Yesterday, I mentioned the dividing line between physicalists – those believing that everything in the Universe is made up of matter – and idealists, who believe that consciousness is the fundamental property of the Universe. The former group deny the possibility of a divine presence and survival of consciousness after death, the latter group accept such possibilities.
Today, I'd like to ask – why is it that we fall into one category or the other? This follows on from the free-will question: have we any choice in whether we end up believing in what we believe?
Are, for example, extroverts more likely to be physicalists than introverts? To what extent does personality determine belief? Are you doomed to one belief system or another because of a genetic predisposition, or is belief shaped more by upbringing and environment? Or a mixture of both sets of factors?
And then there's the left-brain/right-brain divide; the lateralisation of brain function (or hemispheric dominance) – the tendency for some neural functions or cognitive processes to be specialised to one side of the brain or the other. Is this why I can't get my head around complex maths, preferring concepts to formulae? In other words, is a child born destined to be an artist or a scientist? Certainly felt that way to me at school.
And then there's the way we view authorities – do we accept them or question them? And does this determine whether idealists are religious believers or independent seekers?
And then there's the way we tend to shape our personal worldview: by induction (based on our intuition and our experiences and observations of the world from which we infer a belief system about reality)? Or by deduction (grounded on established knowledge of empirically determined principles, reasoning, logic and rational thought to draw conclusions about the world)? Or again, is it a mix of these two approaches?
While we meander through life, adapting our worldview to our circumstances, do we have a fundamental, underlying sense of whether or not there's a supernatural force at work, shaping the direction of the Cosmos, giving life purpose and meaning – or not?
As I think back upon my metaphysical journey, I can identify significant turning points, important junctions that guided my thinking in new directions. Insights that added clarity, intuitions that suddenly sparked new understanding. The metaphor of an upward spiral, coming back to a similar place but having a higher viewpoint, able to grasp more, is fitting. The view becomes more and more complex, more elements, sharper definition.
But is that journey predetermined? Am I learning that which I am meant to learn, at the time at which I am meant to learn it?
Synchronicity corner
Today's version of There are More Questions than Answers comes from South Africa. Released in 1973, a year after the Johnny Nash original, it was recorded by an artist named Mally. I looked him up on Wikipedia. Nothing under that surname, other than Austrian metaphysical philosopher, Ernst Mally. The record label mentions a 'Malcolm Watson'. I looked him up, narrowing the search to South Africa. Now I get Johannesburg-born Malcolm Lyall-Watson, better known as Lyall Watson, author of the best-seller, Supernature: A Natural History of the Supernatural, a copy of which is still in our family home in London. Watson is credited with coining the 'hundredth monkey' effect in his 1979 book, Lifetide.
Anyway, here's Mally with There are More Questions than Answers.
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