Consciousness, free will, determinism, chaos theory – all connected

 I’ve said many times that philosophy is all about argument. And if you’re serious about philosophy, you want to be challenged. And if you want to be challenged you should seek out people who are both smarter and more knowledgeable than you. And, in my case, Sabine Hossenfelder fits the bill.
 
When I read people like Sabine, and others whom I interact with on Quora, I’m aware of how limited my knowledge is. I don’t even have a university degree, though I’ve attempted a number of times. I’ve spent my whole life in the company of people smarter than me, including at school. Believe it or not, I still have occasional contact with them, through social media and school reunions. I grew up in a small rural town, where the people you went to school with feel like siblings.
 
Likewise, in my professional life, I have always encountered people cleverer than me – it provides perspective.
 
In her book, Existential Physics; A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions, Sabine interviews people who are possibly even smarter than she is, and I sometimes found their conversations difficult to follow. To be fair to Sabine, she also sought out people who have different philosophical views to her, and also have the intellect to match her.
 
I’m telling you all this to put things in perspective. Sabine has her prejudices like everyone else, some of which she defends better than others. I concede that my views are probably more simplistic than hers, and I support my challenges with examples that are hopefully easy to follow. Our points of disagreement can be distilled down to a few pertinent topics, which are time, consciousness, free will and chaos. Not surprisingly, they are all related – what you believe about one, affects what you believe about the others.
 
Sabine is very strict about what constitutes a scientific theory. She argues that so-called theories like the multiverse have ‘no explanatory power’, because they can’t be verified or rejected by evidence, and she calls them ‘ascientific’. She’s critical of popularisers like Brian Cox who tell us that there could be an infinite number of ‘you(s)’ in an infinite multiverse. She distinguishes between beliefs and knowledge, which is a point I’ve made myself. Having said that, I’ve also argued that beliefs matter in science. She puts all interpretations of quantum mechanics (QM) in this category. She keeps emphasising that it doesn’t mean they are wrong, but they are ‘ascientific’. It’s part of the distinction that I make between philosophy and science, and why I perceive science as having a dialectical relationship with philosophy.
 
I’ll start with time, as Sabine does, because it affects everything else. In fact, the first chapter in her book is titled, Does The Past Still Exist? Basically, she argues for Einstein’s ‘block universe’ model of time, but it’s her conclusion that ‘now is an illusion’ that is probably the most contentious. This critique will cite a lot of her declarations, so I will start with her description of the block universe:
 
The idea that the past and future exist in the same way as the present is compatible with all we currently know.
 
This viewpoint arises from the fact that, according to relativity theory, simultaneity is completely observer-dependent. I’ve discussed this before, whereby I argue that for an observer who is moving relative to a source, or stationary relative to a moving source, like the observer who is standing on the platform of Einstein’s original thought experiment, while a train goes past, knows this because of the Doppler effect. In other words, an observer who doesn’t see a Doppler effect is in a privileged position, because they are in the same frame of reference as the source of the signal. This is why we know the Universe is expanding with respect to us, and why we can work out our movement with respect to the CMBR (cosmic microwave background radiation), hence to the overall universe (just think about that).
 
Sabine clinches her argument by drawing a spacetime diagram, where 2 independent observers moving away from each other, observe a pulsar with 2 different simultaneities. One, who is traveling towards the pulsar, sees the pulsar simultaneously with someone’s birth on Earth, while the one travelling away from the pulsar sees it simultaneously with the same person’s death. This is her slam-dunk argument that ‘now’ is an illusion, if it can produce such a dramatic contradiction.
 
However, I drew up my own spacetime diagram of the exact same scenario, where no one is travelling relative to anyone one else, yet create the same apparent contradiction.

 My diagram follows the convention in that the horizontal axis represents space (all 3 dimensions) and the vertical axis represents time. So the 4 dotted lines represent 4 observers who are ‘stationary’ but ‘travelling through time’ (vertically). As per convention, light and other signals are represented as diagonal lines of 45 degrees, as they are travelling through both space and time, and nothing can travel faster than them. So they also represent the ‘edge’ of their light cones.
 
So notice that observer A sees the birth of Albert when he sees the pulsar and observer B sees the death of Albert when he sees the pulsar, which is exactly the same as Sabine’s scenario, with no relativity theory required. Albert, by the way, for the sake of scalability, must have lived for thousands of years, so he might be a tree or a robot.
 
But I’ve also added 2 other observers, C and D, who see the pulsar before Albert is born and after Albert dies respectively. But, of course, there’s no contradiction, because it’s completely dependent on how far away they are from the sources of the signals (the pulsar and Earth).
 
This is Sabine’s perspective:
 
Once you agree that anything exists now elsewhere, even though you see it only later, you are forced to accept that everything in the universe exists now. (Her emphasis.)
 
I actually find this statement illogical. If you take it to its logical conclusion, then the Big Bang exists now and so does everything in the universe that’s yet to happen. If you look at the first quote I cited, she effectively argues that the past and future exist alongside the present.
 
One of the points she makes is that, for events with causal relationships, all observers see the events happening in the same sequence. The scenario where different observers see different sequences of events have no causal relationships. But this begs a question: what makes causal events exceptional? What’s more, this is fundamental, because the whole of physics is premised on the principle of causality. In addition, I fail to see how you can have causality without time. In fact, causality is governed by the constant speed of light – it’s literally what stops everything from happening at once.
 
Einstein also believed in the block universe, and like Sabine, he argued that, as a consequence, there is no free will. Sabine is adamant that both ‘now’ and ‘free will’ are illusions. She argues that the now we all experience is a consequence of memory. She quotes Carnap that our experience of ‘past, present and future can be described and explained by psychology’ – a point also made by Paul Davies. Basically, she argues that what separates our experience of now from the reality of no-now (my expression, not hers) is our memory.
 
Whereas, I think she has it back-to-front, because, as I’ve pointed out before, without memory, we wouldn’t know we are conscious. Our brains are effectively a storage device that allows us to have a continuity of self through time, otherwise we would not even be aware that we exist. Memory doesn’t create the sense of now; it records it just like a photograph does. The photograph is evidence that the present becomes the past as soon as it happens. And our thoughts become memories as soon as they happen, otherwise we wouldn’t know we think.
 
Sabine spends an entire chapter on free will, where she persistently iterates variations on the following mantra:
 
The future is fixed except for occasional quantum events that we cannot influence.
 
But she acknowledges that while the future is ‘fixed’, it’s not predictable. And this brings us to chaos theory. Sabine discusses chaos late in the book and not in relation to free will. She explicates what she calls the ‘real butterfly effect’.
 
The real butterfly effect… means that even arbitrarily precise initial data allow predictions for only a finite amount of time. A system with this behaviour would be deterministic and yet unpredictable.
 
Now, if deterministic means everything physically manifest has a causal relationship with something prior, then I agree with her. If she means that therefore ‘the future is fixed’, I’m not so sure, and I’ll explain why. By specifying ‘physically manifest’, I’m excluding thoughts and computer algorithms that can have an effect on something physical, whereas the cause is not so easily determined. For example, In the case of the algorithm, does it go back to the coder who wrote it?
 
My go-to example for chaos is tossing coins, because it’s so easy to demonstrate and it’s linked to probability theory, as well as being the very essence of a random event. One of the key, if not definitive, features of a chaotic phenomenon is that, if you were to rerun it, you’d get a different result, and that’s fundamental to probability theory – every coin toss is independent of any previous toss – they are causally independent. Unrepeatability is common among chaotic systems (like the weather). Even the Earth and Moon were created from a chaotic event.
 
I recently read another book called Quantum Physics Made Me Do It by Jeremie Harris, who argues that tossing a coin is not random – in fact, he’s very confident about it. He’s not alone. Mark John Fernee, a physicist with Qld Uni, in a personal exchange on Quora argued that, in principle, it should be possible to devise a robot to perform perfectly predictable tosses every time, like a tennis ball launcher. But, as another Quora contributor and physicist, Richard Muller, pointed out: it’s not dependent on the throw but the surface it lands on. Marcus du Sautoy makes the same point about throwing dice and provides evidence to support it.
 
Getting back to Sabine. She doesn’t discuss tossing coins, but she might think that the ‘imprecise initial data’ is the actual act of tossing, and after that the outcome is determined, even if can’t be predicted. However, the deterministic chain is broken as soon as it hits a surface.
 
Just before she gets to chaos theory, she talks about computability, with respect to Godel’s Theorem and a discussion she had with Roger Penrose (included in the book), where she says:
 
The current laws of nature are computable, except for that random element from quantum mechanics.
 
Now, I’m quoting this out of context, because she then argues that if they were uncomputable, they open the door to unpredictability.
 
My point is that the laws of nature are uncomputable because of chaos theory, and I cite Ian Stewart’s book, Does God Play Dice? In fact, Stewart even wonders if QM could be explained using chaos (I don’t think so). Chaos theory has mathematical roots, because not only are the ‘initial conditions’ of a chaotic event impossible to measure, they are impossible to compute – you have to calculate to infinite decimal places. And this is why I disagree with Sabine that the ‘future is fixed’.
 
It's impossible to discuss everything in a 223 page book on a blog post, but there is one other topic she raises where we disagree, and that’s the Mary’s Room thought experiment. As she explains it was proposed by philosopher, Frank Jackson, in 1982, but she also claims that he abandoned his own argument. After describing the experiment (refer this video, if you’re not familiar with it), she says:
 
The flaw in this argument is that it confuses knowledge about the perception of colour with the actual perception of it.
 
Whereas, I thought the scenario actually delineated the difference – that perception of colour is not the same as knowledge. A person who was severely colour-blind might never have experienced the colour red (the specified colour in the thought experiment) but they could be told what objects might be red. It’s well known that some animals are colour-blind compared to us and some animals specifically can’t discern red. Colour is totally a subjective experience. But I think the Mary’s room thought experiment distinguishes the difference between human perception and AI. An AI can be designed to delineate colours by wavelength, but it would not experience colour the way we do. I wrote a separate post on this.
 
Sabine gives the impression that she thinks consciousness is a non-issue. She talks about the brain like it’s a computer.
 
You feel you have free will, but… really, you’re running a sophisticated computation on your neural processor.
 
Now, many people, including most scientists, think that, because our brains are just like computers, then it’s only a matter of time before AI also shows signs of consciousness. Sabine doesn’t make this connection, even when she talks about AI. Nevertheless, she discusses one of the leading theories of neuroscience (IIT, Information Integration Theory), based on calculating the amount of information processed, which gives a number called phi (Φ). I came across this when I did an online course on consciousness through New Scientist, during COVID lockdown. According to the theory, this number provides a ‘measure of consciousness’, which suggests that it could also be used with AI, though Sabine doesn’t pursue that possibility.
 
Instead, Sabine cites an interview in New Scientist with Daniel Bor from the University of Cambridge: “Phi should decrease when you go to sleep or are sedated… but work in Bor’s laboratory has shown that it doesn’t.”
 
Sabine’s own view:
 
Personally, I am highly skeptical that any measure consisting of a single number will ever adequately represent something as complex as human consciousness.
 
Sabine discusses consciousness at length, especially following her interview with Penrose, and she gives one of the best arguments against panpsychism I’ve read. Her interview with Penrose, along with a discussion on Godel’s Theorem, which is another topic, discusses whether consciousness is computable or not. I don’t think it is and I don’t think it’s algorithmic.
 
She makes a very strong argument for reductionism: that the properties we observe of a system can be understood from studying the properties of its underlying parts. In other words, that emergent properties can be understood in terms of the properties that it emerges from. And this includes consciousness. I’m one of those who really thinks that consciousness is the exception. Thoughts can cause actions, which is known as ‘agency’.
 
I don’t claim to understand consciousness, but I’m not averse to the idea that it could exist outside the Universe – that it’s something we tap into. This is completely ascientific, to borrow from Sabine. As I said, our brains are storage devices and sometimes they let us down, and, without which, we wouldn’t even know we are conscious. I don’t believe in a soul. I think the continuity of the self is a function of memory – just read The Lost Mariner chapter in Oliver Sacks’ book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. It’s about a man suffering from retrograde amnesia, so his life is stuck in the past because he’s unable to create new memories.
 
At the end of her book, Sabine surprises us by talking about religion, and how she agrees with Stephen Jay Gould ‘that religion and science are two “nonoverlapping magisteria!”. She makes the point that a lot of scientists have religious beliefs but won’t discuss them in public because it’s taboo.
 
I don’t doubt that Sabine has answers to all my challenges.
 
There is one more thing: Sabine talks about an epiphany, following her introduction to physics in middle school, which started in frustration.
 
Wasn’t there some minimal set of equations, I wanted to know, from which all the rest could be derived?
 
When the principle of least action was introduced, it was a revelation: there was indeed a procedure to arrive at all these equations! Why hadn’t anybody told me?
 
The principle of least action is one concept common to both the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. It’s arguably the most fundamental principle in physics. And yes, I posted on that too.

 

Immortality; from the Pharaohs to cryonics

 I thought the term was cryogenics, but a feature article in the Weekend Australian Magazine (27-28 May 2023) calls the facilities that perform this process, cryonics, and looking up my dictionary, there is a distinction. Cryogenics is about low temperature freezing in general, and cryonics deals with the deep-freezing of bodies specifically, with the intention of one day reviving them.
 
The article cites a few people, but the author, Ross Bilton, features an Australian, Peter Tsolakides, who is in my age group. From what the article tells me, he’s a software engineer who has seen many generations of computer code and has also been a ‘globe-trotting executive for ExxonMobil’.
 
He’s one of the drivers behind a cryonic facility in Australia – its first – located at Holbrook, which is roughly halfway between Melbourne and Sydney. In fact, I often stop at Holbrook for a break and meal on my interstate trips. According to my car’s odometer it is almost exactly half way between my home and my destination, which is a good hour short of Sydney, so it’s actually closer to Melbourne, but not by much.
 
I’m not sure when Tsolakides plans to enter the facility, but he’s forecasting his resurrection in around 250 years time, when he expects he may live for another thousand years. Yes, this is science fiction to most of us, but there are some science facts that provide some credence to this venture.
 
For a start, we already cryogenically freeze embryos and sperm, and we know it works for them. There is also the case of Ewa Wisnierska, 35, a German paraglider taking part in an international competition in Australia, when she was sucked into a storm and elevated to 9947 metres (jumbo jet territory, and higher than Everest). Needless to say, she lost consciousness and spent a frozen 45 mins before she came back to Earth. Quite a miracle and I’ve watched a doco on it. She made a full recovery and was back at her sport within a couple of weeks. And I know of other cases, where the brain of a living person has been frozen to keep them alive, as counter-intuitive as that may sound.
 
Believe it or not, scientists are divided on this, or at least cautious about dismissing it outright. Many take the position, ‘Never say never’. And I think that’s fair enough, because it really is impossible to predict the future when it comes to humanity. It’s not surprising that advocates, like Tsolakides, can see a future where this will become normal for most humans. People who decline immortality will be the exception and not the norm. And I can imagine, if this ‘procedure’ became successful and commonplace, who would say no?
 
Now, I write science fiction, and I have written a story where a group of people decided to create an immortal human race, who were part machine. It’s a reflection of my own prejudices that I portrayed this as a dystopia, but I could have done the opposite.
 
There may be an assumption that if you write science fiction then you are attempting to predict the future, but I make no such claim. My science fiction is complete fantasy, but, like all science fiction, it addresses issues relevant to the contemporary society in which it was created.
 
Getting back to the article in the Weekend Australian, there is an aspect of this that no one addressed – not directly, anyway. There’s no point in cheating death if you can’t cheat old age. In the case of old age, you are dealing with a fundamental law of the Universe, entropy, the second law of thermodynamics. No one asked the obvious question: how do you expect to live for 1,000 years without getting dementia?
 
I think some have thought about this, because, in the same article, they discuss the ultimate goal of downloading their memories and their thinking apparatus (for want of a better term) into a computer. I’ve written on this before, so I won’t go into details.
 
Curiously, I’m currently reading a book by Sabine Hossenfelder called Existential Physics; A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions, which you would think could not possibly have anything to say on this topic. Nevertheless:
 
The information that makes you you can be encoded in many different physical forms. The possibility that you might one day upload yourself to a computer and continue living a virtual life is arguably beyond present-day technology. It might sound entirely crazy, but it’s compatible with all we currently know.
 
I promise to write another post on Sabine’s book, because she’s nothing if not thought-provoking.
 
So where do I stand? I don’t want immortality – I don’t even want a gravestone, and neither did my father. I have no dependents, so I won’t live on in anyone’s memory. The closest I’ll get to immortality are the words on this blog.

Philosophy’s 2 disparate strands: what can we know; how can we live

The question I’d like to ask, is there a philosophical view that encompasses both? Some may argue that Aristotle attempted that, but I’m going to take a different approach.
 
For a start, the first part can arguably be broken into 2 further strands: physics and metaphysics. And even this divide is contentious, with some arguing that metaphysics is an ‘abstract theory with no basis in reality’ (one dictionary definition).
 
I wrote an earlier post arguing that we are ‘metaphysical animals’ after discussing a book of the same name, though it was really a biography of 4 Oxford women in the 20th Century: Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Iris Murdoch. But I’ll start with this quote from said book.
 
Poetry, art, religion, history, literature and comedy are all metaphysical tools. They are how metaphysical animals explore, discover and describe what is real (and beautiful and good). (My emphasis.)
 
So, arguably, metaphysics could give us a connection between the 2 ‘strands’ in the title. Now here’s the thing: I contend that mathematics should be part of that list, hence part of metaphysics. And, of course, we all know that mathematics is essential to physics as an epistemology. So physics and metaphysics, in my philosophy, are linked in a rather intimate  way.
 
The curious thing about mathematics, or anything metaphysical for that matter, is that, without human consciousness, they don’t really exist, or are certainly not manifest. Everything on that list is a product of human consciousness, notwithstanding that there could be other conscious entities somewhere in the universe with the same capacity.
 
But again, I would argue that mathematics is an exception. I agree with a lot of mathematicians and physicists that while we create the symbols and language of mathematics, we don’t create the intrinsic relationships that said language describes. And furthermore, some of those relationships seem to govern the universe itself.
 
And completely relevant to the first part of this discussion, the limits of our knowledge of mathematics seems to determine the limits of our knowledge of the physical world.
 
I’ve written other posts on how to live, specifically, 3 rules for humans and How should I live? But I’m going to go via metaphysics again, specifically storytelling, because that’s something I do. Storytelling requires an inner and outer world, manifest as character and plot, which is analogous to free will and fate in the real world. Now, even these concepts are contentious, especially free will, because many scientists tell us it’s an illusion. Again, I’ve written about this many times, but it’s relevance to my approach to fiction is that I try and give my characters free will. An important part of my fiction is that the characters are independent of me. If my characters don’t take on a life of their own, then I know I’m wasting my time, and I’ll ditch that story.
 
Its relevance to ‘how to live’ is authenticity. Artists understand better than most the importance of authenticity in their work, which really means keeping themselves out of it. But authenticity has ramifications, as any existentialist will tell you. To live authentically requires an honesty to oneself that is integral to one’s being. And ‘being’ in this sense is about being human rather than its broader ontological meaning. In other words, it’s a fundamental aspect of our psychology, because it evolves and changes according to our environment and milieu. Also, in the world of fiction, it's a fundamental dynamic.
 
What's more, if you can maintain this authenticity (and it’s genuine), then you gain people’s trust, and that becomes your currency, whether in your professional life or your social life. However, there is nothing more fake than false authenticity; examples abound.
 
I’ll give the last word to Socrates; arguably the first existentialist.
 
To live with honour in this world, actually be what you try to appear to be.

Can philosophy be an antidote to dogma?

 This is similar to another post I wrote recently, both of which are answers to questions I found on Quora. The reason I’m posting this is because I think it’s better than the previous one. Not surprisingly, it also references Socrates and the role of argument in philosophical discourse.
 
What qualities are needed to be a good philosopher?
 
I expect you could ask 100 different philosophers and get 100 different answers. Someone (Gregory Scott), in answer to a similar question, claimed that everyone is a philosopher, but not necessarily a good one.
 
I will suggest 2 traits that I try to cultivate in myself: to be intellectually curious and to be analytical. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
 
For a start, there are many ‘branches’ or categories of philosophy: epistemology and ethics, being the best known and most commonly associated with philosophy. Some might include ontology as well, which has a close relationship with epistemology, like 2 sides of the same coin. There is also logic and aesthetics but then the discussion becomes interminable.
 
But perhaps the best way to answer this question is to look at philosophers you admire and ask yourself, what qualities do they possess that merit your admiration?
 
Before I answer that for myself, I’m going to provide some context. Sandy Grant (philosopher at the University of Cambridge) published an essay titled Dogmas (Philosophy Now, Issue 127, Aug/Sep 2018), whereby she points out the pitfalls of accepting points of view on ‘authority’ without affording them critical analysis. And I would argue that philosophy is an antidote to dogma going back to Socrates, who famously challenged the ‘dogmas’ of his day. Prior to Socrates, philosophy was very prescriptive where you followed someone’s sayings, be they from the Bible, or Confucius or the Upanishads. Socrates revolutionary idea was to introduce argument, and philosophy has been based on argument ever since.
 
Socrates is famously attributed with the saying, The unexamined life is not worth living, which he apparently said before he was forced to take his own life. But there is another saying attributed to Socrates, which is more germane, given the context of his death.
 
To live with honour in this world, actually be what you try to appear to be.
 
Socrates also acquitted himself well in battle, apparently, so he wasn’t afraid of dying for a cause and a principle. Therefore, I would include integrity as the ‘quality’ of a good person, let alone a philosopher.
 
We currently live in an age where the very idea of truth is questioned, whether it be in the realm of science or politics or media. Which is why I think that critical thinking is essential, whereby one looks at evidence and the expertise behind that evidence. I’ve spent a working lifetime in engineering, where, out of necessity, one looks to expertise that one doesn’t have oneself. Trust has gone AWOL in our current social media environment and the ability to analyse without emotion and ideology is paramount. To accept evidence when it goes against your belief system is the mark of a good philosopher. Evidence is the keystone to scientific endeavour and also in administering justice. But perhaps the greatest quality required of a philosopher is to admit, I don’t know, which is also famously attributed to Socrates.

From Plato to Kant to physics

 I recently wrote a post titled Kant and modern physics, plus I’d written a much more extensive essay on Kant previously, as well as an essay on Plato, whose famous Academy was arguably the origin of Western philosophy, science and mathematics.
 
This is in answer to a question on Quora. The first thing I did was turn the question inside out or upside down, as I explain in the opening paragraph. It was upvoted by Kip Wheeler, who describes himself as “Been teaching medieval stuff at Uni since 1993.” He provided his own answer to the same question, giving a contrary response to mine, so I thought his upvote very generous.
 
There are actually a lot of answers on Quora addressing this theme, and I only reference one of them. But, as far as I can tell, I’m the only one who links Plato to Kant to modern physics.
 
Why could Plato's theory of forms not help us to know things better?
 
I think this question is back-to-front. If you change ‘could’ to ‘would’ and eliminate ‘not’, the question makes more sense – at least, to me. Nevertheless, it ‘could… not help us to know things better’ if it’s misconstrued or if it’s merely considered a religious artefact with no relevance to contemporary epistemology.
 
There are some good answers to similar questions, with Paul Robinson’s answer to Is Plato’s “Theory of Ideas” True? being among the more erudite and scholarly. I won’t attempt to emulate him, but take a different tack using a different starting point, which is more widely known.
 
Robinson, among others, makes reference to Plato’s famous shadows on the wall of a cave allegory (or analogy in modern parlance), and that’s a good place to start. Basically, the shadows represent our perceptions of reality whilst ‘true’ reality remains unknown to us. Plato believed that there was a world of ‘forms’, which were perfect compared to the imperfect world we inhabit. This is similar to the Christian idea of Heaven as distinct from Earth, hence the religious connotation, which is still referenced today.
 
But there is another way to look at this, which is closer to Kant’s idea of the thing-in-itself. Basically, we may never know the true nature of something just based on our perceptions, and I’d contend that modern science, especially physics, has proved Kant correct, specifically in ways he couldn’t foresee.
 
That’s partly because we now have instruments and technologies that can change what we can perceive at all scales, from the cosmological to the infinitesimal. But there’s another development which has happened apace and contributed to both the technology and the perception in a self-reinforcing dialectic between theory and observation. I’m talking about physics, which is arguably the epitome of epistemological endeavour.
 
And the key to physics is mathematics, only there appears to be more mathematics than we need. Ever since the Scientific Revolution, mathematics has proven fundamental in our quest for the elusive thing-in-itself. And this has resulted in a resurgence in the idea of a Platonic realm, only now it’s exclusive to mathematics. I expect Plato would approve, since his famous Academy was based on Pythagoras’s quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, all of which involve mathematics.

Finding purpose without a fortune teller

 I just started watching a show on Apple TV+ called The Big Door Prize, starring Irish actor, Chris O’Dowd, set in suburban America (Deerfield). It’s listed as a comedy, but it might be a black comedy or a satire; I haven’t watched it long enough to judge.
 
It has an interesting premise: the local store has a machine, which, for small change, will tell you what your ‘potential’ is. Not that surprisingly, people start queuing up to find their potential (or purpose). I say, ‘not surprising’, because people consult Tarot cards or the I Ching for the same reason, not to mention weekly astrological charts found in the local newspaper, magazine or whatever. And of course, if the ‘reading’ coincides with our specific desire or wish, we wholeheartedly agree, whereas, if it doesn’t, we dismiss it as rubbish.
 
I’ve written previously about the importance of finding purpose, and, in fact, it’s considered necessary for one’s psychological health. But this is a subtly different take on it, prompted by the aforementioned premise. I have the advantage of over half a century of hindsight because I think I found my purpose late, yet it was hiding in plain sight all along.
 
We sometimes think of our purpose as a calling or vocation. In my case, I believe it was to be a writer. Now, even though I’m not a successful writer by any stretch of the imagination, the fact that I do write is important to me. It gives me a sense of purpose that I don’t find in my job or my relationships, even though they are all important to me. I don’t often agree with Jordan Peterson, but he once made the comment that creative people who don’t create are like ‘broken sticks’. I totally identify with that.
 
I only have to look to my early childhood (pre-high school) when I started to write stories and draw my own superheroes. But as a teenager and a young adult (in my 20s), I found I couldn’t write to save myself, including essays (like I write on this blog), let alone attempts at fiction. But here’s the thing: when I did start writing fiction, I knew it was terrible – so terrible, I didn’t even tell anyone – yet I persevered because I ‘knew’ that I could. And I think that’s the key point: if you have a purpose, you can visualise it even when everything you’re doing tells you that you should give it up.
 
So, you don’t need a ‘machine’ or Tarot cards, just self-belief. Purpose comes to those who look for it, and know it when they see it, even in its emerging phase, when no one else can see it.
 
 
Now, I’m going to tell you a story about someone else, whom I knew for over 4 decades and who found their ‘purpose’ in spite of circumstances that might have prevented it, or at least, worked against it. She was a single Mum who raised 3 daughters and simultaneously found a role in theatre. The thing is that she never gained any substantial financial reward, yet she won awards, both as an actor and director. She even partook in a theatre festival in Monaco, even though it took a government grant to get her there. The thing is that she had very little in terms of material wealth but it never bothered her and she was generous to a fault. She was a trained nurse, but had no other qualifications – certainly none relevant to her theatrical career. She passed last year and she is sorely missed, not only by me, but by the many lives she touched. She was, by anyone’s judgement, a force of nature.
 
 
 
This is a review of a play, Tuesdays with Morrie, for which Liz Bradley won an award. I happened to attend the opening with her, so it has a special memory for me. Dylan Muir, especially mentioned as providing the vocal, is Liz’s daughter.