Monday, November 30, 2020

A Very Philosphical Dream

This morning I had a dream in which there was a dialog very much like this:

Doctor: Why that almost makes me believe there's some kind of God.

Me: There's a better reason: the exact balance of the particle charges.

Doctor: What do you mean?

Me: I refer to the fact that the charge on every proton is the very precise opposite of the charge on every electron. 

Doctor: But there's so much suffering. 

Me: Maybe 99.9999999999% of the people in the universe have incredibly happy lives, and Earth is some rare exception, needed for some subtle reason we don't understand. 

This short conversation in my dream managed to touch on two philosophical issues: cosmic fine-tuning and the problem of evil.  The claim about the balance of the proton charge and the electron charge is scientifically correct. Such a balance is necessary for stable planets and the chemical reactions needed for living things. If the electron charges on a rock were not the exact opposite of the proton charges, and the rock were not electrically neutral, every time you picked up a rock you would be killed or painfully shocked by the excess electricity. 

The ability of people to have dreams such as this is one of very many reasons I think human thought comes from a spirit or soul, and not from the brain. I refuse to believe that a sleeping brain could randomly produce content as scientifically and philosophically coherent as a dream like the one I had this morning. 

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