The Problem with Prediction

Let's toss a coin.

What would you bet on? Heads or tails?

The statisticians among you will declare 50-50 chance - given no other parameters to be taken into account.

Science says something quite different about the outcome. Indeed, if we knew all the relevant variables influencing this coin toss system, determining the outcome would be no more complicated than calculating the trajectory of the coin.

So what's the point of statistics? Well - under conditions where the full information of the system is unknown, we can use statistical methods to produce a best guess. But not an infallible one.

But does that mean randomness is a function of our ignorance? Before the advent of Quantum Mechanics, it turns out many respected scientist (including the esteemed Einstein) subscribed to a deterministic world. One where chance was as imaginary as the concept of a universally permeating Aether.

Follow this train of thought with me.

Everything that occurs is a chemical reaction.
Tossing a coin, choosing an outfit, hurricanes and even our thoughts. All are ultimately chemical reactions.

In a world free of randomness, every chemical reaction has a determined outcome.

Everything we do or say or think is determined. From the Big Bang all the way to now, every event has been causally linked and thus inevitable.

You think you chose to read this post? Well turns out you didn't. You were destined to, from the very dawn of time.

Free will is an illusion.

Or so I thought.

As it turns out, indeterminacy is an inherent property of existence. This was very difficult for me to accept at first. And it would be for every other student of science clinging to the comfort of a classically determined universe - where nothing is left to chance.

But the fact remains, and is sweetly summarised by the phenomenon of radioactive decay. Despite our long history of scientific pursuit - we still cannot identify which atom of a quantity of uranium will decay nor when that decay might occur. The best guess we have is the half-life of decaying materials.

Ironically, the once rejected hypothesis of universally permeating Aether seems to now have some merit.

This "Aether" is suspected to be the home of quantum vacuum fluctuations. It is the source of random and the driving force behind accelerating cosmic inflation.

But does this quantum vacuum affect the world as we see it? Maybe. I refer to the infamous Schrodinger's cat - where a quantum effect is magnified and could result in the death of the faultless feline.

But does this vacuum affect our thoughts? Is the brain susceptible to the effects quantum indeterminacy? Does this mean free will does indeed exist? Does this mean the future is undetermined?

I don't know.

In fact, nobody knows. Anyone who claims either for or against at this point in time given what the scientific community knows is asserting an opinion.

I couldn't tell you if luck exists; or if there are no such things coincidences.

I can only tell you that we simply don't know.