Postulate

Magick is a fundamental element of the universe.

Proof

Freedom (definition): An agent is free if it can display before itself two or more possible self-actions, and then freely choose one based on a rule. For a choice to be free, it must arise from rule-following rather than immediate desire. Desire is unfree because it is determined by chemical mechanics. Same for the states of affairs in the immediate environment. If you say,

I’ll take the red pill if the newscaster tonight says mentions a number starting with an even number; otherwise, the blue.

That fact was already determined.

Let’s look at some rules of action that would be totally unpredictable even by an omniscient God of a Laplacean universe —

Truly random rules

Can we add pseudo-random to pseudo-random to produce something that would make our choice an intervention on time evolution of our bodies? It’s fun to try to develop an algorithm that seems to pull-in something completely outside of determinism. Like rolling dice to get a phone number and asking the other end to pick a number, then using that to pick, and so on.

Here is an algorithm for fabrication a rule of real physical action that cannot be determined from physical, biological, or psychological knowledge —

Surely, this action is outside the stream of determinism. Even a God knowing the position and moment of every particle in the universe (forget QM for a moment) would not be able to predict your action, because what determined it is too far removed from things.

Rules that counter biological self-interest

If I choose to act according to the principles of my religion, then my action is free. Every biological impulse tells me to do X, but I adhere to system S, which calls for doing action Y. A calculus based on biological urge would never predicate my actions.

Or if I choose my system of conduct maxims in response to a conclusion I reach after honest self-searching and serious consideration by means of rigorous testing and rational argument, then my actions (when I stick to this system) are certainly free.

Rules determined by quantum measurement

If I choose determine the action number by taking the third decimal place of the number of seconds between the emission of alpha particles from the nearest known chunk of surplus uranium-238 by the next person to measure it, then my action is free.

Conclusion

What we see here are actions that no calculus could possibly predict. Even though each step of the rule-building algorithm uses a deterministic system—the physics on my arm muscles and the physical quantities determining the mechanics around me (gravity, friction, elasticity, etc.) fix the dice rolls, geographic convention fixes the coordinates, human history fixes the building of cities, physics fixes the weather, Euclidean space fixes trigonometric values and the value of π, and psychological habit fixes the list I make—the final result, which originates from a zone entirely outside of all physical measurement and knowledge. In this way, I can perform an act of work with my body that really intervenes in the time evolution of the (otherwise) determined universe

The fact that consciousness can do this—access rules of action entirely outside physical and psychological determination—means that consciousness can access a sphere outside of physical determinism. And to access this sphere means that it intersects it, somehow.

Therefore, consciousness cannot merely be an emergent from matter. If consciousness is self-determining, then even thinking is a magickal act, because there one chooses to invoke a concept, posit an image, run a fantasy, or move a finger. Why? Because the cause in these cases is not just a link in a chain of prior causes. Material causes are also material effects. But consciousness, if it causes, causes by svabhavic impulse or fiat. In that case, we have something like a source of pure novelty, and it bridges an ontological gap whenever it causes change to occur in conformity with will.

The interface problem

In other words, if acting on a whim occurs, then magick is real. If my choice of action in any way violates vegetative, animal, or habitual mechanical inertia, then magick occurs. It occurs at the interface between this acausal power of “I” and the energy on the fabric of spacetime. Where is this interface? It is probably either (field model) the electric field distributed throughout the brain or (particle model) the set of synapses and axon hillocks susceptible to quantum-sized events at the moment. The free agent pushes on nature at one of these two points, for it must interface with material motion in a place where indeterminacy is allowed. “I” can cause motion only where indeterminacy gives my otherworldly free will the leeway to do so. So the second premise above needs to be changed to:

•  If I can choose my course of action, and I can move physical entities through acts of imagination, ratiocination, speech, and all voluntary muscle motion, then I can cause intended results.

Self cannot be causal if it is epiphenomenal

If my experience of counter-inertial choice is real, then magick occurs, because my will has caused a chosen (intended) result. I have caused a change to occur in conformity with my will. But if my will is itself just the interior display of an externally-physically caused motions, then magick does not occur. If magick is to be real, then the cause of my material actions now cannot be just an epiphenomenon of previous material actions. This cause must have something of svabhāva about it.

Freedom enters spacetime through the acts of free agents, avatars of freedom enmeshed in strictly determined material machinations. Something like this must be the case, because I can move my arm, how and when I want, on a whim.