I found some reading but would like some help understanding/different interpretations

  • That’s not proof that our “wills” exist outside of the laws of physics, only that there are many things we do not yet know about the material world. (That might be true, and I would certainly prefer that, but I haven’t seen anything that suggests that it is.) I doubt that we will ever be able to understand how “something” can be created from “nothing” – i.e. there is something outside of what we could possibly comprehend, which I would call “metaphysical” – but I do believe that everything aside from that is (or will be) understandable through materialism.

    • Red Phoenix@lemmygrad.ml
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      2 years ago

      Yes sorry, I should have included that if we accept that if unextended things exist, then it’s possible to see how wills or souls could exist. I don’t like using the word soul because it comes loaded with a lot of religious baggage and preconceptions, but that’s what I mean, but in an uncreated, primordial sense.

      We can understand how “something” came from “nothing” if we understand “nothing” as a special kind of “something” - a completely balanced state of reality where everything is completely balanced at zero. So “everything” is there, but it’s completely balanced so it’s not extended in any way so it’s not materially detectable until the balance is broken and energy becomes extended. So the will, or the soul, exists permanently unextended in this zero state and needs to extend itself into the material world in order to actualize its potential.

        • Red Phoenix@lemmygrad.ml
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          2 years ago

          I mean the fundamental basis of reality, everything that is real and does exist and is true, but looking at the root of everything, which is energy. What I mean by “nothing” is a state of dimensionless energy. If we ourselves are each and all forces of dimensionless energy that can will things then we can develop free will through consciousness to be our own causes of action.

          • Let’s assume that this is true. My point is that there is no explanation (at least not one which we are capable of understanding) for how this “dimensionless energy” can exist in the first place. I would also argue that aside from that absolute origin (whatever it is), everything will eventually be comprehensible by humans through materialism (although not necessarily using our current definition of “particles”).

            • Red Phoenix@lemmygrad.ml
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              2 years ago

              It’s possible because all “positive” energy can be balanced by “negative” energy, so thins can exist without dimensions even though it would seem like there’s nothing there materially. A materialist perspective can help explain dimensional things, but we need to understand the source through reasoning because we cannot through a material analysis.