Determinism – a scientific theory of destiny?
What if a man walked up to you and told you that everything in the universe was determined to occur. That everything that happens, light, matter, how stars spin and get created, all of it was already determined from the onset. Would you think this man is an agent of God? How about a scientist? Some astronomers would say yes, this is absolutely true.
It’s long known that philosophers have been debating this topic for many years. Part of this debate is the concept of free will, do we have it or not. I am not going into the philosophical arguments of determinism. That has been widely covered by philosophers and websites of both eastern and western traditions. What I find to be most curious is the astronomical argument in favor of it.
Now, I may be speaking a bit out of school here. I’m not astronomer or philosopher. And whereas the implications of one argument having anything to do with the other are great, I am making no assertions that the two disciplines are in anyway arguing for or against the other’s position.
That said, this is what the astronomers are talking about. It all goes back to the double-slit experiment and a man named John Archibald Wheeler. In a nut shell, after a photon of light passes through a double split, a researcher can change how the particle was detected. You really can’t boil down a scientific theory to one sentence and have it hold water, for an in-depth write up of it look here.
What this has to do with determinism is this. I recently read another article, which I have been desperately trying to find again on the Internet, where two scientists propose a test of this proposition. Again, this is really a growth from an idea from Wheeler. A double slit experiment on an astronomical scale. Basically, take two very large telescopes and conduct this experiment with light emitted from another star.
The basic argument here is the path of the particle to the telescope is already determined when the light left the star in the first place. It already knew which telescope was going to detect it. It was determined.
Now, I’m sure I’ve gotten some of the above points incorrect. I’m no scientist. I am sure of the end result of the experiments, I am not sure of the exact nature of the experiments. The end result is, if true, the workings of the universe were all determined to occur in a very set way.
What does this mean? In a nut shell, it means the universe is pre-determined to act out it’s life from start to finish. What’s astounding to me is that this may very well be a scientifically provable position. What would the implications of that be to religion and our place in the universe? All sorts of questions ranging from Free Will to Atheism come under fire.
I am waiting on bated breath to see what may come of such experiments. Whether or not this turns out to be true could radically redefine our understanding of the world. The “final theory” or theory of everything that scientists have long been seeking, many think that string theory is a candidate, may one day show that determinism is part of our universe.
I am often reminded of one my favorite quotes from Peter O’Toole in a 1985 movie called Creator where he said, “it’s said that once science peers over the great mountain of mystery, it will find religion has been sitting there all along”. I don’t know if that will be true, and I’m not a religious person, but it’s something to think about.
Read about determinism in philosophy here: http://www.mb-soft.com/believe/text/determin.htm
Read about determinism in science here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/
