A good quote, in remembrance of Servetus

To kill a man is not to protect a doctrine, but it is to kill a man.

—Sebastian Castellio, Contra libellum, # 77, Vaticanus

From a letter to Olivia, 9 March 2011, re: Spinoza

...I know about those melancholy states. As it happens, Spinoza has much to say about such states, and I found myself agreeing with just about everything he wrote on the subject. His system of thought was as much about mental health and happiness as it is about God and the nature of the universe, in fact he is considered by many to be one of the first in that particular area of life-management, mental health, and self-help. If you can, look online, or in the library or bookstore, for two short early works by Spinoza called, Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, and Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being. These are the only two that I have read in their entirety so far and I am thus far very pleased and sometimes astounded by the fact that this man composed his work about 350 years ago, and that he lived only to the age of 44. What an amazing scholar he was, a good man, enlightened, a master teacher. I used to say that if I could go back in time and meet only one person, it would be a toss between Gustav Mahler and John Keats. But now I can safely say that it would be my master, Baruch Spinoza.

Bear in mind, Spinoza's God is not the emotionally-driven, jealous God of the Bible, but a holistic, naturalistic Being who is Creator-and-created at once and in-One, the all-encompassing, intelligent architect of the Cosmos and of every living thing that ever was or will be. His God is one that surpasses human understanding, but Spinoza goes about his proofs of the existence (and absolute necessity) of this Being with such surety and skill that I found myself utterly consumed in the process. I, who have always been a defiant atheist, a libertarian, a defender of freedom in all of its kicking and struggling forms, types, and manifestations, gradually found myself being overwhelmed by an intellect far greater and also far more benevolent than my own. It was easy to submit my heart and mind to these ideas, written by a man nearly four centuries ago, especially since my life's experiences had prepared the way already. If conceding to the profound and beautiful intellections of a human being could bring me such a measure of peace and contentment, then try to imagine how fulfilling, how absolutely joyous, is my submission and total surrender to God. It is only in this complete surrender that I have finally found my freedom, my true happiness, my purpose.

I can't define this God, can't tell you His name, or anything like that. This is not a Sodom and Gomorrah type God I am embracing here, but a holistic, cosmic, eternal, inexpressibly magnificent, benevolent, and perfect Being who has everything in perfect order, despite appearances. In recognition of such a Being, taking stock of one's imperfections is the easiest thing to do. None of us are perfect, we are all flawed. No state or government can be perfect. We humans make mistakes, small ones and GIANT ones. But we are coming along. We are learning. We are getting closer and closer to the Source, the Divine Ground, as Huxley called it. Enjoy the journey and be at peace!

BB Post: as Embers of Servetus. More on ego, autonomy, consciousness

While it is certainly true that consciousness and behavior, and brain-function in general, is far more complex than most people realize, I don't think even the brightest people in neuroscience and neuropsychology have a good enough handle on the brain to be able to justify the hypothesis that the subjective sensation and intuition of conscious autonomy is an illusion.

There have been many studies over the past few decades, most notably by Benjamin Libet, which indicate that the sensation of being conscious of making a choice actually occurs after the brain has already made the decision: that the sense of autonomy is a sort of constantly updated narrative conducted by the brain to afford a feeling of self-control and free agency when in fact there is no control or free agency (freewill). Despite the seemingly overwhelming data giving credence to this idea, I don't buy it. And there are still plenty of well-credited scientists and psychologists who don't buy it either.

 I'm with thinkers like David Chalmers and John Searle when it comes to consciousness and behavior: I think what causes consciousness in the brain's mechanism is not yet understood, in fact I think we are far from grasping it. This is what keeps the field of A.I. in a sort of limbo: the inability to manufacture anything like sentience or consciousness in a machine. I believe nature's technology is many orders of magnitude more advanced than man's technology, and it's sheer arrogance to think that since we can't fully understand how consciousness, high intelligence, and free agency arises in humans, then the normal (not to mention manifestly common across generations, nations, and cultures) sensation of autonomy and self-generated action, as well as the ego and sense of self and identity, is "an illusion".