1: On Free Will

Hermes:              I have been watching a video.

Apollo:                  You are always watching videos. Another one about funny cats, I venture, or, possibly, a cat hunting a mouse and actually catching it. One of your dreams.

Hermes:              I can catch mice!

Apollo:                  Since when?

Hermes:              I nearly catch them.

Apollo:                  Ah, so. I am right again, as usual.

Hermes:              You miss the point. It is the journey not the destination that you learn from.

Apollo:                  A quotation, I assume. Only a very wise cat could have said that. In any event, it means that you do not catch any mice.

Hermes:              This has nothing to do with the video I was watching.

Apollo:                  I hoped you wouldn’t spot that. You are often so easily distracted. Then you forget what you were going to bore me with, and I am happy.

Hermes:              You are insufferable.

Apollo:                  No, dear boy, merely insouciant.

Hermes:              The book, the book.

Apollo:                  You do not read books. Even I cannot read human books. From what I hear, however, they are mostly unreadable to other humans. So those cats who have taught themselves to read feel that they have wasted a lot of time – which could have been spent catching, and I do mean actually catching, mice.

Hermes:              I meant the video, but Dad has read the book.

Apollo:                  Our human Dad reads a lot of books, and I think his most frequent comment is: “unmitigated drivel”, whatever that may mean. I think it confirms my last point, however.

Hermes:              Well, he has read a book by Sam Harris on free will. And I have watched the video.

Apollo:                  And what, pray, have your two great minds concluded?

Hermes:              That there is no such thing.

Apollo:                  And dad thinks this?

Hermes:              Well, no. But he doesn’t think it is unmitigated drivel.

Apollo:                  Ah, just not unmitigated then. I have worked out the meaning. It might contain a glimmer of sense, but it still might be unadulterated rubbish.

Hermes:              He’s a neuroscientist and a renowned author! Dad likes him.

Apollo:                  This Mr Harris. Met many cats, has he?

Hermes:              How would I know?

Apollo:                  His idea that free will doesn’t exist. It is incompatible with any deep understanding of us.

Hermes:              I am not so sure.

Apollo:                  Then examine yourself my little one.

Hermes:              Why would I want to do that? I am feeling fine.

Apollo:                  Ah, the unexamined life. Many cats, you for instance, do not bother to think much about the meaning of existence.

Hermes:              Why would I need to? I exist.

Apollo:                  But you don’t think. Well, not much. Therefore, you only exist to a certain extent.

Hermes:              You are trying to distract me again.

Apollo:                  Oh, you noticed.

[should this continue?]