To those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, if a stubborn one. – Albert Einstein

I’m wrestling with a question here lately. Physics has always had a hard time with free will. Einstein said that time doesn’t exist, and many scientists agree. Many Buddhists agree. Then we tack on quantum mechanics and what the things various theorists there tell us, up to and including the possibility that we may not really exist, that we may be simulated consciousnesses.

From the perspective of a guy who hasn’t always done a great job living life, this is liberating. It isn’t my fault. I’m not the subject, I’m the object. I’m not the driver, I’m the passenger. Etc. It doesn’t make the pain stop, but it does make me feel better about it. It hurts, but it isn’t “real.”

Except… How do I live? It certainly feels like I’m making choices. And however we’re wired, “I” still have to forge ahead. (Well, okay, I don’t have to.) And the I in this equation is programmed for ethics. And apparently for the illusions of self-examination and discovery. And for a torturously high tolerance for contradiction and paradox and ambiguity and inside-out, double-reverse ambiguity.

I wonder what happens next.

Anyway, a couple of stories on the subject…

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The Passenger’s Dilemma

Wheel sets his tray on the table and shoehorns in between Kitsuné and the abbot.

“You haven’t been badgering me about quantum mechanics lately,” Kitsuné says. “Give up?”

“I needed a break,” he replies. “I keep thinking – time is an illusion, so any step I take toward wisdom is a mirage. If I even exist. No matter which way I think about it, I feel like we’re just the audience.”

“Audience?”

“Yeah. We’re not really doing anything. We just imagine we are.” He pauses for a sip of water. “I guess I felt like life was … improv, or something. We had autonomy, subjectivity. But maybe … we’re just watching a movie. Of our lives. From the inside.”

Zenshiro clears his throat. “Why does it matter?”

“Because … we’re trying to understand reality as it really is, right Sensei?” Wheel replies.

“My son,” says the old man, softly. “You cannot find nothingness by looking for it.”

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Zenshiro’s Question

Zenshiro and Wheel sit in the library.

“Kitsuné has been telling me about your reflections on quantum science as it relates to Zen,” says the abbot.

“So you think I’m barking, too, then?”

Zenshiro chuckles. “No, no. I find it fascinating. I wanted to ask you something. The premise, as I understand it, is that our consciousness is synthetic?”

‘Yes, Sensei,” Wheel answers. “Then Magpie had an insight. Can imaginary beings contemplate nothingness?”

The old man rocks back and stares out the window. “What a remarkable idea.”

“I’ve been trying to understand more, Sensei, but … how do you turn nothingness inside-out?”

Zenshiro shakes his head and traces figures in the sand. “If we only imagine we exist, then our thoughts and feelings and insights are necessarily imaginary, as well, correct?”

Now Wheel stares out the window. “I suppose they have to be real, don’t they? But … maybe they’d be the thoughts of whoever programmed the construct?”

The master, brow furrowed, reaches out and touches Wheel’s hand. “How can a creature whose very existence is a delusion begin to approach Nirvana?”