Paralysis and Free Will

Hi,

My name is Saul Celere, and I'm a theoretical physicist who has developed The Principles of The Physics of Consciousness.

I was recently asked the following question:

Question: Does a person who is completely paralysed have free will?

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Answer:

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All humans possess limited Free Will, this is the conscious ability to choose from limited sets of possible future states and actions to instantiate.

So, for example, you can choose from the limited set of possible future actions, up vote, down vote or don't vote, on this post. That is a free choice just as you feel it is.

The choice is made by your centre of Consciousness. The central nervous system is a piece of exceedingly complex conscious technology that, as its name suggests, centralises conscious experience from throughout the conscious body it is embedded in. You are the centre of Consciousness within your central nervous system, this is why you feel like one singular and continuous conscious entity whose conscious experience is a unification of conscious experience from throughout your physical body.

There are two possibilities, either your centre of Consciousness is a temporary phenomenon that ends with the destruction of your central nervous system. Or else you possess a physical soul, formed out of conscious Energy and particles, that is embedded in your central nervous system and that uses wave particle duality to detach from the body at death and attach to a new foetus at some later point. The soul is a conscious quantum molecule that has taken billions of years and lives to form and is still evolving.

I personally believe in the second possibility because it makes far too much sense of evolution and human psychology not to be true. But, anyway, back to free will.

Your centre of Consciousness can choose from limited sets of possible future states and actions to instantiate, but your set of possible future states and actions at any given time, t, depends on both the physical configuration of your body as well as the physical configuration of your local surrounding Universe at the same time, t.

So, for example, at the moment you are free to get up and walk around your room, but I could send men to your house to tie you to your chair. In doing so, these men will have further limited, or reduced, your free will; your set of possible future states will have been reduced, removing the possibility to get up from your chair. But you could still blink and use your brain as you freely will to.

Your free will also depends on the configuration of your body; if a bird encounters a wall, a member of its possible future actions is to fly over it, whereas you can not choose to do this because you don't have wings. Though your body may allow for the possibility of climbing over it. These possibilities appear in our imaginations ( a naturally evolving conscious ability of the brain ) and we consciously select one, or don't select any, which is also a conscious choice.

A paralysed person has had their central nervous system damaged in some way. This disrupts the conscious connection of their centre of Consciousness to certain regions of their body, preventing their centre of Consciousness from consciously controlling those regions of the body in the normal way. This can dramatically and permanently reduce a person's limited free will, removing all choices concerning the actions and configuration of their body from their set of possible future states and actions to instantiate. Though they may still be able to freely choose certain actions, such as blinking or what to think about.

Brain damage can further reduce free will. In Alzheimer's disease, the structure of the brain is so damaged that the patient's limited Free Will is reduced to nothing.

The brain is a conscious tool immediately surrounding the centre of Consciousness that the centre of Consciousness uses to perform many conscious activities and abilities, such as remembering the past and imagining the future.

Brain damage can destroy most all of the brain's abilities, in which case the patient is trapped within a non-functioning brain, experiencing only the most basic conscious perceptions such as light and colour and heat etc.

If the centre of Consciousness is in fact a physical soul that leaves the body at death, this condition isn't as hopeless as once thought; the patient's soul is tragically trapped in a non-functioning brain, but only temporarily and it will one day detach from it and begin a new life in a new healthy body.

Here's a link to a video where I show that Free Will is intrinsic to the basic Energy and particles of our Universe:

https://youtu.be/RuGgIku9g4o

On the same channel I have a series of lectures entitled Principia Theologica explaining the many philosophical and spiritual implications of the intrinsic Consciousness of our Universe.

The same person asked a second question about the nature of Free Will when we are dreaming.

Question: Is Free Will a part of dreaming?

Here is a link to another short essay where I explain how The Principles of The Physics of Consciousness apply to dreaming:

https://www.reddit.com/r/IntelligenceSupernova/comments/nhnfvf/the_conscious_physics_of_dreams/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Thanks, all the best!!!