My musings about God, destiny and multiverse

The debate whether we have free will or whether we’re all pawns of cosmic forces has been raging for centuries. Perhaps we’re just lumbering robots, as one prominent atheist said? Maybe in the afterlife, we’re going to learn more about Hashem and His mysterious workings.

Well, we’re all socialized by our environment, correct? The limits of our language are the limits of our world. Without language, we can’t conceptualize, we’d be grunting, at best. Same with our social circle. If you’re raised in a cult where women are only allowed to speak when spoken to, then of course you’re going to be shocked when you see women out in the world saying what they want, and when they want.

Now, take North Korea, where Americans are always referred to as American bastards. If you just said, ”Americans,” you’d likely be reported to the authorities and dragged away to one of the camps as a subversive. Language matters. Words matter. Associations matter. How long does it take a North Korean defector to stop saying American bastards? Good question. I’m sure overcoming the mental block imposed (engineered) by the regime is a big challenge. Only God really knows how much we can rise above our socialization (indoctrination?) in our thinking, though I do believe genius minds are as close to being ”free thinkers,” untainted by socialization, as we can get as humans. But even geniuses can’t escape their biases. That’s just not possible. Even AI displays bias – reflecting our own cognitive biases we’re often unaware of.

The sentence, ”I’m a free thinker” is so vague to me. By being a free thinker, I’m guessing, the person means that he or she is able to look at the world without any biases, correct? That, of course, is impossible. Let’s say we want to understand the perspective of another person. Supposed ”free thinkers” are going to say that they can easily grasp another person’s perspective. Except, they are using their self-awareness – a product of a set of sequences that made them who they are, the sequences forming our socialization – to understand someone else’s perspective. This can’t work, because the perspective of the one observing (the so-called free thinker) is biased by his or her own experiences, likes and dislikes. To truly understand the perspective of another person, and, thereby, call oneself a free thinker, one would need no perspective of one’s own to avoid any biases. And having no perspective of one’s own means one doesn’t exist or is in a coma, but even coma patients display awareness. When one doesn’t exist, there can be no understanding of any other perspective, including one’s own, because there’s nothing to discern. Only Hashem can truly see how others see themselves and show us that perspective without that other perspective being tainted by our own. As such, the phrase – free thinker – is yet another vague phrase people parrot to sound smart.

Now, God. Infinite intelligence. I believe that definition is accurate. No hubris, just logic. God is all-knowing, all-powerful and omnipresent, correct? God knows all about us. Hashem is our Creator, or rather of that eternal, divine, spark that is us. Can we then have free will when God knows all about us and where we’re headed? That depends on God’s level of involvement in our lives. If God doesn’t get involved but merely observes our lives, then yes – we can talk about free will. If God gets involved, be it to steer us in the right direction or as part of some cosmic experiment, then we don’t fully have free will.

I’m a firm believer in the multiverse. Hashem sees our endless variations simultaneously. Hashem sees our versions that got married, that didn’t get married, that speak great English and that speak epically terrible English. Moreover, there are etymological variations in languages between realities. Why would, say, Hebrew, be exactly the same in every reality? It makes no sense, as languages evolve and influence their environment, and then, the environment (speakers, native, non-native, an endless proficiencies in between) influences the evolution of languages. It stands to reason, then, that Hebrew spoken by your double in some other reality might be very different and your double is going to have a different reaction to words like Jerusalem, for example. The fact we’re in this universe, as ourselves, and not some other version of ourselves in some other reality might be seen as proof of God’s existence. Or total nonsense and it’s all just random. Not comforting, huh?

When we come across people, it’s my belief they are all meant to cross our paths when we need them to play a particular role in our lives. They also leave our lives when their role is finished. Same with us, of course. It goes both ways. I also believe that if it’s God’s will for someone to cross our paths again, it’s going to happen. Hashem always finds a way. If not, then it’s time to move on and forget. God’s logic doesn’t need to mirror our logic. Look at love. Sometimes, enemies fall in love. How Shakespearean. It’s a good thing, actually, because when you meet another person at their worst, you know what they’re capable of and the only way to go is up. Love is a funny thing, isn’t it? You might wish someone dead, someone erased from existence, yet, on some level, you love your enemy and they love you, too. You both hate the fact you love each other and then, one day, you start a family and wonder, ”How the hell did it even happen?” God works in mysterious ways, for sure.

Speaking of Shakespeare. He talks about ”good American” and what he means is of course General American – the general, TV American English (we all have accents relative to someone that tell our story, in a way, there’s no such thing as a person having no accent)