The Initial State of the Universe
Chaos as it would seem would refer to a state of lacking any order or predictability. Although in Greek Mythology it is said that Chaos is the initial state of the universe; what everything was built off of; the beginning.
I believe that from chaos thus come clarity. As Chuck Palahniuk wrote in Fight Club, “It’s only after you’ve lost everything, that you’re free to do anything.” There is a vast amount of insight in this for the sheer fact that you lose yourself and who you are in your possessions and materialistic nature.
I tend to be an idealist, a realist, and a dreamer. I live my life by my own means. I have a different way of looking at the world, The fact that everything can come from nothing. The future is built off of the past, the pain, the triumph, the tragedy and the sacrifices that forge everyone’s path in life. This life is what you make of it. It is not who you are but what you do that defines you. Imagination is the key to creation.
Where does that creation come from? Chaos is the original dark void from which everything else appeared. Chaos is firmly rooted in the idea of determinism.
Determinism is a philosophy that claims that just as nature is causally-decided, the human desire is causally-decided. Strong determinism and fatalism argues that free will is an illusion, because we couldn’t, in any given situation, have acted in a different way than in the way we did. Soft determinism argues instead that human freedom is a matter of degrees. When we act in the absence of external and internal obligation, we are more free than otherwise and are still influenced by past events and the present situation one happens to be in, combined with natural desires. Determinism holds that every event is a natural and integral part of the interconnected universe. From the perspective of determinism, every event in nature is the result of or determined by prior events. Determinism also argues that human thoughts, beliefs and behaviors are just as much a part of the natural universe as thunderclouds. They can be seen as either results of previous conditions or causes of subsequent conditions, but the fact is that they are part of a larger process that began with the big bang and will continue for the life of the cosmos.
Every event is a joining together of influences. While determinism regards humans as “one with” the unfolding environment of the natural universe, fatalism regards humans as existing outside of this system.
Most humans are naturalists; they believe that humans have “free will” which causes events in the natural world however are not caused by them. And most humans will defend their “free will” without second thought to the evidence for (or benefits of) alternative explanations. Believing we somehow are above our nature, is the idea of free will; the ability to make a choice without being forced by the laws of nature to make that choice. We are humans, being limited to the capabilities of our brain and physical body, our physical needs, such as hunger, sleep, thirst, predisposed to behave, think and feel in a certain way. This is inescapable we are also not individuals independent from influence, secular from cause and effect, feelings memories, minor compulsory behaviors and the such.
Fatalism holds that the natural world causes events in human life but is not itself influenced by human will or behavior. No matter what you do, the same things will happen to you.
The fatalist position is that if someone doesn’t have free will, then their life is totally determined by the outside world, therefore their beliefs and desires have no effect on the outside world, and therefore no matter what they do the same things will happen. Of course, it is self-evident that our behavior affects the environment and thus what happens to us. While many otherwise rational people believe in free will, no rational person believes in fatalism. By accepting the false premise that fatalism is the only alternative to free will, one can reject both fatalism and determinism without further thought, and comfortably assume that free will is proven. This leads us into the first example of a film called Minority Report that deals with some similar issues.
Minority Report is based on the short story by Philip K. Dick and is about the ability to see into the future and stop crimes before they happen. While understandably science fiction in its attempts to describe these future events the movie lends you to the question of what if? What if that was possible? If you could change the future before it happens would it still happen?
The key to the movie is whether you can change something that hasn’t happened. The movie deals more so with determinism than fatalism. The point being that everything is already predetermined so when they stop the crimes before they will happen they were going to happen anyway. One of the main questions the film raises is whether the future is set or whether free will can alter the future.
The main character Anderton is shown in the future to kill someone and thus the warning actually sets in motion the events that lead him to the person he was supposed to kill. It is also stated that since Anderton knows his future, he can change it. However, the film also indicates that Anderton’s knowledge of the future may actually be the factor that causes the person’s death. This entire scenario becomes a main paradox regarding free will vs. fatalism in the film. It is possible that the act of saying that Anderton will murder someone begins a chain of events that leads to the slaying. In Anderton’s situation, he runs because he is told he will commit murder. The only reason he ends up in circumstances where he might be forced to kill is because he is a hunted man. Take away the accusation, and there would be no question of him committing a criminal act. The prediction drives the act almost like a self fulfilling prophecy. A prophecy declared as truth when it is actually false may sufficiently influence people, either through fear or logical confusion, so that their reactions ultimately fulfill the once-false prophecy. Had Anderton had never been accused of the crime he may very well never set in motion the events that ended in the way the act came about.
The free will issue arises because Anderton knows his future. He easily could do everything in his power for the act to not occur even though he doesn’t. It’s like if you know that if you leave your house you’re going to have a car accident, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to not have that accident, including not leaving your house. While the movie will lead you believe that this isn’t possible it clearly can be when you know the outcome to then change the cause.
There are questions that arise from the concept of the movie however. Are we free to determine our futures or are we destined by fate? If someone knows in advance that they will perform a certain action at a certain time, can that person act freely? Could it ever be fair and just to punish a person for a crime they didn’t commit, although would have committed had others not prevented it? Is a crime-less society thereby a virtuous one? This last one is a good question because if you think to the example of a Clockwork Orange where they do these experiments on this guy that completely change who he is and how he acts. When are privacy and freedom more valuable than safety? Is it ever justifiable to treat human beings as means rather than ends?
These questions are just the beginning when you start to dig down and look at all the little intricate paths and theories that travel throughout the story. The answers lie in the opinions of people’s own interpretations of the stories and they are made to draw their own conclusions from them. Now jumping from this movie we look at the determinism vs. fate in the film the Butterfly Effect which takes a bit of a different stance on the issue.
The theory of the Butterfly Effect is based on the idea that one butterfly could eventually have a far-reaching ripple effect on subsequent historic events and seems to have first to have appeared in a 1952 short story by Ray Bradbury about time travel. The idea stems off the entire idea of chaos theory. The entire idea that something so small could change things so drastically is an interesting concept based purely on the idea of the unknown.
In the film Evan, when reading from his adolescent journals, is able to essentially travel back to times in his past and alter how they originally happened. As he continues to do this, he realizes that even though his intentions are good, the actions he takes always have unintended consequences. Despite its title, however, this movie does not seriously explore the implications of the butterfly effect; only the lives of the principal characters seem to change from one change to the next. The surrounding world around them is mostly unchanged. Furthermore, the changes made in the past of the principal character are far from minor and in that sense the title of the film is kind of misinformation. An element of the butterfly effect in general terms is that differences in start conditions for different scenario outcomes are virtually undetectable, and consequences are not related to cause in a directly apparent way. Each time he changes something unforeseen consequences take place. When you change one thing you then change everything.
The entire idea of the movie is that things are supposed to happen, and the fact that nothing can change the way certain things happen without going back to the beginning. It is said in the movie that you cannot change who you were without changing who you are. This is true because if you go to the past and change things then you never would have to go back to the past to begin with. It becomes a paradox which was explored even as far back as HG Wells in the Time Machine. In that the machine was created so that the guy could go back and save the woman he loved but if she had not died the time machine wouldn’t have existed so no matter what she was going to die thus creating the paradox.
This is essentially the same as the butterfly effect as Evan constantly wants to go back to save Kayleigh, but the fact is that every time he went back she ended up dead. No matter what he did in the movie he wasn’t changing the circumstances of the situation or in fact the past. The director’s cut (the superior cut) of the movie shows that he had to change the entire history of himself from the beginning. By removing himself from the situation it made it so that things that happened because of him would no longer happen. Everyone in the film was better off without his existence. By going back to the beginning and killing himself in the womb he changes the circumstances of everyone’s lives.
The entire movie deals with a majority of determinism, everything that is meant to, will and does take place no matter the change in the paths of events the outcome is the same. Everything is causally decided, each cause and effect had a different scenario but ended with the same outcome, I like to think back to the Terminator series that was built upon the idea that there is no fate but what we make for ourselves. Yet, each scenario may have been different but the end was also determined, it may have been a different time and a different place but it’s always the same conclusion.
These two films differ greatly in the end result. Minority report has an end result where soft determinism or free will is sought out as the greater of the two by Anderton choosing to do things differently and thus breaking precrime and showing the faults of the system. The end result of the Butterfly effect shows that with determinism, the only way to change the course of nature or fate if you will is to change the initial cause. By changing small events you will end with the same result, however if you go back to the beginning and change the one part that causes everything to happen then it voids future events that may have led to the disastrous consequences. Both films seem to deal with these issues pretty well yet unfortunately don’t maintain the path throughout the whole thing, they seem to break their own rules and change what they had initially said. That’s Hollywood for you though, always trying to dumb it down.
I believe the free will issue takes a lot more than a few films to fully generalize and draw conclusions about. My opinion is that we determine our own futures, for me fate is the death of dreams. If we have nothing to look forward to or strive for then what is the point. Believing that we create our own path and our own success gives people the ability to work hard and appreciate what they have and who they are. If everything is just meant to be then why think differently or try to be more than you are. If everything is fatalistic things will be as they are. I want more and I will determine how that happens for myself.
