Is The Will An Illusion

ACADEMIA Letters
IS THE WILL AN ILLUSION ?

Giuseppe Roncoroni
CIURLIONIS
Sonata of the Stars: Allegro
Academia Letters, July 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Giuseppe Roncoroni - usepperoncoroni@gmail.com

Citation: Roncoroni, G. (2021). IS THE WILL AN ILLUSION? Academia Letters, Article 1569.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1569.
1
THE NEUROSCIENTIST’S VOICE IS IMPERIOUS: «YOUR BODY MOVES ACCORDING TO THE CONSTANTS
OF NEUROPHYSIOLOGY AND YOU ARE MISTAKEN IN BELIEVING THAT YOUR WILL CAN DISTURB THE NATURAL ORDER».
EVEN THE BEHAVIOURAL SCIENTIST’ S VOICE IS ADAMANT: «DO NOT BELIEVE THAT YOUR WILL IS FOREIGN
TO THE MOVEMENTS OF THE BODY BECAUSE, OTHERWISE, BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION WOULD NOT USE THE LURES
OF PAIN AND PLEASURE TO MAKE YOUR CHOICES ADVANTAGEOUS IN PRESERVING AND PERPETUATING THE SPECIES».
I BELIEVE BOTH THE NEUROSCIENTIST AND THE BEHAVIOURAL SCIENTIST ARE RIGHT. THE WILL CONFORMS
TO THE NATURAL ORDER BUT AT THE SAME TIME IS PRESENT IN MOVING THE BODY. THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION
OF THE TITLE WILL BE AS FOLLOWS: WILL IS NOT AN ILLUSION AT ALL. THE FULCRUM OF THIS TRUTH CONSISTS
IN THE DENIAL OF AN OLD CONJECTURE, THAT IS, OF A SUBSTANCE OBVIOUSLY OCCULT WHICH IS CALLED MATTER.

2
BERKELEY
[1710 A treatise concerning the principles of human knowledge]
I say that this table exists, the table on which I write, in the sense that I see and touch it
and I would say that it exists even if I were outside my studio
meaning by what I could perceive it if I were in the studio or that someone else perceives it.
The existence of things outside the mind is completely incomprehensible to me. …
Someone will ask: what happens to the sun, the moon and the stars?
What should we think of rivers and mountains and our bodies?
Are they chimeras? I reply that we are not deprived of anything.
Whatever we see, touch or anyhow understand, remains as safe and real as ever.
D’ESPAGNAT
[1976 Conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics]
Modern physics rejects what is still often referred to as scientific materialism.

Natural principles, while biologists are explaining life through them,
have undergone an evolution so they cannot be enunciated regardless of the mind that observes.

3
INTRODUCTION
Mister Mediocre has no doubt that the world exists outside of us and before us. This conjecture
implies that conscious life is a product of the brain. Mister Mediocre, leafing through the diary
of science, also learns that the mind obeys the natural laws of the brain. Thus conscious life,
our entire being, is caught in a mortal grip and the will would be an illusion. Removing
the conjecture of mister Mediocre, on the contrary, allows us to portray conscious life and
natural laws as friends walking side by side on the same path. Nothing less than a musician
and a Pythagorean will take care of orienting us towards the solution through a simile: the mind
is music and the meeting place with the body, the brain, is a musical score.
THE TRADITIONAL PREMISE:

MATTER AND ITS PROBLEMS
The traditional premise corresponds to the substance we call matter. I should think this way:
on the surface of an azure spot, in the bowels of a galaxy that participates in the procession
of innumerable galaxies, many beings slowly form and I, like them, become a conscious being
when my brain is active. Conceptual and experimental developments lead to the conclusion that
my feelings and thoughts are an empty addition to the excitation of neurons. Many paradoxes are
lurking at the finish line. Isn’t it a miracle that a piece of meat, such is the brain, generates
conscious life? Isn’t it strange that this piece of meat is the only organ in our body to refine
a useless function? Why are we deluded that our choices, bound by natural calculation, can
influence behaviour? How can we hope that our meditations, at the mercy of the precariousness
of the cells, possess coherence? Epiphenomenalism is unacceptable and slides towards the identity
of the mind and the brain. On this slope, between one and the other station, we meet the “great
brains” of naturalism of the mind such as Edelman, Dennett, Hofstadter, and so on.

4
IDENTIFY THE MIND WITH THE MATTER OF THE BRAIN
CABANIS [1802 On the relations between the physical and moral aspects of man]: The brain
secretes thought as the liver secretes bile.
KIM [1998 Mind in a Physical World]: Whoever believes in the action of mind loses in all cases.
The states of thought are either not effective or they are not thought.
RAMACHANDRAN [2005 A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness]: Even though it is common

knowledge, it never ceases to amaze me that all the richness of our mental life – all our feelings,
our emotions, our thoughts, our ambitions, our love lives, our religious sentiments and even
what each of us regards as his or her own intimate private self – is simply the activities of these
little specks of jelly in our heads, in our brains. There is nothing else.
These champions of nihilism identify the mind with the brain and deny the characteristics
of consciousness. Identity theory bypasses most of the problems because we cannot question
ourselves about something that is not there. The Gordian knot is untangled in the style
of Alexander. But is it legitimate to truncate one of the conflicting terms with a sword stroke?
Can we absorb the mind into the brain? Can we equate the spirit with a spongy mass of meat?
This question seems rhetorical and everyone is ready to respond “no”. So I wonder what
mystification encourages such a singular and aberrant move. It is simple: matter, as a substance,
transports us into the unknown and there we can announce that the most disparate things are
identical. A philosopher and a farmer teach us that all the cows are black when the lantern is off.
Identity theory surpasses, in the practice of occultism, the habit of occult substances and occult
properties in order to hide the difference between what is physical and what is mental.
The bet on the unknown is shown by a fiction. A physiologist is keeping an eye on Einstein’s brain
while Einstein engages in speculation. This physiologist, even unaware of the existence
of the conscious dimension in my reasoning by absurdity, from the brain ferments should guess
the architecture of special and general relativity. This joker will get angry at not being able
to access the real matter of the brain and not being able, only for this limitation, to expose
a theoretical argument according to the language of neurology.

5
A NEW PREMISE:
THE PRIMACY OF OBSERVATION AND THE SOLUTION OF PROBLEMS
A radiologist taught the learners that, when a vision on an X-ray plate

poses difficulties of interpretation compared to the clinic, it is necessary to change
the perspective, look at the image from a distance or even turn it upside down.
A different approach, a subversive intuition, an asymmetrical logical path,
can allow to coordinate the whole and can provide a better vision of reality.
I lower and raise the curtain because, from yesterday to today, the scenography has changed.
Yesterday’s philosophy, in its description of the globe, was forgetting the initial “I see…”.
Today’s philosophy, by restoring that “I see…”, redeems the observer and elegantly unties
the Gordian knot. The new premise gives me the two indispensable keys to correct
epiphenomenalism and reach a solution. Here is the first key: the lack of matter implies that
the brain does not produce the mind. Thus conscious life is no longer an epilogue, an emanation
that escorts the adventure of the brain without modifying it, but is rather a prologue that does
not have to justify the modalities and motivations of its existence. And here is the second key:
the order of nature and the brain, subtracted from the disintegration in matter, is not in contrast
with the sense of thoughts and choices.
INTERLUDE BETWEEN MUSICIANS
At the gates of the cathedral I meet my orchestra mates and their well-tempered instruments:
Niccolò with the cello and Zephyr with the flute. I consecrate myself to the intimacy of the organ.
Each of us will extract a series of musical notes from the instrument. A musician is forgetful,
like all artists, and fixes the notes with dots and strokes on a sheet. They are scribbles for those
are not familiar with music but, between us, are signals that recall a note. My music sheet
remembers which notes, which melody, the organ will emit. Now the maestro scrutinizes the score
and invites me to the ceremony with a wave of the baton.
There are some truths, about the relationship between music and a musical score, that are crystal
clear for me and for Niccolò and Zephyr. Music exists before the score is ready. The names of
andante or adagio qualify the sounds and not the signs. Signs are converted into sounds in reference
to music. The score regulates the music and the music does not influence it. The music rises freely
in the mystical aura of the cathedral while a breath of wind scatters the cards on the ground.

6
THE SYMPHONY OF CONSCIOUS LIFE
ON THE MUSICAL SCORE OF THE NEURONS
So far the psyche and physics have been configured as fields that show a different face
but an equal trend. One last question remains open: which is, in psychophysical unit, the office
of psyche and the office of physics? Music offers an analogy since the mind is music and
the brain, designed by evolution, serves as a score. This time, in the form of notes, there are
moments of meditative or emotional life which spreads from the hypogeum of the unconscious
to the stage of consciousness. Each note is written in a network of neurons and the sequence
of their activation modulates the mind just as the spots on the paper define the melody. Each of us
lives in conformity with the score of the brain and thus enriches the concert of living wholeness.
The certainties of the musician are also in the endowment of the philosopher. The notes of life
anticipate their order. Happy or sad is the mood rather than the neurological chart. That graphic
is symbol of a drama that comes true in the mind. Only one hand composes the convolutions
of the asters and the brain thus embracing our spirit in the vault of the globe. Only one and
modulated by mathematics, a Pythagorean would say, is the music obtained with instruments,
the music of man and the music in the skies.
CONSIDERATION OF PYTHAGORAS
Pythagoras argued that the Sun, the Moon and the planets, with rotations and revolutions, produce
slightest sounds in which the breath of creation is alive. This music, the Music of the Spheres,
represents a metaphor for the universality of the spirit. Yet those who listen to cosmic radiation
or the hum of satellites, as recorded by probes, might believe it is a metaphor so intense and
so tenacious as to leave a celestial imprint. Perhaps Pythagoras in the intimacy of the night was able
to perceive the harmony that those spheres intone in the secrets of the firmament. This legend
in any case gives me the opportunity to terminate this con-sidera-tion, as is fatal, “cum sidera”
that is “in company of the stars”.

7
SHAKESPEARE
[1594 The merchant of Venice]
The man that hath no music in himself nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds
is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.
The motions of his spirit are dull as night and his affections dark as Erebus.
HAZRAT
[1923 The mysticism of sound]
I have come to the point where the Music of the Spheres resounds.
Whole life for me has become music.
BARBOUR
[1999 The end of Time]
The world is made up of the instants of conscious or unconscious life.

Each instant comes to light because it resonates with the totality of the other instants.
The Music of the Spheres is the only justification for the birth of the world.
CIORAN
[1986 Des larmes et des saints]
The organ is a cosmogony. Its metaphysical resonances are absent in the flute and cello.
In the organ the Absolute interprets itself.
Hence the impression that it is the least human of instruments and that it is always played alone!

8
ATHANASIUS KIRKER
Harmonia Nascentis Mundi

9
OVERVIEW
TAKEN FROM
ATLAS AND THE G LOBE (S UMMITS OF P HILOSOPHY )
2023 - J ENNY S TANFORD P UBLISHING - NEW YORK
The philosophical principle is simply to maintain an original value for the world of consciousness.
This orientation, which is historically identified in the terms of phenomenalism or empiricism,
is opposed to the method of projecting beyond observation an additional reality, purely
presumed, that is defined as substance and cause with respect to the world of consciousness:
our life is not a consequence of the fantasies we name God, Soul or External World. It is
a perspective that acts as a guide in commenting on the fundamentals of philosophy and science.
An important question concerns the relationship between the mind and the brain. Both terms,
the data of the problem, are safeguarded by setting aside the conceptual constructs by which
the mind, that is first of all the conscious life, is transformed into a belonging of the brain.
This solution of the ancient dilemma benefits from the equivalence according to which
the mind is music and the brain represents a score. The criticism of the mechanism extends
into the criticism of the theory of mirror neurons because these cells fall into the engineering
of man-machine. Then are taken into consideration the current models of physics, relativity
and quanta, and with them a new attention is paid to the notion of time: the flow of events
is subjective and therefore, for example, the Big Bang must be conceived indifferently
as Explosion, the debut of the cosmos, and as Implosion, the outcome of the cosmos, because
one or the other is decided by the eyes of the observer. The horizon of philosophy, emptied
of prejudices and judgments of men, is favourable to a non-reductive narration of our life, up to
the visions that prelude to death, and is in agreement with the vocation of oriental mysticism.
INDEX
THE PRESTIGE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

THE PROPHET AND THE GREAT BOOK
THE DIVER OF EPHESUS
-
MIND AND BRAIN ACCORDING TO THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
THE MIND IS MUSIC AND THE BRAIN IS A MUSICAL SCORE
IS THE WILL AN ILLUSION ?
THE MECHANICAL LION AND THE NEURON IN THE SHAPE OF MIRROR
SPRING AND AUTUMN OF THE MIRROR NEURON
-
CENSORSHIP FOR THE GHOST OF REALISM
WHAT IS BIG BANG ?
THE WORLD IS CRAZY
-
CONSCIOUSNESS OF MACHINES AND UPLOAD OF OUR MIND
VISIONS AND EMOTIONS IN THE VERGE OF DYING
THE DETACHMENT AND THE ELSEWHERE
-
THE AMBASSADORS AND THE FLIGHT WITH WINGS
FAR FROM SPEECHES

10

Is The Will An Illusion

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ACADEMIA Letters

IS THE WILL AN ILLUSION ?

Corresponding Author: Giuseppe Roncoroni - usepperoncoroni@gmail.com

Corresponding Author: Giuseppe Roncoroni - usepperoncoroni@gmail.com

Modern physics rejects what is still often referred to as scientific materialism.

Corresponding Author: Giuseppe Roncoroni - usepperoncoroni@gmail.com

THE TRADITIONAL PREMISE:

Corresponding Author: Giuseppe Roncoroni - usepperoncoroni@gmail.com

RAMACHANDRAN [2005 A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness]: Even though it is common

Corresponding Author: Giuseppe Roncoroni - usepperoncoroni@gmail.com

A radiologist taught the learners that, when a vision on an X-ray plate

INTERLUDE BETWEEN MUSICIANS

Corresponding Author: Giuseppe Roncoroni - usepperoncoroni@gmail.com

Corresponding Author: Giuseppe Roncoroni - usepperoncoroni@gmail.com

The world is made up of the instants of conscious or unconscious life.

Corresponding Author: Giuseppe Roncoroni - usepperoncoroni@gmail.com

Corresponding Author: Giuseppe Roncoroni - usepperoncoroni@gmail.com

THE PRESTIGE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Corresponding Author: Giuseppe Roncoroni - usepperoncoroni@gmail.com

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