NE/NB/NY - Day 1 - New England

10/11/14

Fredericton, New Brunswick

The second beer was a mistake, as was getting Romeo y Julieta Churchills instead of Cedros.  Why do I lead with these examples?  Because I made those choices out of my own free will, or did I?  In my previous mediation I established that I believe free will is possible.  However, today I realized two things.  First, if we accept that free will exists, can only humans have free will?  What about a chimp?  A dog?  A bird?  An ant?  Where do we draw the line?  Can we truly allow that free will only came into being about 2 million years ago?  Then, what about the question in the opposite direction?  I’m sure that we could all imagne a robot that was sufficiently advanced that it looked like and functioned like a human being in every respect.  Could such a robot be advanced enough to have free will?  Even if it did, would what we are calling free will be anything other than an illusion that results from its programming, from the RNGs that allow for what we consider to be random choices.

It was from that example that I realized I was one step closer to understanding how determinism could be true even with the lack of randomness.  If our brains are like computers, than we can imagine that are genetic code is the programming.  We have evolved in such a way to minimize the randomness of our decisions, that I that I always get Chinese before I leave because the DNA has programmed me in such a way to minimize the chance of not doing it.  What then is this thing we are calling free will?  Could it simply be nothing more than the awareness felt by our consciousness of the decisions that are the result of our genetic code, decisions that were determined.  To clarify, I do not believe in determinism.  I reject that is utterly false.  Due to quantum mechanics, there must needs be some basic randomness.  What I am considering here would be called “hard incompatibilism,” meaning both determinism is false and that free will is not possible.

By this theory I am positing, we cannot affect the choices we make through our mind, our consciousness only being aware of the process that leads to our actions and falsely believing it could have acted otherwise, though what those decisions will be are not predetermined, since various things could have happened otherwise if the right electron was in the right spot at the right time.  While this theory alleviates some of the arguments I made yesterday, it raises even more questions.  How do we react to stimuli?  Where do emotions play into all of this?  What about people with certain mental disorders?  I think these questions better belong to the biologists and psychologists.  I am neither.  I am a philosopher with a very good understanding of basic physics.

By the time I arrived at Fredericton, I was leaning back towards determinism, or, I suppose I should say hard incompatibilism due to the quantum effect, but I was no closer to coming to any kind of certainty than I was Thursday night.  All I was able to do was come up with a quick rebuttal to those are argue that they know free will is possible because they have felt it.  The answer to that it could be like watching a sports game, it seems like either team can win, that by your cheering, you can influence the outcome, that anything could happen, which is true.  Either team can win, but you cannot control it.  You are merely observing it as it occurs.

The same could be said about free will.  It feels like you have free will, but you are merely observing the decisions that are made as a direct result of your genetic code, the laws of nature, and the particles in your body.  By this theory, I had no choice in whether or not to have that second beer.  If I said, “I had that second beer because I am who I am,” none of my readers would doubt or misunderstood that statement.  Unless I was an alcoholic, my readers, however, would not believe me if I said, “I didn’t have a choice.”

In the end, I made a bad choice, and I did not enjoy my evening as much as I might have otherwise.  It is now well past midnight local time, and I arrived at my hotel four hours ago, yet I am just now getting to write this entry, and my heart is not in it.  Today should have been a great day.  In fact, up until I took my first Official U in New Brunswick, it was a great day.

However, the past 6 hours or so have just been all around shitty for a variety of reasons.  It wasn’t really that anything really bad happened, nothing that would not be fixed by the time I get back to work on Tuesday.  It was just a string of minor disappointments that reached some critical mass and made me feel sad in for as long as I can remember.  Sure, I have felt angry, stressed, disappointed, apathetic, annoyed, even upset, but I cannot remember ever feeling sad like this in quite some time.  I chalked it up to being hungry, knowing that I often feel negative emotions when I haven’t eaten in a while, but the food did not do much to improve my mood.  I suppose I am jumping out of order here, and it makes little sense out of context.  However, I will need to pause before I continue, since my laptop is about to restart itself.

That’s 20 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.  The disappointments continue to mount.  Okay, so I suppose we should rewind to this morning.  I allowed myself to sleep in, waking up around 9 AM, and I headed down to get the usual Hampton Inn breakfast, a morning start much like any other.  My first stop was to be Portland Head Light, a beautiful lighthouse.  I lit up one of the cigars that Jimmy gave me, allegedly a Partagas, but it didn’t taste right.  I’m pretty sure it was fake.  I know he shafted me with a bunch of fake cigars, but I had thought these were real.  I was wrong.  Either that or his uncle just didn’t know to take care of cigars, which caused them to acquire a funny taste.  Either way, it was a perfectly decent cigar, but it was not the exceptional cigar that a Partagas should be.  I took my pictures at the lighthouse, and I got my souvenir, but my heart wasn’t in it.

I stopped at a cigar store to get some butane, and I picked up a Perdomo, which I lit up right away as I drove.  The second lighthouse was Pemaquid Point Lighthouse.  This was the more significant one, it was the one on the Maine State Quarter, and it was the one that Windows 7 uses as a wallpaper.  However, I couldn’t quite remember the angle for the Windows 7 wallpaper, and I didn’t have cell service.  I got my replica, just as I did at Portland Head Light, and I was on my way.

I was a little behind schedule, and I needed to stop for a lobster roll.  I was looking at a 5:30 PM arrival at the border, which meant that it would be dark if I spent more than an hour at the border.  The lobster roll was great, and I lit up a My Father after I ate it.  My second cigar of the drive was an Aging Room, and I made it to the border at 5:15 PM, enjoying the beautiful fall foliage as I drove.  The search and questioning actually went pretty quickly.  They asked all the usual questions and some unusual ones, but I was honest with them, and there was nothing on me that could have gotten me in trouble, so they sent me on my way.

It was actually before sunset by the time I got to the sign.  There was a path behind the sign that could have served as a hiking trail if I so desired.  I just used it to find a secluded spot to take my first Official U in New Brunswick.  I lit up my Davidoff Colorado and headed to the cigar store in Fredericton, which was disappointing.  Some stuff was decently priced while other stuff was overpriced.  I got a bunch of cigars, including the box of Churchills.  However, this was where I fucked up.

The Churchill is too big of a cigar for the purpose I needed it to serve: my post class discussion with the Ryan and Emily, and the weather is going to start getting too cold to sit in the Citicorp Center and finish the cigar while I write my philosophy.  I guess I should see if I could exchange it for the box of the Cedros, but that would be an even worse decision.  The Cedro is a lesser quality cigar, and it is half the size, but the price is only 20% less or so.  I guess I’ll just stick with the Churchills.  Maybe I have enough of those Andorra Ramon Allones to last the semester.  I’ll have to check when I get back to the office.  I went to the hotel and issues checking in.  I got settled in and went for dinner.

That was when I realized that I was sad.  I quickly told myself that I was just hungry, and I waited for my surf and turf to come.  They gave me a coupon for a free beer at check-in, which I was glad to utilize, but I was very thirsty, so I finished it before my food came.  On top of that, it was from Vancouver.  I was in Fredericton.  I wanted a beer from Fredericton.  I ordered one.  Big mistake.  I am still hungover.  That was four hours ago.  I then got more toasted and chose a few people on Facebook and liked about 50 of their posts each, so that they would have a notification icon that said 50 when they next checked their Facebook.  After my meal, mamash toasted, I went outside a took a selfie with the moon in the background.  I went up to my room and was practically ready to pass out, but I knew that I wanted to get the 10/11 date on the byline, which I couldn’t do if I was asleep after midnight.  I think I might have caught a few minutes of sleep, but I was still sad.  This should have been a great day, all the big things went right, but too many little things went wrong.  That is why I’m sad.  I will be happy when I say “New Brunswick Complete.”  Until then, I close.