One of the best songs,I think, done by Rush to date. Judge for yourself!

"In a way, in our contemporary world view, it's easy to think that science has come to take the place of God. But some philosophical problems remain as troubling as ever. Take the problem of free will. This problem has been around for a long time, since before Aristotle in 350 B.C. St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, these guys all worried about how we can be free if God already knows in advance everything you're gonna do. Nowadays we know that the world operates according to some fundamental physical laws, and these laws govern the behavior of every object in the world. Now, these laws, because they're so trustworthy, they enable incredible technological achievements. But look at yourself. We're just physical systems too, right? We're just complex arrangements of carbon molecules. We're mostly water, and our behavior isn't gonna be an exception to these basic physical laws. So it starts to look like whether its God setting things up in advance and knowing everything you're gonna do or whether it's these basic physical laws governing everything, there's not a lot of room left for freedom. So now you might be tempted to just ignore the question, ignore the mystery of free will. Say "Oh, well, it's just an historical anecdote. It's sophomoric. It's a question with no answer. Just forget about it." But the question keeps staring you right in the face. You think about individuality for example, who you are. Who you are is mostly a matter of the free choices that you make. Or take responsibility. You can only be held responsible, you can only be found guilty, or you can only be admired or respected for things you did of your own free will. So the question keeps coming back, and we don't really have a solution to it. It starts to look like all our decisions are really just a charade. Think about how it happens. There's some electrical activity in your brain. Your neurons fire. They send a signal down into your nervous system. It passes along down into your muscle fibers. They twitch. You might, say, reach out your arm. It looks like it's a free action on your part, but every one of those - every part of that process is actually governed by physical law, chemical laws, electrical laws, and so on. So now it just looks like the big bang set up the initial conditions, and the whole rest of human history, and even before, is really just the playing out of subatomic particles according to these basic fundamental physical laws. We think we're special. We think we have some kind of special dignity, but that now comes under threat. I mean, that's really challenged by this picture. So you might be saying, "Well, wait a minute. What about quantum mechanics? I know enough contemporary physical theory to know it's not really like that. It's really a probabilistic theory. There's room. It's loose. It's not deterministic." And that's going to enable us to understand free will. But if you look at the details, it's not really going to help because what happens is you have some very small quantum particles, and their behavior is apparently a bit random. They swerve. Their behavior is absurd in the sense that its unpredictable and we can't understand it based on anything that came before. It just does something out of the blue, according to a probabilistic framework. But is that going to help with freedom? I mean, should our freedom be just a matter of probabilities, just some random swerving in a chaotic system? That starts to seem like it's worse. I'd rather be a gear in a big deterministic physical machine than just some random swerving. So we can't just ignore the problem. We have to find room in our contemporary world view for persons with all that that entails; not just bodies, but persons. And that means trying to solve the problem of freedom, finding room for choice and responsibility, and trying to understand individuality."

LIVE PRESENT DAY

Happiness is, always has been, and always will be, the point of it all. Our collection of over 130 episodes is available for free to high school and college TV stations, community access TV stations, Internet videocasters, and individuals worldwide. Anyone can download our broadcast-quality MPEG versions for free from www.thehappinessshow.com/distribution.htm. Visit our site for more information about the show, and for pages and pages of science-based happiness information and resources. To browse our episodes at Google Video, just keyword “The Happiness Show.” Whatever we call it, joy, contentment, satisfaction, peace of mind, bliss, subjective well-being or the goal of positive psychology, we all know that HAPPINESS RULES!

We all know that HAPPINESS RULES! Welcome to the world’s first television program entirely about happiness. Our collection of over 130 episodes is available for FREE to high school and college cable TV stations, community access cable TV stations, Internet video casters, and individuals worldwide. Anyone can download our broadcast-quality MPEG versions for free from www.thehappinessshow.com/distribution.htm. Help your neighbors get happier. First watch a few episodes. Then pick out one you really like. Download the MPEG file (about 280 Mbs) from our website, and burn it onto a CD or DVD. Take it to your local cable TV station. Tell them that you want to “sponsor” The Happiness Show, and that you want them to broadcast an episode each week. Mention that they don’t have to pay to broadcast our show. (You don’t either). For other ways of becoming happier, visit http://thehappinessshow.com/OtherWaysOfBecomingHappier.htm. To help create a happier world, visit http://thehappinessshow.com/WaysToAHappierWorld.htm. Browse our episodes at Google Video by searching “The Happiness Show.” Make your friends happy; post this video to My Space, Blogger, Live Journal, or Typepad. Don’t wait. The future happiness of our world is in YOUR hands!