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After several years working on a treatise putting forth his mechanistic philosophy and physics, Descartes shelved the project when his contemporary, Galileo, was charged with heresy. That work, The World, was only published after Descartes’ death. It seems that Descartes must have had this, in part at least, in mind when writing his more famous philosophical works. This is especially clear in the Meditations , not only in the obsequiousness of the Letter of Dedication, but also in the specific mode of argument, which does not seek merely to found science upon grounds acceptable to religious authority, but to specifically found a mathematical science; one which clearly privileges mathematical demonstrations even over common sense judgments based upon everyday and constant experience. His Copernicanism, put forth posthumously in The World, would require just such a defense.

The Meditations are a central work of early modern philosophy, and play a crucial role in the conceptual development of basic perspectives and problems in the Western tradition, including substance dualism, external world skepticism, and the modern notion of the subject.
(Description by D.E. Wittkower) Librivox: Meditations on First Philosophy by Descartes, René
Clarence Darrow said it best: "Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, though you never touch its coattails." Something Happening Here joins the chase after questions such as: Who are we? How did we get here? And as long as I'm here, where can I get some good pizza? --- We take a naturalist, humanist approach to what's happening in this life, this planet, here and now. We start with Galileo's emphasis on our senses, reason, and intellect. Science provides the objective tools necessary for responsible, informed thought on these and other questions. Religion can complement the facts with a subjective, nonrational, emotion-driven context. And as if the science and religion issues weren't complex enough, once this starts involving politics, the fun really begins. --- AS OF EPISODE 15, for health-related reasons I'm allocating less time for the podcast (as became evident in October and November). I'm pretty sure I can produce one a month, occasionally maybe more. Please keep your subscription active and I'll do my best to make it worth your bandwidth. Thanks very much for your interest!
Something Happening Here: A Mash-up of Science, Religion, and Politics
This audio podcast presents soundtracks of the pioneering weekly television series, Exploring the Illusion of Free Will. Through dozens of 28-minute episodes, producer and host George Ortega explains why our commonly held notion that we humans have a free will is, upon inspection, quite illusory. The series also describes how we can create a world of far less blame, guilt, arrogance and envy by overcoming this ubiquitous illusion.

Philosophers have refuted the idea of free will for centuries. In his 1943 book, Physics and Philosophy, English physicist, astronomer and mathematician, Sir James Jeans, writes that “Practically all modern philosophers of the first rank -- Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Mill, Alexander, as well as many others -- have been determinists in the sense of admitting the cogency of the arguments for determinism, but many have at the same time been indeterminists in the sense of hoping to find a loophole of escape from these arguments. Often they conceded that our apparent freedom is an illusion, so that the only loophole they could hope to find would be an explanation as to how the illusion could originate.”

Back then, however, they lacked the kind of abundant, rigorous empirical evidence needed to make the case against free will unequivocal. How big a deal is it that we now have such evidence? When Susan Blackmore asked him to comment on the prospect of free will being proved an illusion, fellow philosopher John Searle replied, “That would be a bigger revolution in our thinking than Einstein, or Copernicus, or Newton, or Galileo, or Darwin. It would alter our whole conception of our relation with the universe.”

Well, the revolution is here, and Ortega is leading the way. Exploring the Illusion of Free Will covers all of the major points related to why our human will is not free. In a refreshingly non-academic style, he describes how the physical law of cause and effect makes free will quite impossible. And for those among us who remain convinced that some natural events occur randomly, or without cause, Ortega also explains why such randomness similarly opens no door for a free will.

The television series from which these audio podcasts are made premiered in White Plains, New York and other select Westchester County communities January 6, 2011. Since then, two popular science magazines have run first-time-ever cover stories on the mounting scientific evidence that none of what we humans think, feel, say or do is really up to us. Great Britain’s weekly, New Scientist, had as its April 16-22, 2011 cover story, “Free Will: the Illusion We Can’t Live Without,” and the prestigious U.S. based monthly, Scientific American Mind, followed up with a May/June 2012 cover story titled, “Who’s in Control? How Physics and Biology Dictate Your ‘Free’ Will.”

Ortega lacks neither recognition of the importance of what his series is doing nor a self-parodying sense of humor about his assuming credit for what he knows full well was in no real sense up to him. In one episode, he combines a keen sense of history with a comically boastful manner as he unabashedly proclaims his popularizing our human will as unconscious rather than free an even greater achievement than that of renowned psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, who gained prominence popularizing the unconscious.

This series is undoubtedly the most comprehensive treatment of the nature and implications of our human will available anywhere. Equally important, rather than presenting our lack of free will as a disappointing revelation, the series is fully optimistic in showing how our understanding this surreal fact can actually enhance our lives, personally and societelly. Discover what science, reason, and experience have to say about the nature of our human will through this engaging, educational and entertaining weekly podcast.
Exploring the Illusion of Free Will

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