Newtonian Determinism and Pathological Aloneness

Newton's Alchemical manuscript. Click to  enlarge.Newton's Laws applied to physical situations describe a Universe that is totally deterministic. For scientist-modelers, the canonical methodology for predicting future events is based on Newton's process: stuff the initial conditions of a system into the appropriate "laws", and let time increase in the resulting equations of motion. Here's your prediction as a time series extending as far out into the future as you need. Next problem!

Chaos theory does not violate this Newtonian modeling process. Instead, chaos demonstrates that the equations of motion are so non-linear that small inaccuracies in the initial conditions lead to wildly varying future predictions - the so-called sensitive dependence on initial conditions that is the foundation of the butterfly effect. In effect prediction becomes limited in many situations, with weather one of the chief systems where predictability is desperately needed, but often leaves all of us wondering where the TV weather people ever got their degrees...So prediction is diminished, even though determinism is as strong as ever.

I was thinking about Newton's legacy of determinism as I read a piece on Newton written several years ago by James Gleick for Slate, titled Isaac Newton's Gravity. Gleick, the author of the text that brought Chaos to the masses (Chaos - The making of a new Science) is also the author of a well-received 2003 bio of Sir Isaac.

Gleick argues convincingly for the need to display Newton's achievements in the context of his rather bizarre life (of which the pathological aloneness in the title of this post is one of Gleick's signature descriptions). In this his approach reminds me very much of the recent biographies of Einstein.

Was Newton as methodical as the way physics is now presented seems to suggest? Were his life, beliefs, etc., a product of immutable beliefs and processes?

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Chaos and Compatibilism

Chaos Theory is often cited as a way out of the determinsim-free will paradox. The explanation usually goes like this: OK, everything is determined by physical law, but the laws themselves are non-linear and the output of a particular equation that codifies a law often leads to a pseudo-random process and/or sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Ergo while we are governed by strict physical laws, our behavior - and by implication our decisions - do not give the appearance of being constrained in any way.

The philosophical position that free will can co-exist with determinism pre-dates chaos theory, with Hume and Hobbes early proponents. Known as compatibilism, it stands on its own without chaos theory. Much of the compatibilist argument rests on a careful definition of what it means to act freely, leading to a so-called category error.

The compatibilist definition of free will states that free will is not the ability to choose as an agent independent of prior cause, but as an agent who is not forced to make a certain choice. Determinists argue that all acts that take place are predetermined by prior causes. Because human decision is an act that is not exempt from prior cause, by this definition, some determinists known as hard determinists believe that free will thus becomes an illusion.

A compatibilist, or soft determinist, in contrast, will define a free act in a way that does not hinge on causal necessitation. For them, an act is free unless it involves compulsion by another person. Since the physical universe and the laws of nature are not persons, they argue that it is a category error to speak of our actions being forced on us by the laws of nature, and therefore it is wrong to conclude that universal determinism would mean we are never free.

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Stanislaw Lem: The Passing of a Deep Spirit

Stanislaw Lem, the great Polish "science fiction" writer died on March 27, 2006, at the age of 85. Two of Lem's works have played a role in the Chaos and Fractals course, and I describe the connection below. First, though, must be a tribute to this extraordinary writer.

Even though I know many who read, or have read a great deal of science fiction, I know very few who have read any of Lem's works. This is very odd, given that Lems' works have been translated into over 40 languages, with an estimated 27 million sold. (Some do read and prosper: Will Wright, the creator of the wildly popular SimCity simultaion game credits Lem's The Cyberiad as inspiration. )

With sci-fi readers (in the U.S., at least) not paying attention, what hope is there for more readership of this essential 20th-century author who is usually listed as I wrote above - a science -fiction writer, only without the quotes.

It has always been unfortunate that Lem's works are described as science fiction. This is itself a fiction. Lem - a brilliant scientist, writer, and thinker - told wonderful tales with an unnerving mixture of darkness, humor, philosophy, and theology that just happened to be placed deep in space, or inside a computer. While the location and time period of his stories are essential to their plots, Lem's stories are often more relevant to our current time and place because of his ability to paint rich characters in situations that are paradoxically both imaginable and impossibly strange.

Lem's life as a scientist and writer growing up in Poland, through Nazi occupation and Soviet rule, is much of the reason for his chosen genre, as described in the Times of London obituary -

He began to write fiction, his first works being in the tradition of socialist realism acceptable to the authorities. But he graduated to literary "fantasies", which he succeeded in hoodwinking the humourless and dogma-bound authorities into believing were innocuous, though they were in fact highly subversive and satirical.

I first read Lem in 1983, when my best friend, Eric Törnqvist, gave me a copy of Solaris as a birthday gift and demanded that I read it. To this day it remains not just the greatest "science fiction" that I have ever read, but one of the best books I have ever read. It is a book in which there is no action of the type usually associated with a sci-fi stories. Instead, Solaris chronicles centuries of observation of a liquid planet and its seemingly non-descript moons, a planet that may be sentient, and may be malicious. With this simple idea , an idea that seems to present little opportunity for

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Causality, Murder Novels, and Determinism

File this under books that might appear on the reading list of a future course in Chaos and Fractals...

A fascinating idea for a book: Stephen Kern's A Cultural History of Causality: Science, Murder Novels, and Systems of Thought" looks at changing views of causality through time - as played out in murder novels and scientific theories.

Kern is attempting to follow changes in societal explanations for the causes of aberrant human behavior - in this case murder. He juxtaposes this with the increasing refinement in scientific models of causation.

Given our umbrella for this course of "modeling/prediction/understanding", Kern's study touches on determinism, anti-determinism, and free will - perfect material to muck up our already chaotic understanding of the limits of predicting human behavior.

You can read the source of Kern's ideas for the study in his own words by clicking here.

Wolfram and the Origins of Randomness

Stephen Wolfram's short article The Origins of Randomness in Physical Systems is like a black hole, or at the very least a neutron star. Incredibly short for the ideas elaborated - only 4 pages - the manuscript is incredibly dense. Each line is a distillation of entire courses of study.

How is this possible? The endnotes: there are 28, and many of them are full paragraphs of further information, and contain their own set of references.

How did you react when reading this paper? Did you recognize any of the ideas/statements as any that we have covered this semester? Or perhaps ideas you are familiar with from past study?

And what is your personal belief of randomness in physical systems? Does randomness arise from the interaction between your system and the outside world, or does randomness arise from deterministic processes within the system? If you answer that randomness comes from outside the system, how do you explain randomness if the system is the universe?

And, if the system is the universe, does this mean that all random processes are deterministic?

Are there no random processes?

(Image drawn using the EdgeOfChaosCA Java applet.)