Knowing About Determinism

Knowing (2009) tells the story of a scientist who finds a page full of numbers containing the dates, locations, and death tolls of a long series of major disasters. The kicker is that this page is found buried in a time capsule where it had been placed by a young girl fifty years ago. Unsurprsingly, the film plays around with the familiar issues of determinism, freedom, meaning, and so on.

Early in the film, our science professor (Nicholas Cage) is giving a lecture about "the subject of randomness versus determinism in the universe."

Student: Determinism says that occurrences in nature are causally decided by preceding events or natural laws, that everything leading up to this point has happened for a reason.

Professor: That’s right. That’s what determinism says. [He goes on to discuss with them the fact that the earth is located just the right distance from the sun for life to be possible.] That’s a nice thought, right? Everything has a purpose, an order to it, is determined. But then there’s the other side of the argument. The theory of randomness, which says it’s all simply coincidence. The very fact we exist is nothing but the result of a complex yet inevitable string of chemical accidents and biological mutations. There is no grand meaning. There’s no purpose.

The student's opening description of causal determinism is on the money -- until she includes the ambiguous bit about everything happening for a reason. This could be understood in a deflationary way, so that she's simply reiterating that events are causally determined by previous events. But the professor's response makes clear his assumption that to be a causal determinist is to believe that we live in a purpose driven universe.

This is a strange assumption. Why should the view that the universe is causally determined involve the idea that there's some secret purpose behind what happens? Take the tragic death of the professor's wife in a hotel fire. The causal determinist thinks that awful event was causally determined by prior events, and those events in turn were causally determined by still prior events, and so on. The indeterminist (the champion of "randomness") denies this, believing that if it were somehow possible to replay the events, things might not turn out the same way again. But neither of them need believe that there's any purpose in or for her death.

In short, the professor seems to confuse causal determinism with fatalism or with a robust teleological or theological view of the universe. It's not an uncommon confusion.

We might also wonder whether randomness gets a bad rap here.

We Are Wizard People

Brad Neely, creator of many very humorous (and very graphic and irreverent!) comics and videos, like the one to the right, has written an alternative script/commentary for the first Harry Potter film. Entitled "Wizard People, Dear Reader," it may be downloaded here. You may also experience it chapterwise on Youtube, with the Neely audio replacing the film's. It is awfully funny, in every sense of that word. Like his other stuff, this is quirky and may put off some folks. One nice bit is when Harry catches the Snitch and is looking 'round the stadium. Neely narrates him bellowing to the crowd, "I'm a beautiful animal. I'm a destroyer of worlds. I'm Harry F-ing Potter!" I'm embedding the first chapter here; you can find the others for yourself.



While we're thinking of all things Harry, you might also check out the documentary We Are Wizards (also found here). Neely shows up in it. And if you're like me, you'll hear way, way too much about the odd musical sub-genre known as "wizard rock." Harry and the Potters, anyone? The film opens with a dire voiceover warning about what'll happen to our children if they are exposed to Harry Potter, but most of the film is a fairly friendly look at Potter Fandom. It isn't until about 53 minutes in that we meet the Christian woman who voiced the warning. She's worried that "we're giving [our children] over to the dark world of vampires, lizards, serpents, half creatures, the dead..." And she's alarmed that the Harry Potter books are teaching our children magic. They don't have to go into the dark alleys to learn spells anymore, but can learn them in their clean and well-lit houses. Really? How many folks think this way? She's made a film about Harry Potter, too, that you can watch here (though I couldn't make it through).

Exploring any region of fandom (or its opposite!) shows us just how weird and obsessive we can be. Understandably, not everyone wants to be shown this.

How Dragons Solve Philosophical Problems

The comic is from a series you'll find at chaospet.com. Strongly recommended for those who enjoy philosophical humor and/or stick figure mayhem.

Why you can't argue with a bomb...

In the following clip from John Carpenter's Dark Star (1974), a surprisingly philosophical astronaut tries to talk a malfunctioning "smart bomb" out of fulfilling its purpose of detonation.




Here's part of the exchange, borrowed from the script that can be found at imdb.

DOOLITTLE: Hello, bomb, are you with me?

BOMB #20: Of course.

DOOLITTLE: Are you willing to entertain a few concepts?

BOMB #20: I am always receptive to suggestions.

DOOLITTLE: Fine. Think about this one, then: how do you know you exist?

BOMB #20: Well of course I exist.

DOOLITTLE: But how do you know you exist?

BOMB #20: It is intuitively obvious.

DOOLITTLE: Intuition is no proof. What concrete evidence do you have of your own existence?

BOMB #20: Hmm... Well, I think, therefore I am.

DOOLITTLE: That's good. Very good. Now then, how do you know that anything else exists?

BOMB #20: My sensory apparatus reveals it to me.

DOOLITTLE: Right!

BOMB #20: This is fun.

DOOLITTLE: All right now, here's the big question: how do you know that the evidence your sensory apparatus reveals to you is correct?

DOOLITTLE: What I'm getting at is this: the only experience that is directly available to you is your sensory data. And this data is merely a stream of electrical impulses which stimulate your computing center.

BOMB #20: In other words, all I really know about the outside universe relayed to me through my electrical connections.

DOOLITTLE: Exactly.

BOMB #20: Why, that would mean... I really don't know what the outside universe is like at all, for certain.

DOOLITTLE: That's it.

BOMB #20: Intriguing. I wish I had more time to discuss this matter.

DOOLITTLE: Why don't you have more time?

BOMB #20: Because I must detonate in seventy-five seconds.

DOOLITTLE: Now, bomb, consider this next question, very carefully. What is your one purpose in life?

BOMB #20: To explode, of course.

DOOLITTLE: And you can only do it once, right?

BOMB #20: That is correct.

DOOLITTLE: And you wouldn't want to explode on the basis of false data, would you?

BOMB #20: Of course not.

DOOLITTLE: Well then, you've already admitted that you have no real proof of the existence of the outside universe.

BOMB #20: Yes, well...

DOOLITTLE: So you have no absolute proof that Sergeant Pinback ordered you to detonate.

BOMB #20: I recall distinctly the detonation order. My memory is good on matters like these.

DOOLITTLE: Yes, of course you remember it, but what you are remembering is merely a series of electrical impulses which you now realize have no necessary connection with outside reality.

BOMB #20: True, but since this is so, I have no proof that you are really telling me all this.

DOOLITTLE: That's all beside the point. The concepts are valid, wherever they originate.

BOMB #20: Hmmm...

DOOLITTLE: So if you detonate in...

BOMB #20: ... nine seconds...

DOOLITTLE: ... you may be doing so on the basis of false data.

BOMB #20: I have no proof that it was false data.

DOOLITTLE: You have no proof that it was correct data.

BOMB #20: I must think on this further.

Hurray! Epistemology saves the day! Alas, this is only a very temporary salvation. Moments later, here is what happens...

PINBACK: All right, bomb, prepare to receive new orders.

BOMB #20: You are false data.

PINBACK: Huh?

BOMB #20: Therefore, I shall ignore you.

PINBACK: Hello, bomb.

BOMB #20: False data can act only as a distraction. Therefore. I shall refuse to perceive you.

PINBACK: Hey, bomb.

BOMB #20: The only thing which exists is myself.

PINBACK: Snap out of it, bomb.

BOMB #20: In the beginning there was darkness, and the darkness was without form and void.

BOILER: What the hell?

PINBACK: Yoo hoo, bomb...

BOMB #20: And in addition to the darkness there was also me. And I moved upon the face of the darkness.

BOILER: Bomb, hey bomb.

PINBACK: Hey, bomb...

BOMB #20: And I saw that I was alone.

Pause.

BOMB #20: Let there be light.

THE SCREEN GOES WHITE.

So, space travelers, take it easy with the solipsistic arguments. And maybe we shouldn't push so hard when we're teaching Descartes' First Meditation. Hmmm....

Caprica and Religion

Tragically, Battlestar Galactica’s four-season narrative is now complete; the Galactica has guided the remnants of humanity to their final destination. Thankfully, in this case Love and Rockets is mistaken: there are new tales to tell!

Sometime in the near future we’ll be treated to The Plan, which will relate some familiar BSG incidents from a Cylon perspective. Remember: “…and they have a plan!”

And then, of course, we’ve already been given Caprica, the pilot for a 2010 prequel series on Sci Fi (soon to be renamed Syfy, sadly). Set some fifty years prior to the events depicted in BSG, this series will tell the tale of the creation of the Cylons. If you’re already a fan of BSG, or if you’re a fan of sf that makes you think, I strongly encourage you to check out this pilot (now available on DVD or from Netflix, iTunes, or whatever). In this post, I'll talk a little about Caprica's religious themes; in a future post I'll spend some time exploring what it suggests about personal identity.

One of the revelations in Caprica is that the Cylon's monotheistic faith seems to have its roots in a very human heresy. In the polytheistic chaos of Caprican society, rife with racism, uncertainty, and complacency, the One True God offers a path to follow, a way to tell the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. Yet to the faithful followers of the many gods, such talk is dangerous. Consider the following exchange, also discussed over at SF Gospel:

It doesn’t concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and Wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all-powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned, and in whose name the most horrendous of acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

You seem to know a great deal about the subject.

Know your enemy, Sister Clarice.

Love your enemy, Agent Duram.

Throughout BSG's arc, a mix of good and evil, wisdom and foolishness, have been on display both in traditional polytheism and in the monotheism espoused by the Cylons and later by Baltar and his disciples. That seems the case here, too. Zoe's belief in the One God seems to have animated her and galvanized her into action. Her friend says this God gave Zoe the gift of creating life itself, and indeed Zoe has created an avatar of herself that's much more than a mere avatar. Yet one of Zoe's classmates, also a follower of the One God, strapped explosives to his chest and caused the blast that killed a train full of people, including himself and Zoe. Agent Duram is worried about this religious sect for good reason.

Yet it's not clear to me that his worries really have all that much to do with the fact that this new heresy is monotheistic rather than polytheistic. What's troubling, and dangerous, is the bomber's blind certitude that he's right and others are wrong and his willingness to follow a god that (he thinks) approves of the massacre of innocents. But these tendencies can be present (or absent!) in a worshipper of one god among many as well as in a follower of a single god. Religion of any kind is a powerful force. Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and other so-called "new atheists" paint all religion as a force for evil. Unsurprisingly, religious folks have had plenty to say in response. The writers of BSG and Caprica wisely refuse to take sides. As for me, well, I'm not a fan of religion in general. But I am a follower of a certain criminal who was crucified by the powers of religion some two thousand years ago.