflect,
that while, it is true, that we do exist within a physical matter
and energy system, within that very complex existence, there is openness,
uncertainty, some chance, and even creativity at play.
Form and freedom both exist!
It is true that our lives are situated within certain parameters of our physical nature,
our temperament, our background, culture and society, family, etc.,
BUT
within that complex system, we as finite conscious entities can make creative choices,
can make a difference in the real world.
Within existence, to a certain limited degree, there is openness to the future, at every moment.
Form and creativity interplay.
First, let’s take care of the “within a limited degree,” before we launch into the wonder of creative openness.
Many cosmologists speculate based on very real world facts that Existence--all of the cosmos--will expand forever, creating space as it spirals out and out.
By NASA / WMAP Science Team - http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/media/121238/ilc_9yr_moll4096.png, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23285693
The astronomy professor Chris Impey, of the University of Arizona, Tucson has written a number of science books on cosmology and astronomy including How It Began,
How It Ends,
and The Living Cosmos.
Impey makes a number of excellent points:
How It Ends: From You to the Universe by Chris Impey (W.W. Norton)
"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms," said poet and political activist Muriel Rukeyser. I agree. One of the greatest myths of science is that is consists of nothing more than dull, obdurate facts. The myth dissolves in the face of the powerful narrative that science has created to help us organize and understand the world.
We have a story of how the universe grew from a jot of space-time to the splendor of 50 billion galaxies. We have a story of how a broth of molecules on the primeval Earth turned into flesh and blood. And we have a story of how one of the millions of species evolved to hold those 50 billion galaxies inside its head.
This is a book about endings. Science mostly answers the question of how things got to be the way they are. Yet if we stop at the present day, the job is only half done, as every good story needs an ending....As a result, the material in this book is rooted in fact but it extends into conjecture. Scientists steer toward the boundary between what they know and what they don't know because that's where the excitement is."
"The material moves outward in scale from the human to the cosmic, and outward in time span from the familiar to the nearly eternal...As feisty apes with more piss and vinegar than wisdom we may not survive troubled adolescence, but visionaries are imagining ways we could transcend the limits of biology."
"Time is the ruler for these stories. We follow it on scales from a heartbeat to the 1080 years it takes for the galaxy to dissipate. Physicist John Wheeler reminded us that we take it for granted when he said, 'Time is what keeps things from happening all at once.'"
"Everyone likes a good ending...[but]this book is factual and it talks about the actual death of our planet, our star, our galaxy, us. It's not a cue to be glum, however, because the universe is filled with such magnificent possibility."
How It Ends by Chris Impey, pages 11-13, Norton & Company
--
AH, there it is--a word I as a freethinker and free-willer, love--"possibility."
That is the key point of this 3rd subpoint, that we conscious entities DO have possibilities in our very brief finite lives.
We can make a difference in our own life, in the lives of other people, even in the future of our planet!
Qualifier:
All of this does show my own intellectual bias, I admit. I earned my university degree in Creative Writing, taught creative writing to high school students, have spent my life in creative pursuits, am an avid poet and novelist, and an active science enthusiast. Therefore, from the get start, I take a dim view of closed systems, rote determinism.
Form without freedom is slavery, and philosophical determinism is the worst form of enslavement.
Form without creativity isn't even death, because that presupposes life.
Becoming is the opposite of determinism. It is openness to this next moment.
Go to that website for some excellent methods to enhance your creativity.
Reach for the gold--what could be.
To be continued--
In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox
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