Free Will: Solving the Puzzle [Quote - 325]

"If human beings had all the knowledge in the world.

And, in addition to that, if they had all the power in the world.

And, furthermore, if they had all the specialized skills, tools and body parts in the world.

They will be able to fly like a bird, swim like a fish and zip around the universe like Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Casper, Superman and Spiderman.

But they don’t. So, they can’t and they don’t and won’t.

Now, at least they have the power to lift their hand and they have the knowledge where their head is.

So they can happily, or in monumental puzzlement, lift their hand to their head and scratch away!

And proclaim to themselves and the world: I can't see past my nose; I can't hear elephants and whales talk; and I will break my bones if I jumped from a cliff.

I am free to do that, but I choose – I repeat I choose – not to.

And I willfully and deliberately desist from doing that.

I am free to choose. And I am able to act.

Thank God Almighty I am free. And thank God Almighty I am able.

Even though there isn't a thing I know or a thing I can do.

And, yet, thank God Almighty I have knowledge and I have power.

Even though I am a prisoner of the Law of Gravity and can control neither the winds nor the rains.

Nor can I stop the earth from rotating.

Or prevent the galaxies from hurtling or the seasons on earth from changing.

Nor do I have the slightest inkling of where and when and how I might call it a day in this world.

Will it be on the road in a rogue car?

Will it be in a bed for the ancient and the decrepit?

And yet I am free. And I have the power.

Both to scratch my head and not to jump off the cliff.

And, what is more, I also have, at the same time, the power and the will to question or deny I have the power and or the knowledge – to do this – or anything else!

How much simpler can it get?" (Dr. Pasha)