I have never been the type to stray from the beaten path.  Last semester I was a hard-working sophomore at Swarthmore College, near Philadelphia.  I've always done everything the world expected from me, and I don't regret living that way so far.  But why am I taking a semester off?  Isn't that the recourse of the lazy drifter, not driven enough to meet the modest demands of college life?  Not at all, for me at least.  There is a problem I must resolve before I can pursue my career without reservation.  The weaker course is to stay on the beaten path and not wrestle with tough issues.

I'll leave an in-depth discussion of my dilemma for the "Writing" section of the website.  The brief outline of my questions goes something like this:

• I can't fathom why anyone versed in the way modern science views the world would believe in a God.  But there are some natural scientists who do.  Why do we disagree?
• It looks as if our idea of morality and all our systems of ethics are basically the product of genetic and cultural evolution.  How then should I behave?  It would seem that values have no meaning, but I need some way to make decisions.
• I still have the sensation of free will in making decisions, although my mind is probably the product of a statistically deterministic physical brain.   Can this reductionist explanation of consciousness allow me to retain a coherent notion of moral behavior?

As you can infer from these questions, I would currently describe myself as a moral nihilist; I think our common notions of morals are incoherent.  And let me tell you, it feels awful.  Right now I don't feel capable of answering any moral dilemma.  Without stopping to spend at least some time on these issues, I would go through college without truly believing in what I was doing.  Swarthmore is such an amazing place that I will not allow that to happen.  The people are too inspiring, the classes too eye-opening, and the price tag too high for me to let my Swarthmore years pass me by.  By taking a semester off, I hope to return to school with a clearer mind than before.  And after all, the great mysteries of the universe will still be around for me to tackle if I wait one semester.

So this is my plan: I spend the semester living near Swarthmore but not attending classes.  I will support myself by doing full-time research for my advisor in the physics department, Michael Brown.  I need a job to pay the rent, and to provide some amount of structure to my life.  The job in itself is a wonderful opportunity; the work I do this semester will hopefully become part of my senior honors thesis.  But when I go home at 5 every evening, I won't have homework to do.  So I curl up in a chair and start plowing through books.  I have a large list compiled from every time I have a few seconds to look at what has been written on my questions.  Until now I've been too preoccupied with classes or with other activities during breaks to actually read them.  Now, I am finally devoting time to my list.

It is depressing to me that my quest seems so hopeless.  No one agrees how to solve Hume's Is/Ought problem, and wars continue to rage over the nature of God.  I take solace in the fact that everyone out there seems to be able to make decisions and get on with their lives.  That is why I wanted to create this website.  Why do you believe in the system of morals that you do?  How do you make decisions?  I hope that from the wisdom of others I will be able to end the semester a bit less confused that I feel today.  So please read my essays and let me know what you think.  Thanks.

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