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2021-01-05

towards a literate metaphysics

the past is fixed; it does not change.
the future is free; it stands indefinite.

we know this, from the physics.
that arrangement, that entropy, which is seen before us,
determines the present.

this is so commonly confused with determinism,
but the universe is proven non-deterministic.
each jump of an electron, each collapse of an entangled state,
arrives in a stochastic surprise from among its universe of possibilities.

on average, these jumps are right down the middle of no surprise;
but the universe is not average in its every moment.

neither is the will free, for it must obey the strictures
of having a past before it, and a future bound to follow from the current moment,
and no other.

it is not the moment that is determined, it is the known past;
it is not the moment that is free to the will, it is the unknokwn future.

but we already knew this, didn't we?
science confirmed our experience at its most foundational.
for we live in no time other than the moment,
even though, in the physics, there is nothing special, nothing particular,
that separates the past-known-unchangeable from the future-unknown-changeable.

instead, it is the moment that is the only place that awareness can surf the wave
of our present ignorance collapsing into knowledge of the future.

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