Cause and effect: the limitations of reason

The scientific mind thinks in terms of systems: of their inputs, outputs and states in a way that any system be it a motor car or an economy can be taken from one state to another by action of required inputs. The outputs of the system also depend on its current state. This at best is an idealization because it leaves nothing to chance which determines modern understanding of the world more so in the atomic and the realms of electronics.

The great psychologist Alfred Adler writes in his ‘Understanding human nature’ that human behaviour is dependent on two things: firstly a set of inner desires and wishes an individual is born with and secondly the social environment he or she happens to be in. Now at birth both the desires and the environment are not in the child’s control and this results in behaviour that determines the next set of her reactions and so on. Thus every person’s thoughts and actions are just unfolding as if from a plan, leaving no room for things like the free will or action by choice. Similarly Newtonian mechanics can predict the position and velocity of any mass if its present position and velocity are known.

These are very reliable understandings of the world around us, physical and social, but there is a catch. These are only good approximations to more general theories which point out that in the case of small particles moving close to the speed of light, we disturb the particle whenever we try to observe it and as first stated by Professor Werner Heisenberg, if we measure the position of a unit mass accurately, we can measure its velocity only with a little uncertainty. Likewise if we measure the velocity of a unit mass accurately we can measure its position only with a little uncertainty. Determinism has given way to chance. Can we say that the free will has given way to providence…