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[leftwinger]

Is there a way to rectify the universe as a chaotic deterministic system with human free will? Are there truly no totally random events? Is the universe simply not chaotic (or deterministic)? Should I stop engaging in mental activity beyond midnight to the extent that it leaves me hopelessly unable to sleep?

Questions, questions.

Comments

[byzantinespy]

I'm not sure what you mean by "rectify" here. But anyway, I would say that the nature of the universe is ambiguous. To say that the universe is deterministic is to say that everything happens as a matter of cause-and-effect, but the cause-and-effects that we see are just our projection of our interpretation of the world onto the world.

Now, one could say that since we're part of the universe the way that we go about interpreting it is also controlled by cause-and-effects and is therefore determinative, but for political reasons it's dangerous to hold this view, because the result is that various political forces would like to "freeze" people into a certain philosophical outlook on the ground that it's the "natural" or fate-driven; that's a quick way to retard intellectual progress. Better to always put our current interpretation of the world into question so that we can overcome it. On the other hand, it's dangerous to believe in radical free will, because then we put unrealistic expectations on people. Better to keep in mind the context of where people come from and think of them partly as the products of their circumstances.

I basically think it's a false dichotomy to think of people as having free will or being puppets of determinism, because as part of the universe we participate in the universe. We bring forth Being as Being brings forth us.