Is there a god/chaos or is it all destiny

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

hello,

I was recently talking to a friend about our universe and he said somthing that i found kinda unsettling. His argument was basically twofold.

first premis was: that if you could map everything in the universe down to each atom and had a computer that could tell the most likely out come of each event. He said this because as everything must follow the laws of nature you could (theoretically) work out everything this has and will ever happen. THis would me that there was no human choice involved as everything that happens not only happens for a reason but happens because it could not happen any other way. That to me sounds a little like the use of dialectics in marxism, but it leaves me feeling bad becasue it means we have no power over our lives, everything is pre-destined.

second premis was: there was somthing that was outside the laws of nature (chaos) that could never be calculated. My friend said, that this if it was the correct view would not neccessarily mean there was a god, just somthing that does not abide by the laws of our universe. that though sounds really unscientific and a little faith based. this too i did not like to hear because it feels like there is somthing that controls us.

I know this probably is not very co-herent, but I have never done philosophy or anything so i do not know the technical terms.

however all i would really like to know is, is there a marxist view on thinking about out existence on this scale? and if so, what is it? and if not, what do you all think.

thanks very much in advance.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Chaos, if it exists, is necessarily not outside the laws of nature, nor is unpredicibility incompatible with causality.
Secondly, it's almost certain that there is no human "freedom" in a scientific sense - not necessarily so that anything is predestined (and even if it were, it would be far beyond our ability to ever calculate) - but the idea that we could somehow be free of the physical laws governing the brain is a little, well, silly.
I think what is important, however, is the question of social freedom, and reconciling social freedom, equality, and human social development with the realities of our physical universe.

Just some quick thoughts on the way to bed.

[Guest1]

That wouldn't be a dialectical view of the universe it all, it would be a formalistic, idealist approach.

Chaos shows that there is room for accident in the universe, because everything moves, down to the electrons and smaller particles which cannot be mapped or predicted accurately. However, when you move from looking at singular particles upwards, you find that apparently random movements actually have patterns to them, which can be predicted to varying degrees of accuracy. While we can never map every atom in a cloud of gas or predict those individual atoms' behaviours, we can accurately predict the movement of the cloud, based on solid laws.

Dialectics doesn't preclude accident or necessity, it holds that necessity expresses itself through accident. But by accident it means, not completely lawless events, it means events that are too complex to predict and trace all the factors for.

There's a middle ground between predicting everything, and throwing science out the window, you know.

[Gnosis]

All things happen in relation to all other things.

Without that relationship, nothing would occur at all.

It is possible to know all that has ever happened, all that is happening, and all that will happen from a vantage point which is much more involved than the every-day superficial human approach to the universe.

That does not mean one is not "in control" of one's self.

But the question must be asked, Who am I?

Am I who I think I am?

The you whom you call yourself, that person who you think you are, that ego which you subscribe to, that image is not you.

You are not "human", though you are at the same time.

Your humanity is but one tiny fraction of the reality of your existence.

The truth of your existence is the whole of your existence.

And it is ever changing.

And in that there is stability.

Control is in, and you are it, but you are not in control.

The control is you, the power of the universe is you, it is every part of you, it is in harmony with itself, and that self you are one with, but you are not it.

You are but a tiny fraction of it.

So in a way, you do have control over yourself, but that "you" is not your human identity.

You may know you, the you who is larger than you.

Think of this: You (your human body) and You (your environment) and one and inseperable.

What is outside is inside and what is inside is outside.

You (environment) control yourself (your human identity).

And you (human identity) control yourself (environment).

The power is displayed an enacted and made manifest in relation to itself, it will always effect itself, all pieces control all other pieces as without the others, the pieces do not exist.

Wheels turn on all levels and in turing turn other wheels, all the wheels which bring the chariot of change on which stability rides.

That incalcuable thing, it is you.

If it controls you, then you are controling yourself, even if you see that incalcuable thing as not yourself.

Nothing is not you.

You are God.

[encephalon]

chaos is simply order of a degree in which the connections between cause and effect seem lost to us.

We cannot determine the correct path of miniscule particles because the act of observing those particles itself erratically disturbs them. It's akin to putting on a wetsuit, jumping into the ocean and trying to figure out where a grain of salt is going next as you chase it. You can predict the probability of how it might flow based on the current, but the very act of observing it--which changes every time you observe it, even though youu can't reliably record the changes involved--destroys its normal behavior.

There's no such thing as random. Period. It seems random or chaotic because we are incapable of calculating each and every variable in any given effect.

In any case, there's no reason to be disturbed or depressed about it. If you have free will, then you will do as you do. If you don't have free will, then you will do as you do. It's really a pointless thing to get upset about.

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

I believe in something not a white christian god but something thats where I stand

[KC]

first premis was: that if you could map everything in the universe down to each atom and had a computer that could tell the most likely out come of each event. He said this because as everything must follow the laws of nature you could (theoretically) work out everything this has and will ever happen. THis would me that there was no human choice involved as everything that happens not only happens for a reason but happens because it could not happen any other way. That to me sounds a little like the use of dialectics in marxism, but it leaves me feeling bad becasue it means we have no power over our lives, everything is pre-destined.

Sure! If we knew everything about the universe, and if we programmed a computer to know where every atom is at every point in time then there wouldn't be any random events. But that is saying a lot. First off, to be able to do this, we would need to know everything. That is impossible. There is just too much to know. C y M made a great response to this, about the movement of electrons and atoms.



second premis was: there was somthing that was outside the laws of nature (chaos) that could never be calculated. My friend said, that this if it was the correct view would not neccessarily mean there was a god, just somthing that does not abide by the laws of our universe. that though sounds really unscientific and a little faith based. this too i did not like to hear because it feels like there is somthing that controls us.

This is simply untrue. We have found nothing that has gone against the laws of nature.

[Xvall]

I agree with your friend. I've discussed this notion with someone on another board, actually. I didn't agree with it at first, simply because I was ignoring logic and did not want to think that I had no free will.

Yes, it is possible, but I believe it is next to impossible that we could develop any kind of entity that is capable of keeping track of every single thing that is going on in the universe. (And it would also have to identify every single thing that has happened at every point of the universe in the past.)

It makes sense, though. Everything it just the result of past actions that have occured for whatever reason. If time was set back a couple of days, and everyone's memory was set exactly to that point in time, there is no reason that anything would change at all. You would have done the same things, had the same conversation with your friends, processed the information and reacted the way you did as a result of your psychological nature that has been developed over the years, posted this same thread, and recieved these exact same responses, including this one.

It is essentially "fate", in a way, though I do not use that word as it usually implies religion or mysticism. Inevitability is the term that I would use. Our futures are, in a manner, mapped out, though attempting to identify them is, at this point, impossible, and just thinking about the complications of being able to map it out will probably make your head hurt.

[Xvall]

I wait for the day in which there will be nothing at all.

[encephalon]

actually, I entirely forgot about the 2nd premise your friend gave, which I find as absolutely false as well (or, at least, lacking evidence). One could bring up the point, however, that in order for humans to have free will, there must necessarily be something outside the laws of nature that allow them to act outside of cause and effect.

[Xvall]

It's really a pointless thing to get upset about.

I agree with this sentiment. I feel as though, scientifically, there is no free will. But since we feel like we have it, we might as well pretend and take responsibility for our actions, even if they were inevitable.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

(First, an aside - my friend Ala once got very upset over this. It was at that point I realized I was totally dating a damned existentialist . . .)

Hey, second time I've posted this here - an essay I wrote about a year ago. I haven't read it since, so I can't vouch for the form, but, as I recall, I still roughly agree wit the content.

Regarding freedom and determinism:

Though not widely accepted, the behavior of all humans is strictly determined by forces beyond their control and understanding. This is a direct result of causality, and is backed by a body of empirical data; the arguments against this position rely, often, on twisting definitions, or unashamed irrationalism. First, then, before examining the matter itself, and the arguments surrounding, it is crucial to lay out one or two understandings of differently applied words.
The most contentious terminology, “Free will,” and “Freedom,” will be used in the sense the sense that Blatchford uses them, meaning “[For one’s will to be] free of all control or interference.”1 Another term will be used to refer to freedom as described by Stace and soft determinists. This dichotomy, will, naturally, be further explained when considering soft determinist arguments against the above thesis. “Mind,” will be accepted as a description of the experience of consciousness, as opposed to some metaphysical “other,” which affects the physical body.
At first, the proposal that one’s will is not free may seem absurd, “[The average man] knows that he chooses between two courses every hour, and often every minute, and he thinks the choice is free.”2 What we must ask, however, is what exactly occurs in process of choosing. In ones mind, one might turn over and judge the choices, but is the mind actually affecting the process of choosing? It has been shown that our thoughts are paralleled, by electrical activity in the brain. The work of Doctor Penfield suggests, more than that, that electrical activity in the brain, and our thoughts are inalienable. If the mind, then, is an effect of the physical brain, we can apply a secular Occam’s Razor and rule out from our model an “other” nonphysical part, separate from the brain, which somehow affects the brain and chooses. If we accept that in the realm of the physical all things are caused, it would follow that the action of the physical brain is caused, and, therefore, choices, occurring within the brain, are likewise the product of physical causation and not some higher dictating power/consciousness. Choice, as we know it then, is an illusion; not, necessarily, because we could never choose any other way as asserted by Blatchford (This is untestable), but because the process of choosing is itself illusory.
Stace, however, dismisses this as irrelevant because he concerns himself with the different matter of external freedom. The argument follows that choices are free, or not free, according to circumstance. He cites several examples, then sums up, saying:

We have now collected a number of cases of actions which, in the ordinary usage of the English language, would be called cases in which people have acted of their own free will. We should also say in all these cases that they chose to act as they did. We should also say that they could have acted otherwise, if they had chosen. For instance, Mahatma Gandhi was not compelled to fast; he chose to do so. He could have eaten if he had wanted to. When Smith went out to get his lunch, he chose to do so. He could have stayed and done some work, if he had wanted to. We have also collected a number of cases of the opposite kind. They are cases in which men were not able to exercise their free will. They had no choice. They were compelled to do as they did. The man in the desert did not fast of his own free will. He had no choice in the matter. He was compelled to fast because there was nothing for him to eat.3

By appealing to the “ordinary usage,” Stace sidesteps the matter at hand entirely. That is because Stace’s “ordinary usage” concerns itself, not with the question of an individual’s ability to actively choose between two options, internally - e.g. “I would like to eat / I would not like to eat” - but the external, typically social, question what one can or cannot do - the contrasting “I can eat / I am prevented from eating.” The latter is a different matter entirely, as it does not relate to whether or not our actions are determined, but to our interaction with the outside world. If we use Hospers’s hand-washer, briefly, as an example he is, in terms of the original issue, without free will. Soft determinism, however, would maintain that he is free as long as he has access to a sink and is able to obey his compulsion, and unfree when some external thing, animal vegetable or mineral prevents him from washing his hands. This is all well and good, but a different matter entirely, our initial problem not concerning itself with manifesting “the will” within the world in terms of action, but in terms of “the will” itself.
Some soft determinists have also attacked claims by Blatchford and others who share his outlook by attacking the idea that, given that all things are caused, they can therefore be predicted (“We all know that we can foretell the actions of certain men in certain situations, because we know the men,”4). They cite the limits of “heredity and environment,” or suggest that the universe has a tendency toward entropy and unpredictability which makes human action impredictable. This assertion is very likely correct, but, again, it is periphery to the crux of the question. While Blatchford might be bothered, impredictability does not undermine causation or determinism.
Self-determinists, or advocates of “Agency” argue that we may be independent causal agents - that the individual, an alienable force, may act freely of antecedent conditions, while acting to create other forces. Richard Taylor says:

The only conception of action that accords with our data is one according to which men—and perhaps some other things too—are sometimes, but of course not always, self-determining beings; that is, beings which are sometimes the causes of their own behavior.5

Unfortunately, this relies on the idea of a self which is free from the laws of causality. It implies, as Taylor confesses, “Two rather strange metaphysical notions that are never applied elsewhere in nature.” 6 The first of these is that there is an actual self - not simply as a construct, or product of the action of the brain, but as something intangible yet real. Since this complicates matters, is untestable, and fails to provide any answers beyond that already provided by the idea that the mind is not an agent to itself, it is reasonable to dismiss this as irrelevant and unnecessary until the presentation of some new evidence in its favour. The second notion is that events can by caused by nonevents. While this cannot be ruled out immediately, there is no credible evidence that this is the case. On similar grounds, it is rational to dismiss the more extreme, and, ultimately antirational, inderterminsim.
What though, are the practical implications of the rejection of free will? How would such a conclusion affect our society, as opposed to current dominant conceptions of the free individual? First and foremost, it demands we reassess our understandings of responsibility. After all, to if our choices are not made freely, to what degree might we be held accountable for them? It demands we address matters, of crime and other social ills no longer in a reactionary manner, but instead, by taking proactive action to undermine the root causes of problems. It means the building of institutions along new lines that reflect an understanding of people not as aloof, alienable, agents, but as part of a holistic universe, and society. Though we cannot say for certain what it might look like, it would very likely be organized on lines drastically different than those of the largely individualist, “retribution-as-justice” based society which we currently inhabit.
In closing, there is reasonable grounds to believe the behavior of all humans is strictly determined. The arguments against this position from various sides are, often, limited or irrational. The actual implications of the rejection of free will are, at the very least, radical.

Footnotes

1Blatchford, Robert. "The Delusion Of Free Will" (Philosophy: Contemporary Perspectives On Perennial Issues., 1994) 112.

2Ibid. 112.

3Stace, W.T. "The Problem Of Free Will" (Philosophy: Contemporary Perspectives On Perennial Issues., 1994) 121

4Blatchford, Robert. "The Delusion Of Free Will" (Philosophy: Contemporary Perspectives On Perennial Issues., 1994) 115.

5Taylor, Richard. "Freedom and Determinism" (Philosophy: Contemporary Perspectives On Perennial Issues., 1994) 132.

6Ibid. 133.

[Gnosis]

encephalon had a good point.