From Timur Gagin’s LiveJournal:
I happened to receive this email:
“I was depressed for quite a long time. The reason is as follows: I attended Lifespring trainings, and at one of them the trainer realistically, without mysticism, proved that a person’s life is completely predetermined. Those. your choice is predetermined. And I have always been a fierce supporter of choice and responsibility. The result is depression. Moreover, I don’t remember the evidence… In this regard, the question is: how to reconcile determinism and responsibility? Choice? After all these theories, my life is not working. I do my routine and do nothing else. How to get out of this impasse?
While answering, I thought that it might be interesting to someone else ☺
The answer came out like this:
“Let’s be honest: you CAN’T “scientifically” prove either one or the other. Since any «scientific» evidence is based on facts (and only on them), confirmed experimentally and systematically reproducible. The rest is speculation. That is, reasoning on an arbitrarily chosen set of data 🙂
This is the first thought.
The second, if we talk about «science» in a broader sense, including philosophical currents here, and so the second thought says that «in any complex system there are positions that are equally unprovable and irrefutable within this system.» Gödel’s theorem, as far as I remember.
Life, the Universe, society, the economy — all these are “complex systems” in themselves, and even more so when taken together. Godel’s theorem «scientifically» justifies the impossibility of a scientific justification — a truly scientific one — neither «choice» nor «predestination». Unless someone undertakes to calculate Chaos with multibillion-dollar options for the consequences of each small choice at each point ☺. Yes, there may be nuances.
The third thought: the «scientific justifications» of both (and other «big ideas») are ALWAYS built on «axioms», that is, assumptions introduced without proof. You just need to dig well. Be it Plato, Democritus, Leibniz and so on. Especially when it comes to mathematics. Even Einstein failed.
Their reasoning is recognized as scientifically reliable only insofar as these very initial assumptions are RECOGNIZED (that is, accepted without proof). Usually it is reasonable WITHIN!!! Newtonian physics is correct — within limits. Einsheinova is correct. Within. Euclidean geometry is correct — within the framework. This is the point. Science is good ONLY in the applied sense. Up to this point, she’s a guess. When a hunch is combined with the right context IN WHICH it is true, it becomes a science. At the same time, it remains nonsense when applied to other, “incorrect” contexts.
So they tried to apply physics to lyrics, if you allow yourself a lyrical digression.
Science is relative. A single science of everything and everything does not exist. This allows new theories to be put forward and tested as contexts change. This is both a strength and a weakness of science.
Strength in contexts, in specifics, in situations and results. Weakness in «general theories of everything».
Approximate calculation, forecasting are subject to large processes with a large amount of data of the same type. Your personal life is a minor statistical outlier, one of those that “do not count” in big calculations 🙂 Mine too :)))
Live as you wish. Come to terms with that modest thought that PERSONALLY the Universe does not care about you 🙂
You make your own little “fragile world” yourself. Naturally, «up to a certain limit.» Every theory has its own context. Do not transfer «the fate of the universe» to «the fate of the next few minutes of individual people.»