The Secret Chord: Freewill by Rush

This episode explores the idea of free will. It asks whether or not it actually exists and explores the implications of each outcome. It is also a tribute to the late (and truly great) Neil Peart.

Transcript

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What song is that you want to be? Oh, music. Hello and welcome to the Secret chord podcast I'm your host, Adam J. Goes The Secret Court explores spirituality through the lens of great music, and we're sponsored by super jeweler dot com, my favorite online fine jewelry destination. And without further ado, please enjoy this podcast, I folks and welcome to Episode 27 of the Secret Chord podcast. Today we're going in a slightly different direction, but one that I think speaks to the heart of what we're trying to do with this podcast. Instead of sharing the overt spirituality within a particular tune, we're gonna highlight it's apparent non spirituality and then show you how it's really there. Anyway, as the Grateful Dead one said, Once in a while, you get shown the light in the strangest of places. If you look at it right, so we're here to discuss the band Rush. They were a Canadian rock band consisting of Getty, Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart. They were known for their musicianship, complex compositions and a collective lyrical motifs, drawing heavily on science fiction, fantasy and, most importantly for US philosophy, the band's musical style changed several times over the years from blues inspired Hard Rock and later moving into progressive rock, and then a period marked by heavy use of synthesizers. In the early 19 nineties, Rush returned to a guitar driven hard rock sound, which continued for the rest of their career. The group has been awarded 24 gold albums, 14 platinum and three multi platinum albums. Rush has been nominated for seven Grammy Awards. The band was inducted into the Canadian Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. Over their careers, the members of Rush have been acknowledged as some of the most proficient players in their respective instruments, with each band member winning numerous awards and magazine readers Poles. So Neil Peart, who sadly passed away last month after a three year fight against brain cancer, was the band's lyricist, as well as one of rock's greatest drummers. Admittedly, he was my first love as a drummer as he was. For many, Neil was influenced by great rock drumming predecessors like Ginger Baker, Keith Moon and John Bonham, but also jazz drummers like Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa. variety magazine roads. Widely considered one of the most innovative drummers in rock history, Pert was famous for his state of the art drum kits. More than 40 different drums were not out of the norm. Precise playing style and onstage showmanship. The New Yorker Roads, watching pert play drums gave the impression that he might possess several phantom limbs. The sound was merciless. Let's check out his playing on the classic instrumental Y Y Z. So though Neil was an avowed atheist and you can reasonably ask what room is there for his ideas and lyrics? In a podcast about spirituality, I'll now endeavor to demonstrate how Neil and by extension, Rush actually did accept the idea of a non material transcendent force. How so? One of my favorite songs of theirs is called Free Will. It's off of their Permanent Waves album and was released in 1980 and it's been described as a cerebral but remarkably radio friendly song. There's a lot to talk about with this one, both musically and lyrically, so let's have at it. This is free will by the great rush. Theo! Theo! Hey, Okay. And speaking of free Well, the American Writer Patrick Roth. Fist once wrote that there was a great difference between a gift given freely and one that's meant to tie you to a man our will convey either used to take or to give. And sometimes we actually take by giving and sometimes give by receiving. With only 10 shopping days until Valentine's Day, you should really head over to my friends at super jeweler dot com and choose to give one of the thousands of beautiful and meaningful gifts they have available for your loved ones. And if you go to super jeweler dot com and use the promo code Adam 20 you will get 20% off of anything in everything on the site that super jeweler dot com Millions of happy customers since 1999. Okay, let's talk about the music rush along with Cream, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and the James Gang and others is one of the world's great power trios. One of the effects of the pared down sound when not having a backing instrument is toe leave. Each musician extremely exposed, which has its own unique sound, but also allows the listener to really hear and absorb each part as such each musician needs to be very capable, as they certainly are. In this case, Getty Lee not only definitely runs through highly original and almost acrobatic baselines, he also manages to play synthesizers on occasion with his feet. This particular song was also the last time Get It would sing with the piercing vocals in a studio recording as the strange, shrieking, high range of his vocals were characteristic of the band style from the 19 seventies. The songs Last Diverse, features these stratospheric vocals and was considered a farewell to Russia's early style. Alex Lifeson said the guitar solo in the song is a really hard solo to play, describing it as frenetic and exciting and one of the most ambitious pieces of music Russia's ever done. In his book Rush, Rock Music and the Middle Class Dreaming in Middletown, Chris MacDonald describes life since play as searing and rapid fire, and if none of that was enough, the song actually increases in complexity as it progresses. It features unusual time signatures, with most of the song using 13 4 time but also employing 15 4 in parts. How about the lyrics? This is where we get into the meat of Things. In a 2015 article for Rolling Stone, Brian Hyett described free will as an explicitly atheistic song that mocks those who believe in God, exemplified by the lyrics you can choose already guide in some celestial voice. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. Fair enough. So if nothing else, clearly, Neil believed in free. Well, well, many atheists do not. And with good reason. Atheist philosopher Sam Harris doesn't believe in free will at all. As he wrote, Free Will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we're unaware and over which we exert no control. We assume that we could have made other choices in the past, and we also assume that we consciously originate our thoughts and actions in the present. Both of these assumptions are false. Here's what's interesting. If you believe in a solely material universe, then you tacitly disbelieve in free will. Harris is following the logical conclusions of pure materialism in the same way that knowing the speed and trajectory of a recently struck a billiard ball will allow you to know exactly where the ball will end up. So too. In theory, if we knew all of the neural patterns in your brain, which is simply another material thing, we would know exactly how you would respond to any given situation. You might believe that you were choosing. But, as Harris says, that would just be an illusion. Now, one of the major problems with this is that it goes against one of our most viscerally held assumptions that were free to choose our way in life. Most of us simply feel that we have very real choices available. And as such, being told that we're laboring under a fantasy is a hard pill to swallow. Another major problem is that without freedom of choice, there can be no morality, as the thief is not free to not steal, and the cop is not free to not pursue. Each is simply acting out his program to faith. Because of this, it is always struck me as odd that Sam Harris and others make moral judgments. How can one punish that which can't be helped and had no true meaning? In any event, Neil Peart was not in this camp and really and truly. Neither is Sam Harris, who gives the game away by believing in an actual morality, though he does his best to conflate it with nature. YouTube his debate with Professor William Lane Craig to see his argument, given a serious run for its money. Interestingly, in Neil's book Ghost Rider, which chronicles a motorcycle trip he took in order to process the tragic loss of his wife and daughter, he repeatedly says that he's taking his little baby soul on a trip. What's that? Seemingly his now fragile inner essence, the chooser who decides to go on this trip, who attempts to heal in the face of intense pain. And he was eventually drawn back into the goodness and pleasure that life has to offer where this free will come from. If it exists, it cannot be of this physical world to believe on Lee in the material means no free will and to believe in free will, a choice ultimately disconnected from all that preceded. It cannot originate in the material. In the dramatic high point of the song, Neil writes, each of us a cell of awareness in perfect and in complete genetic blends with uncertain ends on a fortune hunt. That's far too fleet. Yes, we are cells that have become aware. But how is that even possible? There are some big questions out there that need consideration before conclusions about the nature or existence of a spiritual order can be made. Number one. Where did matter come from Number two? How did it come to be alive and number three? How did it come to gain awareness of itself in the same way that one individual grain of sand has no consciousness, and adding many more greens to the pile will only create a big mound of unconscious matter? So to adding many non aware cells together does not produce awareness. Ultimately, awareness comes from some source other than matter, Genesis 1 26 says, Let us make man in our image. Who's the we in this sentence? According to some, that's God speaking to the currently un created humanity and saying, Let's make you together, Let's be partners in your development. And what image are we speaking about? In classical monotheism, God is immaterial and thus cannot have a form or an image according to the stages of antiquity. This is referring to free well, humanity's most precious gift, the power that makes us most godly and that affords us the opportunity to choose right from wrong. Hence, if you believe in free, will you believe in the divine? I wish Neil Peart was here to have this discussion. I can only surmise from what he's written that on some level he may have believed it in any events. It's been a pleasure discussing this tune with you and its implications. And, as always, we look forward to being back next week with more music and more ideas. Have a wonderful week. Thank you for listening. Please consider leaving a comment or review toe. Help us spread the word and please subscribe to the podcast on any of the major podcasting platforms to support us. Please visit our Patriot accounts. And if you'd like to communicate with me directly, please feel free to email me at a Jacobs at h dot com. Secret chord is produced and engineered by now or Cohen