Is There Anything But Cause and Effect?
So you’re on a social networking website and you come across photos of those people who you have always envied. The people who always seemed have it better than you because they’re smarter, prettier, or hang out with the apparent smart crowd. You feel like shit because you never fit in or were outcast to them. This happens to everyone whether it be with the goths, the punks, or the preps and I’m sure you can imagine yourself wishing you were them for some reason or another. BUT DON’T.
These people are all different than you are. You see I’m a determinist, I believe that through a long chain of cause and effect that is somewhat incomprehensible for our brains to completely understand, we are what we are. We are essentially part what our biology says we are, part the experiences we have had, and 100% a product of the things that have indirectly or directly affected us. There is only one exception to this deterministic thinking which I don’t believe has been thoroughly understood to the point where it can be used as an argument, but Ill get to that later.
When thought about rationally it becomes blatantly clear that free will cannot exist. How would you define free will? The ability to chose what you do? Oh no no! You’re forgetting that the reason you do what you do is because of the things that effect you and essentially the things that make you feel good. You can’t and don’t chose anything, you’re merely a victim of your own circumstances according to a deterministic view of the world.
Why Should We Care?
To be a little bit more clear you shouldn’t be ashamed of whatever you are because there is literally no way it could have been different because you acted based on who you were at the time, not how you are now or are going to be. All a person can do is work with what they have at a certain time. Think about it, there are tons of situations you can recall and you may think to yourself, shit I should have done this! Or perhaps you think you should have acted in a different way, but the fact of the matter is you acted the way you did because of the things that were important to you at the time. So even though you might think back and wish you acted differently, you wouldn’t/couldn’t have because the same thought processes weren’t active that are right now. The things that dominate your thinking at this moment are completely different to that of the past so really whatever decision you made was the best from your point of view. Confusing? I know. I’ve spent far too much time thinking about it :]
You wouldn’t have reacted the same way after reading this if you had read it at a different time because your perspective would not be the same. Regardless of that fact you did read this at this time and are, by the laws of nature and the things that have effected you essentially FORCED to react the way that you did.
No one should be ashamed of what they are or aren’t. Although, because I don’t believe that anyone can act in any other different way than they did it’s pretty hypocritical of me to try and tell you not to think a certain way. I rationalize the reason I am here now by understanding that what I’m doing now is the only thing that I could be doing right now because of the things that (yet again) have directly and indirectly affected me. (sigh) I also rationalize that the reason you are here is because the factors that influenced your life lead you to stumble upon this blog. In any event I don’t think determinism is imposed. There cannot be randomness involved which would allow us all to have free will because we can calculate what happened in the past, and this also means that if we could scan every last force and particle in the universe we would be able to predict the future as well. Randomness: Our Lack of Understanding Turned Mystical. Sounds like a good title for my next article.
The Exception
This description of determinism that I have given you is about as complex as it gets. It really doesn’t get any more complicated than simple cause and effect but there is one fairly unexplored field which may disprove determinism entirely.
I’m speaking of the Quantum World, Quantum Physics, and particle physics. These incredible facets of science have done much to….confuse how we view reality. The quantum world is a strange one indeed, and is nearly impossible to completely understand. However the building blocks of these theories can be easily explained without mathematics HOORAY!. Simply put the (multi)universe is a sea of infinite POSSIBILITIES. There are theories that are beginning to point out to physicists that nothing happens, nothing takes place until an observer is involved in which case we have what we call reality. Until there is a mind or “the mind” observes the universe it is nothing but a “sea” of possibilities.
This is where things can become a little tricky. These insane wacky little quantum particles don’t obey ANY of the laws of physics that we can experience every day; Newton is pretty much shit out of luck when it comes to quantum mechanics. For example particles can be in many places at once as well as nowhere. Ultimately where they are or what they are doing is a huge infinite possibility until observed and that is essentially what destroys determinism. It is simply because we see these things as “random” and infinitely plausible in every way that defeats this philosophy. It is because we do not know how it could ever be calculated in a manner that would allow us to predict anything which makes it fundamentally incompatible with a deterministic view of things.
Like I said before, this is a very strange concept that even I have trouble understanding, it is one which needs more study to be proof of anything but it is sure as hell interesting.
So if you read this, know that you had to read this, you had to stumble upon this website due to the things that have happened to you in the past. It’s strange but this entire understanding of the universe can be brought back all the way to the start of time which leads to some incredible yet unanswerable questions from our perspective.
Good Luck!
