Scientific Determinism Vs. Creative Surrender

Laplace, the French mathematician, is one of the very first proponents of Scientific Determinism. In his Philosophical Essay on Probabilities (1814), he speaks about the possibility of a Vast Intellect that might perceive at once the past, the present and the future – by its sheer ability to see through the internal links of the flow of events. Prior to this proposal, the uncanny scholar had corrected the Newtonian hypothesis of divine interventions to maintain stability of the solar system. Essentially, Laplace  explained through integral calculus the perturbations of larger planets that couldn’t be deduced through Newtonian formulas.

Nevertheless, nowhere do we find in the writings of this extraordinary Scientific Reformer an openly confessed atheism, which is a fashionable trend among some of the greatest intellectuals of our own times.  At the same time, the French Scholar wasn't an ardent advocate of Christianity either. One could therefore assert this much with certainty: His speculation of a Vast Intellect behind the workings of this Universe was a logical extension of his own mathematical grasp of the internal connections of events.

Whatever might be his belief system, the subtle differences between the philosophical speculation of Laplace and the undefined skepticism of today’s world are of huge significance. With striking new developments in neuroscience and a couple of achievements in artificial intelligence, twenty first century is rather excited about ways and means of reducing all of consciousness to chemical events alone. It hardly admits any other way of explaining the creative ability of consciousness. No scholar today describes the motive of an individual as an independent causal factor in the same way as a physical force is seen to be.

Back in the early nineteenth century, Laplace didn’t have any such qualms (1814, pp. 3-4). Attributing intelligent behavior to the motive of individuals and all other events to physico-chemical forces, Laplace brilliantly visualized the entire history of universe, both of nature and of human, as one gigantic causal movement. It’s this intuitive admission of a ubiquitous psychological fact that enabled him to come up with the most famous dictum of the Vast Intellect. 

In his own words,

Present events are connected with preceding ones by a tie based upon the evident principle that a thing cannot occur without a cause which produces it…

We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes. The human mind offers, in the perfection which it has been able to give to astronomy, a feeble idea of this intelligence. (Laplace, 1814, pp. 3-4)

In this profound exposition, there’s room for a full-blown consciousness and for billions of ever growing minds like our own. With the culture of skepticism taken to its hilarious extent, some of us might consider it outlandish to speak of simple experience, present to itself, and unknown to others. This is where the vision of Laplace can initiate a refreshing new line of thinking.

We are not suggesting that the so-called Demon of Laplace is the Divinity worshiped by Religions.  Indeed, it’s rather obvious that no single formula, however complex and multilateral, would be able to tell us everything about this stunningly productive universe. And hence the Laplacian speculation is certainly in need of some improvement. We would come to it a little beyond.

Meanwhile, those acquainted with the all-subsuming quantum formula worked out by theoretical physicists might perhaps support the vision of Laplace even in this respect. We are not going to do that anyway. As mentioned earlier, simple observations of the riches of life and an introspective engagement with our own experience instantly tells us that perception, emotion and biological life are something greater than what might be deducible from quantitative variables.

Anyone who cares for a holistic view would appreciate not only the underlying connections but would necessarily take into account the obvious distinctions between neural mechanism and the perceptual experience of individuals. When I know I can move my little finger without telling others why I did so, it’s clear and evident there’s something that I can put out in the open and there’s something I can keep to myself. Complexity of factors merely increased with the arrival of both the unconscious and conscious motives of individual beings over and above physical and biological mechanisms.

The universe isn’t fully reducible to mathematical calculations for the simple reason new patterns keep evolving out of fine-tuned values, mutations and exceptions. It’s absolutely natural for anyone who keeps discovering staggering intelligence in this evolving universe, be it in the physical, biological, human or societal domains, to start suspecting the presence of a vast intellect as the ultimate foundation of everything.  

Religions spoke of divine interventions as well as creation out of pure intent. Science has clearly demolished all theories of divine interventions.  Mythical stories of the past can no longer be taken at their face value. At the same time, it’s also equally clear that no mathematics is going to explain the entire dynamism of cosmic evolution. If intelligence is the highest value still achieved, it’s possible that the entire flow of events is a master plan of a Vast Intellect and not a simple product of blind forces at work. A senseless universe couldn’t have come up with the kind of being that we are.

We heal ourselves when we are capable of creating positive emotions of joy and hope in the depth of our psyche. Mathematical analysis is just one simple part of the immense potentials arising out of the self-intelligibility of perceptions. The universe could therefore be a staggering intentional effect of a Vast Intellect, proposed by Laplace. It’s under this new light one must engage on a deeper study of this astounding proposal that makes adequate room for multiple types of intellects and physical forces at once.

The human mind offers, in the perfection which it has been able to give to astronomy, a feeble idea of this (cosmic) intelligence. Its discoveries in mechanics and geometry, added to that of universal gravity, have enabled it to comprehend in the same analytical expressions the past and future states of the system of the world. Applying the same method to some other objects of its knowledge, it has succeeded in referring to general laws observed phenomena and in foreseeing those which given circumstances ought to produce. All these efforts in the search for truth tend to lead it back continually to the vast intelligence which we have just mentioned, but from which it will always remain infinitely removed. This tendency, peculiar to the human race, is that which renders it superior to animals; and their progress in this respect distinguishes nations and ages and constitutes their true glory. (Laplace, 1814, pp. 4-5)

What could have enabled Laplace of the early nineteenth century to come up with an unsurpassed clarity of an independent universe that merely indicates the possibility of a master planner and a hidden executor of events? Well, one must certainly think of the law of gravity, given by Newton in the year 1687, as the starting point of the great human enterprise – the project of nailing down Nature to a faultless logical analysis. A whole line of later discoveries, led by Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein and others, appeared to take us even closer to this most ambitious mission of ours.

And then came the dawn of new realization. When we were almost ready to give final touches to the universal formulae of position and momentum of physical bodies, as a bolt out of the blue, uncertainty itself came out to be the law of nature. In addition to the quantum quagmire, the static conception of the universe, under which most scientists had worked out their hectic calculations, vanquished into thin air to make way for the hundreds of billions of galaxies accelerating further and further away from us. Even if we have indisputable evidence of a universe blowing out of Big Bang, we just can’t figure out how a Singularity could turn out to be an undeterred expansion of its own.

And now we are compelled to think in terms of the fine-tuned selections that contribute to the astounding results we find in this universe.

The awe of reductive explanation relying only on fundamental forces is equally matched by the awe of careful selections towards sustainability, formation of cell and the arrival of perceptive experience.

Evolution of cosmos does indeed appear to be a closely linked purposeful motive that remains hidden from what appears on the outside.

Science has exposed Religions for its convenient methodology of attributing every exception and new developments to the interventions of God. Now it’s time to learn that the pattern of evolution itself admits both universal principles and multiple possibilities allowing remarkable new growth to take place.

By exposing the errors of Religions in their mythical creation of the cosmos, the multiple species and that of mental faculties, we haven’t necessarily deposed the possibility of a Divine Revelation that might still turn out to be true. The only condition here is that everything starts off through an intention and moves forward through its own methods and differentiations. We indeed have room for God, Nature and the creative human mind in this re-considered scientific picture.

When we are fully aware we are nothing more than passing moments of perception, emotion and creative assessment perfectly similar to the constantly changing nature of the flow of physical events, there’s no other way of growth than to rely on the Hidden Root of all things.

For more details refer to my book: ROOTS OF EVOLUTION: Big Bang, Abiogenesis, Self-intelligibility and Social Set-up.

Reference:

Laplace, S. (1814). A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities. (F. W. Emory, Trans.) John Wiley & Sons.