Is life fatalistic? Rice or noodle in a Chinese banquet 宿命論
A question has been bothering me for a long long time. Are our lives governed by deterministic rules? If yes, a set of initial conditions and parameters basically decide all destinies. The apparent uncertainties that we see in our lives are only just part of the determinism. Everything has been decided.
This theory sounds plausible if we consider the entire complete universe as a closed system, i.e., no external parameters exist to affect it. After the system started with its initial set of parameters, the subsequent trajectory (all behaviors and events) was determined. If we are part of it, like a sub-system, we are still part of the determinism, and the changes and apparent uncertainties observed by us (the sub-system) are only part of the deterministic changes of the entire system. Nothing is a consequence of free will or a random event. This fatalistic view has kept me pretty content with what has been given to me, but at the same time rather unaggressive in trying to move a step without a cause or being invited. Still I am inclined to accept fatalism as a substantial part of reality; at least from the face of the many calamitous stories of apparently unconvincing causes.
The trouble is that I would never be able to test it. I keep trying to find a test that can convincingly provide a way to demonstrate that intervention of our own decision could make a difference, and hence disprove the deterministic theory. But all such tests must fail because we can only do it once and no control experiment can be performed. That one-time event can be, again, deterministic! For instance, every time I attended a Chinese wedding banquet, I tried to do the following test when 12 bowls of rice and noodle (usually 6 for each) were presented on the lazy susan for the 12 guests sitting in the round table. My objective is to test whether my 'free will' could have an impact on what I would eventually get. At the beginning I selected, say, rice, but I did not rush to get it and rather waited until the other 11 guests picked their choices and I took the remaining. If it turned out to be a noodle, then I thought if I had taken the rice quickly earlier, I would have got what I wanted, and this would imply that I could control my own destiny. Or could I? However, this argument can be flawed, because the event that I did not take the rice earlier could be part of the determinism too. The experiment failed, and so would other similar experiments.
Does God really play dice!
November 2011
