Chance, Free Will, And Determinism

"One half of life is luck; the other half is discipline - and that's the important half, for without discipline you wouldn't know what to do with your luck" - Carl Zuckmayer.

Philosophers have argued for centuries over whether we really have free will, or everything is mechanical and determined. Many modern scientists believe they have resolved the conflict between these two theories by positing a world ruled by chance.

But free will and cause and effect are not theories at all. We experience our volition directly every time we agonize over a choice and then will a decision. And we experience determinism directly when no matter how many times we toss a ball in the air, it falls back in our palm. We know there are causes and effects and we know free will is one category of cause. What I just said is a summary of direct experience - a summary of facts. It is not a theory.

There may be some theory which puts all this together cleanly. As of now, chance isn't it.

But we do experience luck as well. Mathematicians can generate random numbers, and can prove conclusively those numbers are random. That's how slot machines work. We directly experience unpredictable outcomes in all areas of life. Luck is a fact.

Since we can only see with our own eyes, not God's, we cannot know whether there are blatant contradictions woven into the fabric of existence. So what if the world doesn't make sense to a puny human brain which is dogmatically clinging to its own limited notions of consistency and order? Facts don't care whether you understand them. They just are.

If we want absolute Truth, we should never deny that even if our perceptions don't accurately reflect ultimate reality, that reality is still definitely manifesting itself in the form we are sensing. Even hallucinations originate in some genuine phenomena.

Facts are facts. Facts are absolute truths. Our experiences are facts. So we can be sure that one aspect of whatever is happening is how it appears to us.

Therefore, in a sense there is no such thing as a hallucination.

Free will, cause and effect, and luck are all real. Attempts to pick one of the three and reduce everything down to it are doomed to fail.

Just as futile are attempts to discover a theory of everything.

Reality is not general like our ideas. Reality is a convoluted mess of ever-changing particular details.

So we should pay attention to what we see if we don't want to miss the bus. Or get hit by it.