Philosophy is an interesting thing. Often, you’ll come up with some view or opinion entirely independently, then find out that there’s actually a name for exactly what you were thinking in philosophy. An example: a while ago I had a discussion about free will vs fate vs God. The person I was talking to said that she doesn’t understand a person can believe in fate and God, if God gave us free will. My response was that you can believe in fate at a physical level; everything that happens in the universe was bound to happen from the beginning of creation because the laws of physics are set and – like a set of dominoes toppling one another – everything has a theoretically predictable reaction. Or, as I put it then:

I mean, everything is a consequence of the next thing, right? Our choices are just chemical reactions; they’re just an illusion of choice. We do the things we do because the atoms are arranged in the right way. Everything that eventually happens, was always, from the start of the universe, going to happen with 100% probability.

The question is, how can that be compatible with God and free will? Well, the answer I gave then was somewhat vague:

You could believe that god giving us ‘free will’ simply means that he moved the responsiblity of the management of fate from himself, to the physical laws of the universe. Then god and fate can work, no? …

He gives up his ability to affect our choices, and thus gives us ‘free will’, to the degree that our fate us  governed by physics instead of himself.

I was recently reminded of this discussion and thought about it some more, and considered that perhaps, although we may not have free will at an atomic level (unless you consider quantum physics and uncertainty principles), we still make choices on a human level. It feels like we make choices when we make them. You could stop reading this paragraph right now. Although, technically, you were always going to if you did, you still make a choice. The world just isn’t simple enough for us to deny free will; if we did, who is responsible for evil? Physics? Without a concept of free will at a human level, is a tree falling on someone any different to someone being shot? Both actions would just be unfortunate accidents – the product of a series of events which were always going to happen. Moat was always going to go on that shooting spree, it’s not his fault! That might physically be true, but I feel that the concept of free will at a human level is vital for moral reasoning.

Then I found out about this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism_and_incompatibilism#Compatibilism. I wrote this blog after having read all about that so I may have mixed some of the new ideas/examples I read about in to my description of my original ideas, but I assure you that when I read this I basically thought “Well that sums up exactly what I think I think.” I’m sure you probably have your own ideas about all of this too, so which are you?

Incompatibilsm asserts that free will and determinism can’t go hand in hand and thus leads to libertarianism (free will exists, fate is not set), or hard determinism (no free will, fate is decided). There’s also hard indeterminism, which considers that physical events are not deterministic due to uncertainty in quantum mechanics, but the probability of our choices is still set and thus we still don’t have any free will. Compatibilism is essentially expressed by my view above, although I feel that it really depends on what type of free will you’re talking about. For any useful definition of free will in society, I agree with compatibilism. For a strict interpretation of free will, I think that hard indeterminism or hard determinism make more sense (I don’t feel I have enough understanding of quantum science to decide between the two).

That leaves me pretty unsure about everything really. What I usually do in this situation is doublethink my way in to a nice rosy place where everything works and I don’t have to look at the inconsistencies. Is everything in the universe determined (or, statistically the most likely situation)? Probably. Is that compatible with free will? Yes and no! What is free will? I’m not even sure any more, and I don’t think philosophers agree on a definition either. Does any of this work with the concept of God? I stopped caring at the third paragraph.

Problem solved!

There was a young girl named Sinéad,

Who was partial to cold lemonade.

But one day as she drunk,

She dropped dead with a thunk,

Drinking tetrasodium pyrophosphate.

I often find that people misuse the words “fact” and “theory” in relation to science, so I’ve decided to educate you on what exactly they mean. If you’re reading this, you probably don’t need this education but nevertheless I shall provide it anyway.

A “fact” is something that we observe. For example: we have a large number of fossils – fact. Dating systems place them as being formed many thousands of years in the past – fact. The bible says that Jesus walked on water – fact. These things are facts because there is no opinion or interpretation involved. They’re just statements describing what has been observed. Indeed, it is possible to perceive something falsely; it simply results in an untrue fact. Facts aren’t necessarily true, but they’re always either true or false, and this should be verifiable.

A “theory” is an explanation. Usually in the realms science, the ‘theories of the time’ are the best explanations for a given set of facts. So take the theory of Evolution: most scientists agree that it’s the best explanation for the vast wealth of its evidence, but it’s not the only one worth considering. Take “God did it” for example. It’s conceivable that the evidence is the result of God trying to mislead us and test our faith. Flies mutating in labs and antibiotic resistant bacteria strains might simply exist for the very purpose of leading us off-track, or perhaps these phenomena only exist in short time frames and can’t be extrapolated millions of years back in time. Perhaps the world was created half an hour ago and all of our memories concerning evolution were crafted by aliens and entirely false.

Those are also theories, but are they the best theories? No. They rely on facts which can’t be categorically proven or disproven, whereas the current theory of evolution does not. Even though none of those theories are fact, that doesn’t mean the theory of Evolution is “just a theory” (even though it technically is) or “unproven”. Most people who say “just a theory” are usually mixing up ‘theory’ and ‘hypothesis’; one being usually the best explanation science has to offer for observed phenomena, and the other being an idea which has yet to be proven beyond a reasonable degree of doubt.

However, as mentioned earlier, verifiability is very important. Let us take the Jesus walking on water example. “Jesus walked on water” is a fact, as reported by the bible, but can it be verified? Not today. However, given the options – Jesus actually walked on water, Jesus faked it, and Jesus didn’t walk on water – Jesus actually walking on water requires that he break the laws of physics as we know them. Thus (in my opinion), one of the other theories provides the best explanation of the fact that the bible reports that Jesus walked on water. This doesn’t mean all historical evidence should be discounted, but – however nice it would be to believe that everything we have ever written is a true and honest account of reality – historical evidence should only be accepted alongside multiple separate accounts or other tangible evidence.

So, as you continue your life, remember to keep the concept of fact distinctly separated from theory. Never jump straight to conclusions. Lipstick on your husband’s face when he gets home from work doesn’t mean he’s been cheating on you, it means he has lipstick on his face. His theory is as good as yours unless you can bring some more facts to the table. Not that that’s relevant to me or anything. That’s just an example of analytical thinking.

Yeah.