Watch Time Disappear

When Sir Roger was a young man (yes), his university offered a soft course for the scientifically inquisitive but mathematically challenged called The History and Philosophy of Science.

Naturally this was universally and derogatorily referred to as “HissPiss”.

Sir Roger, therefore, as a Big Man On Campus, did not participate in this program but listened to his friends who did and has been fascinated by the discipline ever since.

And so he regularly shouts at the screen or the radio when philosophers tell him that there is no such thing as Free Will. Not because they are wrong but because their science is wrong.

They argue that everything in and about the Universe is predestined and that therefore nothing we think or do can change that. So much about this is wrong. Scientifically.

Their understanding of the universe is Newtonian with a scattering of late 19th century particle physics. Such as, for example that electrons are solid objects. Tiny, but solid. And that as solid objects they must behave as solid objects do. Those philosophers do please need to catch up.

Fundamental particles are not just objects. They’re energy which can manifest as either waves or particles but only when “collapsed” by an ‘observer’. Fundamental particles are not anywhere in particular (until observed) otherwise they are probabilities.

Until they are observed their range of probability is ‘anywhere in the universe’ regardless of the speed of light. 

Also, it is not possible to know simultaneously both the position and momentum of the particle.

All of this is about the uncertainty principle.

So how could you predict, say from today, how the universe was going to evolve? You would have to know where every fundamental particle in the entire universe was and where it was going and you would have to know that for all particles at the same precise instant. Which is not possible. And even if it was possible to gather, store and then compute the entire universe, you would need a computer that was many times the size of the actual universe itself.

And not only that but

1. if your computer could assemble all of the data of the universe (impossible as that is) at a specific time, it would have to organise those data and then run them, and by the time that was done your computer would be seriously lagging behind what was actually happening
2.  your computer cannot possibly catch up. It can’t run faster than the universe itself because the universe is running as fast as it’s possible to go
3.  if you wanted to use a different universe with a significantly faster speed of light to help your computer catch up with this universe, you would have to take that universe into account since it’s now interacting with this one, which makes it even more difficult
4. and in any case time is relative and is not the same in any two places.  

And we haven’t even talked about field energy and quantum vacuums where stuff materialises out of literally nothing. Or black holes which hide and effectively destroy information which it’s impossible to retrieve, which will screw up your total data collection exercise a bit.

So what’s left of this predetermination theory?

If they were right that everything that ever happens in the universe is inevitable and necessarily taking into account every single item in the universe:

• down to the very tiniest size possible—the Plank Length: 1.616255(18)×10⁻³⁵ metres
• and the shortest possible time—Plank Time: 5.391247(60)×10⁻⁴⁴ seconds
• and without taking into account the question of whether fundamental constants, such as the speed of light, or the gravitational constant, might change over time, or vary across the universe,
• and not taking into account, at all, Heisenberg‘s uncertainty principle which “implies that it is in general not possible to predict the value of a quantity with arbitrary certainty, even if all initial conditions are specified”
• or considering that there are an estimated 10 ⁸⁰ electrons in the observable universe to be included in the data sweep

 then the entire actual presumably-infinite (and therefore obviously impossible to calculate) future of the universe must be encapsulated in Moment Zero of the Big Bang.

And if that is the case it has already happened at the beginning.

And if that’s the case there is no need for Time at all.

And if there is no time then there is no Space-Time.

And if that’s the case there is therefore no Universe.

But there is a Universe. 

QED

So . . . 

The Universe is probabilistic but not predictable because the uncertainties multiply exponentially.

Therefore nothing is predetermined except . . .

. . . except that an event is determined only and precisely at the exact Plank moment that it occurs and no earlier. 

You might want to say that an event was inevitable, but its inevitability is only manifested precisely at the exact moment after it occurred and no earlier. 

None of this is an argument for Free Will. Or to free Willy. It is only a rebuttal of the HissPiss argument.  

It is also a rebuttal of the dreadful, hateful, ignorant, particularly – but not exclusively – Calvinist doctrine of ‘predestination’ which has royally screwed and crippled (not only) western culture for 500 years. That psychotic, murderous bastard has a lot to answer for. He is probably undergoing eternal therapy with his therapist, Dr Lucifer. Hope so. 

Briefly, then, despite what Darth Vader said, Luke Skywalker did not have, and you do not have, any “destiny” apart from the one you choose, and cause, for yourself.  

And we haven’t even discussed Consciousness.

Another day.