Freedom and pain in the light of "Anthropic Principle"

Abstract

The Anthropic Principle states that the Universe has the conditions we observe because we are here. Out of all possible Universes we can only experience the restricted class that permits observers. The Principle can be applied to the study of the connections between some conditions such as contingency and indeterminacy of matter on one hand, and the possibility of the existence of free subjects on the other. To have freedom in the form of the control of physical reality by will-power, a Nature with purely mechanistic relationships between causes and effects might not be adequate. What is certainly necessary (though not sufficient) is that the material instrument of free will should not be rigorously deterministic. The hypothesis has been put forward (J. Eccles) that mental events act on probabilistic synaptic events in a manner analogous to the probability fields of quantum mechanics. Also, chaotic activity may be part of the normal function of the nervous system. Human mental "hardware" is therefore represented by a structure which by virtue of its indeterminacy (broadly speaking) does leave scope for freedom. The algorithmic incompleteness, indeterminacy and unpredictability which guarantee freedom and creativity imply a world of relative instability, precariousness and error, i.e. from the biological viewpoint, corruption of forms, pain and death. The root of pain is thus related to that of freedom, since pain represents the high price which the matter of this Universe has had to pay in order to be predisposed for the existence of free beings. By virtue of the Anthropic Principle we may say that the Universe compatible with free will must be a piace of pain and death.