Determinism

The Marquis de LaPlace was probably the first person to recognise the existence of system controlling the universe, an integrated system as opposed to a series of separate laws.  The unfortunate name given to his theory was ‘Determinism’, which implies, as Islamic law suggest that ‘it is written’.

But the existence of a universal system does not imply anything about the sequence in which actual events happen.  System is simply the creation of rules and strategies which can be executed any number of ways depending of the actual events by which the activities are triggered.  System is program, programs can have any number of outputs depending on what we put in.

For example.  We know there is a ‘banking system’.  But we also know that at any given time, the actual outcome of the functions of this banking system are not deterministic – are not the same.  They can be determined in the sense that if we know all the inputs and all the rules, then we can work out the outcome.

So it is with the laws of the universe, but to think we will ever capture or even understand a minute proportion of these laws is -  shall we say  - a little optimistic. 

I have quoted Stephen Hawking a few times, as some of his theories tie in well with spiritual insight, but this quote was priceless – the funniest I found!