Are Consciousness and Freewill Illusions?

Epigraph: And they ask you concerning the soul. Say, ‘The soul is by the command of my Lord; and of the knowledge thereof you have been given but a little.’ (Al Quran 17:85) … The Muslim Times’ Chief Editor’s Answer Neither of them are an illusion in my estimation but a very profound reality. We…

August 21, 2024

2–3 minutes

Epigraph:

And they ask you concerning the soul. Say, ‘The soul is by the command of my Lord; and of the knowledge thereof you have been given but a little.’ (Al Quran 17:85)

…

The Muslim Times’ Chief Editor’s Answer

Neither of them are an illusion in my estimation but a very profound reality. We experience them in every living moment of our waking life and sometimes we experience consciousness in dreams during sleep as well.

Determinism, in philosophy and science, is the thesis that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable. Determinism entails that, in a situation in which a person makes a certain decision or performs a certain action, it is impossible that he or she could have made any other decision or performed any other action. In other words, according to this thesis, it is never true that people could have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did.

An obsession with determinism by scientists eventually leads to this question that are these ubiquitous phenomena illusions?

Scientific enterprise since Newton until the discovery of Quantum physics in 1920s was leading in the direction of determinism but no longer so. Nevertheless, we need to learn from the most insightful physicists who are not committed to atheistic or materialistic ideology.

We can appreciate determinism in some limited sense as long as we allow humans with their freewill and God with His providence as actors at quantum level in what future holds for us.

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