The Mind's Mendacity

The notion persists that the universe is somehow mathematical. Nevertheless, to move from Galileo’s and Einstein’s descriptions of the behavior of inanimate forms, to Watson and Crick, who dealt in the stuff of life itself, may seem a leap from one mathematics to an entirely different one. The equations describing acceleration and energy seem distinct from the combinatorial mathematics slowly emerging as a depiction of the way DNA relates to life. One is, at best, the stage upon which life is played out, while the other relates directly to the script the players follow. Nevertheless, the fact that, in theory, both can be described mathematically suggests that mathematics is the language spoken in the mind of God.

Let’s assume that’s so. Let’s say that not only can the universe and all that’s in it be described in mathematical terms, but that the equations possess the characteristic of all genuine scientific laws, that they can be manipulated to predict the future.

If these assumptions are granted, then it would appear that the great mathematician in the sky knows how everything is going to turn out, and the rest is to be nothing more than strut and circumstance. Religionists, for theological reasons, will quickly deny this, pointing to free-will as the wild hair in the matrix that will upset all predictions. But if there actually is such as free-will, then our assumptions are false: the universe is not mathematical, and God does in fact roll dice that behave in an absolutely random fashion. The underpinnings of quantum mechanics seem to suggest that a form of randomness occurs at the particle level, but these effects do not appear to change the world into a chaos. We do not observe radically random effects in the world of “large things.” The causes that change things at the experiential level all seem mathematically explainable. Besides, the behavior of the particles themselves is also predictable, but only by reference to the laws of probability, a branch of mathematics equally as dependable as arithmetic. So the world, even at its lowest levels can be described mathematically.

So, how do we explain apparent free-will, and how then relate to God?

Consider the human brain. It is certainly a physical thing that behaves in what appears to be a mathematically predictable fashion. The ten billion or so neurons all work in accord with known principles, and collectively they determine the way we behave. It is thus theoretically possible to write an equation describing how the human brain works. So, what’s the problem?

Well, the brain by itself may control certain bodily functions, but until it receives data from the outside world it is useless as a determinant of human behavior. Like a PC’s internal processors, they are useless until they are given a program to execute and some data to manipulate. But then, all human brains do in fact receive input from the world and they do begin to process the data in a way that determines how the human being will think and act. So, again in theory, if we have an equation that describes how the brain works, and given a determined set of data, we ought then be able to predict the behavior of the human who owns the brain.

But then, who is this human? Well, because we have said that he is the owner of one brain, and that he has experienced a determinant set of input data, we realize immediately that if we have two different humans they will act differently even if their brains are identical. Why? Because their inputs were different. Nothing could be simpler to understand. We behave differently because we are working with different sets of data. So even if the workings of each of the two brains can be said to conform to a mathematical equation, the behavior of the two different humans will be different. They may be running the same equation, but they’re processing different data.

Note well, that from the viewpoint of our mathematically-minded God, everything is as it ought to be. Nothing happening in the world is out of the ordinary. It is only from the viewpoint of the different human beings that what’s happening seems unusual. We do not understand how that person could not see things as we see them, and that might suggest to some of us that the world is more like a chaos than the cosmos it actually is. Multiply the two persons we have been dealing with by three billion and the problem of trying to understand human behavior becomes extraordinarily difficult.

But it’s worse than even that. I’m sure you have experienced many, many occasions when your stream of thought has suddenly and radically shifted from one idea to an entirely different one. Psychologists have tried to explain this by referring to hidden associations, overlapping meanings of which we are not sufficiently conscious. And of course, that is sometimes the case, else some forms of psychotherapy would not work. But the cases requiring treatment are far outnumbered by non-pathological diversions of the train of thought, but if we are to retain the hypothesis that all the brain’s actions are mathematically predictable, these also must be explainable. We might explain them as benign hidden associations, but if that were always the case, we ought at least, upon reflection, to be able to discern the connections, as we sometimes can. But we are dealing here with cases in which no apparent connection exists, so if we are to find an explanation it must lie outside the scope of meanings. So where?

Perhaps it is the case – and this is an hypothesis – that neurons participate in more than one “train of thought.” We know that a PC’s memory devices are divided into separately addressable locations. When these locations are used to store data from the outside, they each contain a fixed number of bits, usually eight or nine. None of the bits are shared by different data. If a certain location contains the word “cat” no other data can use that location. But we have no reason to believe neurons are similarly restricted. We rather suspect that the same neuron may be a part of many different neural networks, each of the nets representing a different element in the brain’s collection of “ideas.” If that is the case, then sudden switches in the train of thought might be explained as a “sidetrack” in which a system of neural firings that had been proceeding in one “direction” encounters a different train of thought with which it shares one or more neurons. Circumstances so far not understood by neurological science, but (by hypothesis) clearly reflected in the brain’s equation, cause the train of thought to switch at one of the junctions of shared neurons. The result would be a pseudo-connection of two previously unrelated trains of thought. The impact of these new connections into the pattern of ideas that determine behavior adds a deeper level of confusion to an already complex equation.

We must also quite realistically observe that this rather structured picture of the brain ‘s neurons is suspended in a “wash” of peptides and hormones. In real time, these chemicals change the way we feel about the meanings we experience. We may one day love this and hate that, and in the next feel the reverse. Those suffering from illnesses brought about by hormonal imbalances may see their emotions soar up and down the scale of joy and sorrow like feathers in a windstorm. To them the illusion of free-will vanishes. Many of the rest of us continue in the delusion.

And it is easy to see why that is so. Even if there is a mechanistic, mathematical equation that describes the brain’s operation, the equation is so complex and the produced behavior so unpredictable, we will appear to be free. But if we are, then not even God, possessed of all the equations and an infinitely powerful processor could understand why we behave as we do. We would be free of him. And in that case, he would no longer be God.

So, what are we to do about this? First, we need to educate ourselves to understand the general structure of the way our brains work. We ought to grasp the relationship implied in the slogan, “we are what we were when our heads were filled with data.” And we ought to understand that our equations, though all similar, work to produce for us a different way of seeing the world, and that that is not only the way it is but is the way it must be. Then, if we truly catch on, we may see that it is not God who is to rescue us, not God or Nature – for they have made us what we are – but that we ourselves must find our own way to salvation.

Perhaps, we as the whole of humanity may never find the way, for after all, it is difficult. But each of us, in his own being, can know what we are and why we are the way we are, and out of that knowing, relate to the world in a way not permitted to those who remain ignorant of the truth. In a word, salvation is a private and personal achievement.

Only by what seems a dream may we imagine that a critical mass of humanity will find the way, and that out of that force … well, who knows what may happen when great numbers of human beings wake up.