Is the future predetermined? Can the future be predicted?
From a scientific perspective you can make the argument that it is and science is humanity's way to figure out how to predict it.
Science is about uncovering the factors that determine the flow of the world
After Christmas 2023 I finally had some time on my hands and decided that I wanted to create a simulation engine to simulate my partner Hannah's art with realistic physics. Her art is very much inspired by deep space and the deep sea and often times brings these subjects together. Both of these environments are completely unimaginable for humans. The vacuum and darkness of space equally as the crushing pressure and blinding darkness of the deep sea are environments we don't have intuition for, so I wanted to create an interactive simulation of what the mix of the two would actually feel like.
I started working on the most basic pieces of physics engines, implementing 3-dimensional space and the logics for objects of different shapes to interact with one another through collisions. I wanted to best represent the different shapes of nature, so I created cubes, spheres, spheroids, and others. I only then realized that for creating collision logics for all of these I'd have to devise unique implementations. But collisions were far from all that I wanted to represent. Yet, I also wanted to go deeper, understand the world as it actually interacts, through the electromagnetic attraction and repulsion of sub-molecular particles and gravitational forces. Implementing all of these for different types of objects, however, felt like a lot of work.
Lazy as I am I then looked into whether I could find a more generalistic way of implementing a physics engine, a way in which I could create a realistic simulation combining the major forces of our universe without needing to write unique implementations for every object. Trying to keep with DRY, as a software engineer would say. This got me interested in String Theory, a fascinating way of looking at the world as an abstract field of forces that interact with one another through vibration.
As I was building my small engine, I finally realized that physics is actually just about building the best possible simulation of our reality. Actually all of our science is. Understanding the root causes of our reality is the way in which we can create evermore realistic simulations of our reality.
As luck would have it, I'd meet Dana from Circonomit on the 1st of January 2024, with whom I shared my recent obsession and throughout our 4-hour walk through a random German forest we realized our shared passion for understanding the world through cause-and-effect relationships. We also agreed that we wanted to change the world by making it possible for everyone to understand all effects of their decisions so that better decisions can be made. This is how I ended up joining Circonomit as Co-founder.
Reconciling a deterministic world and the idea of free will
The idea of being able to simulate and predict the world stands in strong conflict with the idea of humans possessing free will. The case that humans don't have free will is pretty easily made:
Given that:
- The laws of Physics enable the clear prediction of how physical systems evolve - even if with probability distributions relating to quantum uncertainty and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
- Chemistry, biology, and all other sciences define rules that represent higher-level abstractions of the underlying physics of the systems they describe, meaning they can also be recursively decomposed to the fundamental physical interactions underlying them
- Human action (as a proxy for will) can be traced back to the chemical and biological interactions and processes occurring in their bodies, i.e. muscles are moved due to neurons firing, which in turn result from the reaction potentials and chemical disposition fo these neurons, etc.
There isn't really any "space" left in which "free will" could act and change the outcomes of these deterministic sequences of cause and effect to enable non-predictable, subjectively driven action.
Our human belief in our own free will is thus more the result of our minds rationalizing our actions after the fact, as we commonly do like psychological studies have proven.
Operating in a deterministic world
Even if from an objective, scientific perspective humans cannot claim to have free will, it changes nothing about the way we should approach our lives. It is interesting, however, to consider how absent truly free-will our lives are shaped and how we can have a hand in shaping them.
Let's look at how humans learn. Learning effectively is changing the connections of the neurons in our brains. This is something that happens automatically and is a consequence of the machinery of our neuronal biology. Activation sequences that repeat get stronger, ones that don't fade away. Psychological phenomena like the "mere exposure effect" show this in action: The more often we are exposed to certain ideas, the more likely we are to believe them. The more we are exposed to the same intitially novel environment the less we get nervous about it or even notice it. Even if we don't like it, exposure is learning.
What does this mean for our interactions with others?
Being exposed to others means their ideas and other effects will change your brain. Equally, any other ways in which we are exposed to anything beyond our brain will change our brain. This means that exposing yourself to others will change you but also the others.
In (company) politics many already understand this and use it to their advantage. But the same applies in our private lives.
Any moment we interact with others, we shape their minds. The ideas you share will change their mind (even just a little) - you're free to do with that responsibility what you like - hopefully something good, though.
TL;DR - my own main takeaways
Taking this perspective of a deterministic world without truely free will has provided me with additional conviction that:
- Who we surround ourselves with literally determines how our brain will be shaped - choose wisely
- Any time we meet someone we will affect their brain - we should choose wisely what we do with that responsibility
- If we understand what ideas and experiences our society gets exposed to, we can predict what outcomes will result
- If we had the means to measure the state of any subatomic particle at any moment, the theory to understand all cause-and-effect relationships, and the computing power to compute the effects of all subatomic particles, we would be able to create a perfect simulation of our universe. Something I'm fascinated to somehow make happen in the most MVP way possible.