Is our Universe Deterministic?

Philosophy Forums Science, Technology, and Math
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I’d like to kick-off my time here with this question. I think the answer is yes, for two reasons. Firstly, the theoretical physicists tell us confidently that space-time exists “all in one go,” as opposed to being something that unfolds. I can’t see how, if the future is “already there,” that things could do anything other than their pre-determined “thing” at any given (local) time. Secondly, putting aside relativity, if everything in the universe - irrespective of its complexity - is made entirely of mass-energy whose behaviour is wholly dictated to by the forces of nature, then what mechanism could be at work which could cause the particles to take different routes? truly random. My hunch is that the so-called randomness in QP is in fact a yet-unknown deterministic mechanism.]

What do you lot think? Is there anyone here who believe the universe is non-deterministic, and if yes, do you need to invoke immaterial things (eg, a “soul”) in order to explain why?

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Hi Chimney Sweep:

This is a popular question here at ILP. It appears to me that the answers are fundamentally based on belief systems.

Usually this is approached from Causality. One belief system thinks that all phenomena are causal and thus deterministic. (Personally, I question whether or not the conclusion is justified from the premise). The other is typified by a quality poster named Polemarchus. He writes: “Nothing happens for a reason. Things happen. And they happen whether or not we’re able to discover a reason why they happened. Things don’t wait around for us to come up with reasons before they happen - they just happen. Events preceede the explanations we devise for them, that is, when we manage to explain them at all. Phenomena do not abide by our laws; we make our laws to account for the phenomena”.

My personal opinion is that our models only work when we significantly restrict the domain of consideration.

Addressing your question more directly, some obvious things are Black Holes. They are singularities in the “fabric of space”.

Consider the single most obvious question that Physics can ask: how much does it weigh? The standard answer for our Universe is only off by 90%. Missed by just that much! (In honor of Maxwell Smart)

If you are trying to solve simple real life problems, you will find that, frequently, the solutions to the differential equations that theoretically govern particle behavior, have singularities or don’t exist at all.

Very simple resistance forces frequently can not be adequately modeled.

Some of the problems can become very complex. How would you solve the N body problem where all four forces are at play? To my knowledge there is no solution. In fact I do not believe that we can find the solution for a feather falling to the ground when we allow for air resistance.

Then there is Chaos Theory. You can check out the classic book by James Glick entitled “Chaos Making A New Science”. It will become evident that most macro phenomena are chaotic.

All of these comments regarding our current models can be overcome by simply objecting to the fact that we don’t have adequate models of how the Universe actually works.

I think that I can even overcome this objection. The following is from a previous post on ILP concerning determinism.

However, just for fun, I have been thinking about the possibility that determinism is logically inconsistent on its own ground.

I have been wondering if the belief in determinism could be analogous to the belief in axiomatic theoretical systems; and whether or not Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem might apply.

The following is a sketch of the idea.

Begin sketch

We will let the base elements of this “logic” be the spatial x, and temporal t, standard coordinate system, because determinism predicts events happening at a place and time. (This corresponds to the integers in Godel‘s Theorem).

The operators here will be the standard addition and multiplication. (These are identical to the operators in Godel’s Theorem).

We will say that r is the cause of event ej if and only if there is a predecessor event ei such that some governing dynamic which will force ei to become ej. r could be the solution to a differential equation governing a particle at (x,t). Now we let R is the set of all r‘s plus and standard logical transformation rules. (This corresponds to the transformational rules in Godel’s Theorem).

For notational purposes I will denote E as the class of all the events which will happen or that have happened. (This corresponds to the true mathematical statements).

If I can apply Godel’s theorem, then there would exist an eN in E such that eN is not the effect of any ej. (In Godel’s terminology eN is not demonstrable)

End sketch

The conclusion is that there exists some event which will happen, and this event is not the result of some other event.

While this consequence by itself is not overwhelming, the hard core fundamental belief that everything that happens must be the consequence of something else can not stand.

I think that I can extend this result to an entire class of events without much additional work

Any way welcome and I hope you enjoy your time here at ILP.

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I mean, when you really break it down… we don’t have a really good idea of what’s going on at all.

Cartwright tells us that science is more of a patchwork, most of the more advanced theories you stumble across in the natural sciences are more geared towards a vaccuum type scenario. Most of them don’t even translate over when you really look at it… if you were to go from say… chemistry to physics.

Science is a patchwork, and so I think that if we’re to truly answer these questions… questions like the one in this thread we have to unite the different sciences. Cartwright talks of the ‘numological machine’ as the answer to this. A type of filter if you will… for common grounds in the different sciences.

Take gravity for instance… there are many sound alternate theories to gravity, including the ‘shadow gravity’ theory that we’ve seen alot around ILP. Why do pendulums slow down in a solar eclipse? Is it because there isn’t no ‘slingshot’ force like gravity posits? I’m not gonna get into this again here… but I feel like determinism and stuff like that, it’s so far out of grasp that in looking that far ahead… we actually blind ourselves in a way.

any thoughts?

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Hi Old_Gobbo:

I 100% agree with your closing comment “but I feel like determinism and stuff like that, it’s so far out of grasp that in looking that far ahead… we actually blind ourselves in a way.” Additionally I agree with the patchwork comments, though personally I think they are vague at the boundaries.

Perhaps I am over sensitive to it, but I think that too many people take the domain in which a given model works and try to extend it beyond the point where it will carry any weight.

Thanks for the post.

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It’s funny because you hear people say things like 'Com’n… the universe is just way too complex to have just ‘happened’.

But when you really look at it, that’s such a race centric statement. I find that we as humans place way too much pride in ourselves as creatures. We’re frail, weak and slightly smarter than those around us - but perhaps there is an Alien race out there that can easily explain the big questions we wonder about. Perhaps we have a dualistic nature about us that seems to create these things like ‘free will/determinism’, when in reality the universe operates in quite a different manner.

Science advances… it’s not a question of if we got it wrong, but a question of how much.

The real question I always wonder about is - what happens when we’ve got it all? Science is a ladder to the heavens… but I mean, mortality is alot more fun
:smiley:

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Thanks for the long reply, Ed3.

I accept that ultimately we’ll probably never know the universe “in itself” but even with my inherently limited capacity to understand I can’t imagine how anything could be fundamentally non-deterministic. Polemarchus might be right, but I’m not gonna bank on it.

[I need to look up Gödel’s Incompleteness Theory…]

And as Old_Gobbo says, science is a patchwork of theories (nice description!) which don’t yet hang together in a perfect whole, so working out what all these deterministic things should be isn’t possible for us yet. This being said, I still like to think that the means of predicting exists in principle.

And re the last comment above this post, if science were to finish, I reckon people would just carry on being people. As John Gray would argue, science doesn’t change the human condition; humans use the technology thereof to further their own existing ends.

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The patchwork thing is Cartwright’s… not mine.

As for the second paragraph - If science were to ‘finish’ we would essentially have an equation for everything… this would of course include ourselves. I don’t think we could just ‘go on’ because there would be nowhere to go… we would be god.

I feel it’s the area inbetween being primative idiots and the god I talk of that is the sweet spot, when we can use technology like we do now for the arts and the like…

Do we -have- to progress? Is it inevitable?

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Hi ChimneySweep:

Unlike you and to a lesser extent Old_Gobbo, I do not believe that there will or even can be an ultimate answer. At this point, however, that is simply a belief.

If you are interested in a good short book on Godel’s Proof, you should get “Godel’s Proof” by Ernst Nagel and James R. Newman. The Revised Edition by Douglas Hofstadter is excellent. The implications of Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem are widely misinterpreted and I think that the book may make some things more clear. (It did for me). There are also some interesting concepts that were new, at least to me.

Hi Old_Gobbo:

You wrote:

“I feel it’s the area inbetween being primative idiots and the god I talk of that is the sweet spot, when we can use technology like we do now for the arts and the like…”

I could never write that well. Sometimes I feel like a idiot!

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LoL, Believe me Ed… when you get into your math stuff, I get completely lost.

We’re all good at different things, it’s a team concept here.

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The idea of causality seems consistant except for the fact that there was concievably either a first action (which could not have been caused by anything) or that the system of interactions in the universe is temporally infinite, which is not really concievable. I don’t think, however, that one of those isn’t true - just that it is beyond human reason to concieve of how either one would be able to exist.

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I think the answer to this lies in the unexplored secrets of the nature of time itself.