Not to plan

Do you ever believe that you have thought something out and that it should go exactly according to plan? Never kid yourself because that will never be the case. I feel so naïve sometimes for my foolishness with regard to such “planning,” as anything involving the heart cannot be planned nor dictated. What happens happens, perhaps for a reason.

I was listening to NPR today and heard the most wonderful excerpt from a poem by someone whose name I swore to remember. Remember I did for all of twenty minutes, at which time I inadvertently forgot to write the name down and completely flushed it from memory. There was an excellent part about the heart and mind, the mind always attempting to understand the blind decisions made by the heart. It was said so perfectly and eloquently. A perfect description of my current state (of heart and mind). Overcoming the battle is as or more difficult than simply allowing one or the other to tend to matters at hand. (You have to love my sidestepping, nebulous manner of describing my psyche at present without divulging many details.)

Anyway, I recently entered into a huge discussion/thought process with some friends over the nature of the universe, questions of religion and God aside. If indeed the universe exists with the certain physical laws describing how matter and energy interact, then I posited that given Newton’s three laws of physics, the Big Bang prescribed exactly how all matter would interact forever on the basis of cause and effect. All matter interacts in a specific manner, so if one were to somehow know the current location and mass of all particles in the universe with respect to time, one would be able to predict the future course of events. This scientific predestination of sorts was totally unsettling when it came to mind because I know myself to be self-aware and in control of my surroundings. My friends agreed that destiny could not be true based on this premise, but I argued that despite our consciousness and neural complexity, our matter is still governed by the physical laws of the universe. Although we make choices and react to stimuli, our bodies simply exist as a complex construct through which normal physical processes still occur—all our reactions based on cause and effect all the way down to the subatomic particles from which we are composed. This premise, of course, only relies on classical mechanics, and ignores events that happen at a more fundamental, quantum level. Quantum mechanics introduces some uncertainty at the very small regions of space. For example, one cannot know the exact position and momentum of a particle in space, as given by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Although I cannot say for sure with my knowledge, this may lead to higher, macro-level effects that turn causality on its head. Perhaps a way out?

With my unrest over this theory, I conjured up methods to overcome causality. Time travel seemed a scintillating possibility, but I figured that the fourth dimension still existed within the realm of cause and effect. Any time travel would be the effect of some precursor, so any future or past affected by travel from the present would still be accounted. (So much for causality loop violations!) Another notion was interaction with other universes with different physical laws—the interaction would be chaotic at best and might even be unpredictable. Without a more detailed knowledge of our universe, that which contains our universe, and the underlying dimensions (if any), I can only hypothesize.

Even though the idea of predestination gives me great pause, I have come to realize that we are still self-aware beings in control of our destiny—we still make informed decisions based on our individual thought processes. The outcome may or may not be governed by “fate,” but I am still me, and I made the choices. This concept is difficult to explain, but one can think of it as a duality of sorts (similar to the wave-particle duality of light): our future is certain, but we are still the beings that are making that future what it is meant to be. Scary, but still comforting. Many find solace in believing that some force is at work that guides our lives and gives us purpose. Personally, I find that to be naïve and ignorant: the easy way out.

Above, I said that what happens happens, perhaps for a reason. I not one to believe in such “reason” as that implies some outside influence on our universe and its happenings (which ironically would be an easy escape from predestination, much to the chagrin of Calvinists). I am sure I could go on forever writing about this huge philosophical topic, but sodium ions have traveled down my billions of neural connections in response to viewing the time and have dictated that I stop and complete some homework due tomorrow. Alas, I leave you with that thought.