The Randomness That Is Life

Randomed by Rituraj / at 6:15 PM / /

Over the past few years my thinking has been heavily influenced and occupied by the effect of randomness and chaos on the universe. I am not a physicist, mathematician or scientist. So my observations are one of the layman and I do not claim them to be flawless.

One thing that has recently begun to baffle me is people's limited view on free will and determinism. There seem to be only two popular outlooks on this subject.

One being that there is no such thing called free will. Everything is pre-determined. These believers also happen to be ardent believers of creationism most of the time. What this theory ultimately leads to is the fact that irrespective of your actions the outcome is not affected and that the outcome is fixed. This theory has no scientific basis and is mostly proved on the basis of religion. The main argument given in support of this theory is that for life to evolve till the humans is impossible without divine intervention or design. That such level of perfection and thoughtful design can not occur unless it was destined to. Now, I am in total disagreement over the argument used. We know how vast the universe is. It is infinite. There are so many stars, planets, moons etc. that this minute probability of the existence of life gets amplified.

The second, and the opposite theory, is that there exists something called free will and our actions are fully capable of affecting our environment. This definitely makes more sense to me and most of the people. As a result, individuals are filled with vigor. You and I strive towards earning more money, advancing science etc. However, this theory fails to explain the simple phenomenon of a toss coin. You can toss a coin all you want but you cannot affect the outcome.

Now coming to my observations, I feel that reality follows a hybrid path. In reality, your actions have no effect on the universe. However, this does not mean that the path of the Universe is a pre-determined one. It is, in fact, a path of randomness. Which means that what will happen the next instant is unpredictable. It is not determined and scripted. However, irrespective of what you do, you cannot affect what happens at this next instant. Now many would argue that I can totally affect what happens at this next instant - look...I just stepped on that bug. Well, let's examine this action. Look at the bug crushing from your own point of view. You never expected to crush that bug when you got up this morning. Furthermore, a prime example of how what you do does not affect anything is the beginning of your existence. You were born as a child to your parents out of chance! That swimming sperm which was the strongest was merely out of randomness. When your existence itself began with randomness how can you claim your actions are able to affect anything? All the events that happened around you after your birth were BECAUSE you were born. You were born out of randomness hence those events surrounding you are also the result of randomness. There are numerous examples around us that prove the randomness that is life.
What, then, is the meaning of life? What point is there in living when everything is random? Well, life is all about how we react to the randomness around! Certain things make us happy. What is the harm in flapping our arms violently and see if that results in something that makes us happy! Of course, any action that I perform does not guarantee a desirable outcome. But sitting around idly hoping for something I like to come along the way in life is so boring. I prefer giving random inputs to the universe and see if it changes into a state that is desirable to me :D.