Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[Wade Riddick <riddick AT mail.la.utexas.edu>]

> "Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, 
> neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. 

To quote the indubitable philosopher, Forrest Gump, "I think maybe it's both."

If you've been breathing earlier in the day, chances are it was autonomic.

Likewise, if you've ever thought about having sex at some point in your life, that is very definitely the rational influence of your genes upon your mind as they try to reproduce half of themselves.

There are so many levels of rationality at work and in conflict within us, it is almost stupid to get into this debate.

I thought Percy was all about stressing the importance of language having both a physical and a spiritual component - sign, symbol and referent existing in some sort of holy trinity.  What did they call the heresy of denying Christ's humanity?

There are literally a thousand and one chemicals I can inject in you to make you psychotic, hallucinatory or put you in some other condition which denies you conscious will.  Diseases like Alzheimer's exist whether you chose to believe in them or not and they do erode your ability to believe in things.  Whether it's God throwing the Book of Job at you or your fellow man or mother nature, your body can still be broken.  We are imperfect creatures held up by myriad little braces and supports and knocked down by things simply amazing in their simplicity.

The message of _American Beauty_ might have been that life is pretty good, even as you're losing it, but gun control is a strong runner up.  I don't think the movie could exist without both.  It needs that contradiciton (contra = against; dicere = to speak).

Wade Riddick