Thoughts About Free Will And Predestination
69
I
have no intention of writing a thesis about free will and
predestination. This is just the ramblings of an average guy who thinks
a little bit about life and should be pretty easy reading for most.
I’m sure this is a subject that many of you have thought about, perhaps
when things don’t go your way, or when you are faced with a major
life-changing decision.
Before
getting our feet wet, let’s talk a little about predestination. There
are two views on the meaning of predestination. The first view is more
religious, with a meaning that relates to a person’s destiny. The
general idea is that a person is born to fulfill a certain destiny, a
certain path in life that he is supposed or predestined to take. The
second view is scientific, relating to how predictable the future is.
As
I do not even know whether it was Abel who killed Cain, or Cain who
killed Abel, I think I would be better off talking about predestination
in the scientific sense.
The
most natural and logical place to start would be with Newton’s
classical universe. In his universe, everything is 100% predictable.
Take two billiard balls, representing the smallest possible particles. In such a universe, so long as you know everything there is to know
about the billiard balls at a certain point in time, you can extrapolate
indefinitely into the past and the future. You will know exactly where
the balls have been and where they will be, whether it is a minute, a
year, or a million years, in the past or into the future.
Our
universe has a lot more billiard balls. Assuming the model of Newton’s
universe is correct, despite the much larger number of billiard balls,
our universe is no less predictable than a universe with 2 billiard
balls. Our universe is still 100% predictable indefinitely into the
past and the future.
And
when you consider that we are also part of this universe, and that we
are also made of these same 100% predictable billiard balls, does that
not make us also 100% predictable?
Current
scientific opinion has moved away from the idea of a billiard ball
which is 100% knowable. The billiard ball, although still knowable to a
very large extent, contains a slight fuzziness. In other words, we
still can know everything there is to know about the billiard ball, but
with a very slight margin of error. This margin or fuzziness is built
into the character of the billiard ball itself. To bring God into the
picture for a moment, I would like to say that even God himself cannot
iron out the fuzziness.
I
would think that it is probably a combination of free will and
predestination at work in our lives. We have no control over where we
are born, who our parents are, and how we were brought up. That is
predestination, or the destiny that we were born into. If we were born
into a poor, uneducated family in a poor country, then we are destined
to die poor and uneducated, and probably even in the same village that
we were born in.
But
we can exercise our free will to rise above our circumstances. We can
be more than what our destiny says we should be. It will be difficult,
and many will fail, but I believe that it is in our very nature to try.
And perhaps, if there is a creator, and all of this is his masterpiece,
then perhaps this is the way it is meant to be.
CommentsLoading...
chinemeremz - Thanks! Although I'm not quite sure that Newton meant for his Second Law Of Motion to be applied in this particular way. But if it serves to inspire and to replace poverty with wealth and failure with success, I don't think he would mind. :)
You took on a challenge of a very tough and deeply philosophical topic. Your hub lends itself to great discussions that get us all to think. Science needs to base it's theories on preciseness and predictability. Nature is flawed and we are all part of nature, so if predestiny exists it may have flaws. Maybe it is our free will that is supposed to fix these flaws. Great hub! Rated up
Excellent thought-provoking hub and thanks for sharing this food for thought with us. It's a timely reminder for all of us as we live in very uncertain times that we have a personal responsibility to take control of our lives rather than live indifferently and always just accepting what happens around us and thinking that we can't influence our own lives to make it a better one for all of us. Thanks for sharing your wonderful message.
toknowinfo - If God created this world, I can't believe that its end is already known at the time of creation. It would truly be an exercise in futility. So, I carry on, living my life the best way I know how, and hoping that when all is said and done, I made a difference. :)
Hi Wandererh,
Excellent and well thought out perspective. You don't have to "hope" you made a difference, You have made a difference! The only hope we all can have, is that we made a big enough positive difference to effect the generations in the future. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. :)
Perfectly worked through hub. Thank you. Ver thought-provoking
richtwf - Your comment reminds me of people who believe in fate. Every time something bad happens to them, they shrug their shoulders and attribute it to fate. I wonder what they will say if I were to tell them that they might actually be avoiding taking responsibility for their lives.
I have been struggling to "overcome" my own predetermined "destiny" of coming out of the poor life. My freewill is there and guiding me, but over and over I get "put back in my place" because of my lack of wealth. It is a difficult struggle and I prefer to not see it as destiny or predetermined but that rather that I am a product of my environment, and must hold true to my freewill to remove myself from the environment that keeps me down!
Whikat - Thanks! I'm not sure about making "a big enough positive difference to effect the generations in the future.", for now, I only try to make a difference one person at a time. :)
Hello, hello, - Thanks! :)
I think that trying to make a difference one person at a time has a better effect, than trying to change a crowd all at once. I believe in the ripple effect. :)
Perhaps from the quantum physics point-of-view, we are every possibility, past, present and future NOW...
Jeremey - I can identify with you and I know it's not easy. Whenever you take a step forward, something happens to pull you back. Not sure if it is relevant in your case, but sometimes, you are the one holding yourself back.
I have a piece of an upcoming hub about the fear of change or coming out of your comfort zone which, again, I don't know if it is relevant:
"But the fear mentioned here is not that type of fear, it is a more insidious type of fear. It hides deep inside of you, so that even you do not know that it is there. But it will make its presence felt every time we step out of our comfort zone into uncharted territory. It will do whatever it can to keep us where we are, comfortable and safe, but ultimately, stagnant."
Come to think of it, you say that you are a product of your environment. Perhaps you are brought up in a poor environment and programmed to think poor. Maybe you have been approaching things wrongly. Maybe you have been approaching things from the perspective of a poor person. Perhaps you can see how to approach things from a rich person's perspective.
Anyway, just my two cents. :)
Whikat - You're right. And anyway, it will be much more difficult to change a crowd. :)
dallas93444 - Don't get me started on quantum physics. :) But it does seem that the facade that we call reality is starting to unravel. Science is discovering things that it cannot explain, not by a long shot.
These are the mysteries of life which make life itself interesting. Probably it would take ages before many of tham are solved. However it is fully worth discussing and comparing notes. A very interesting topic I would say. Thanks for starting this discussion. :)
I wonder if some of the questions can ever be resolved. But it is going to be very interesting to try. :)
It may be 7 months from the last comment and was it predestined I should find your hub now, who knows, but for sure it was great to read it and thanks for putting it together for us.
Hope all is well with you and yours.
Kind regards
Alan
alanlsg - Maybe you were destined to find my hub exactly the moment that you did, and maybe you were meant to write those exact same comments and I was meant to reply with this exact same words.
But then again, maybe not. :)
chinemeremz Level 2 Commenter 18 months ago
Thanks Wander for this beautiful and well laid out hub. Now if I should add, on the issue of predestination; going by Newton's Second Law of Motion which states that "to every action there's an equal and opposite reaction" now going by your assertion and backing it with what Newton propounded: if you are hit by poverty, hit poverty back by becoming wealthy, if you are always faced with failures and limitations, overcome this by attracting success and buoyancy in your life. Our destinies lie in our hands, the only thing we need to do is take charge of our lives. Thanks for this I really enjoyed it.