Philosophy Now Forum

I have stated before, that one of the key understandings of
the ''human condition'' is the role of chance or luck or more properly
stated, entropy, play in our lives... we can make plans up the
wazoo, but it can be destroyed by chance and randomness with ease...
but here comes the interesting question... we have the ''laws of nature''
of gravity, of evolution, of thermodynamics....
and we know that in evolution for example, chance, randomness plays
a major fact in evolution...one could almost make the argument that
chance or randomness is what has created human beings... at various
times, chance or randomness was the step that propelled us into
becoming human...

now let us look at another theory of science, gravity... does gravity
face the same problems as evolution in which gravity itself is impacted
by or changed by chance or randomness? is part of our understanding of
physical properties involved in randomness or chance?
our understanding of the universe must include chance or randomness...
and how do we connect that chance with gravity?

as with all concepts, chance, randomness is a human concept..
chance/randomness is not identified or noticed in the nature world...
it is part and parcel of the natural world and it was only once
human beings came along, that chance/randomness was identified
as such.. in our minds, we made the connections necessary
for us to identify chance or randomness....chance/randomness is
a human construct because it is only found in the human mind...
with connections made by human beings...

so, we might say, reality is X, Y, and Z... BUT, and this is important,
that we don't mentally place chance or randomness into this
picture of reality.. we don't look for chance in our looking at
the universe... but Kropotkin, how can we? where would we look
to see randomness/chance in our universe? chance/randomness
by its very nature is.... random...how can we account for
randomness and chance if it can pop up, anywhere, at anytime?

but Kropotkin, why should we account for something that may or
may not happen? and even if it does happen, chance/randomness
might only occur say, 5% of the time...that 5% is not a insignificant
number... and I judge that random/chance activities, are much
more than 5%...I would even go as high as 30% of everything we do is
impacted by chance/randomness...but as I have no way to account
for randomness/chance mathematically, I am left with nothing
more than guesses....math has a very hard time dealing with chance or
randomness... the ''chaos theory'' is still relatively new...

but one description I came across in my search is this:

"Chaos theory, in mechanics and mathematics, the study
of apparently random or unpredictable behavior in systems
governed by deterministic laws. A more accurate term,
deterministic chaos, suggests a paradox because it connects
two notion that are familiar and commonly regarded as
incompatible''

or how do square the circle?

the problem as it were, this deterministic chaos, runs through
all our systems theories...part of our failure in thinking about systems
is that we try to make them deterministic and ignore the chaos...
Thus many a social theory, the great man theory of history, by Carlyle,
for example runs afoul by the random/chaotic nature of history....
Carlyle for example, believed in the Great man theory of history as
it is god that put the great men into leadership... but that, again,
ignores chance and randomness that is a part of history...

we have plenty of social, political, scientific, economic
and philosophical theories... but what exactly is the role of
chance and randomness in any of these theories?
who knows, no one has or can judge the impact of chance or
randomness in the political or social theories of human beings...
One of the bottom-line aspects of economics is chance or randomness,
but economic theories don't advertise that... they leave that part
unsaid... and only later, under the cover of darkness, do they
talk about the role of randomness/chance has in economics...
or in politics or in science or in philosophy...

we have to openly talk about the role of chance and randomness
has in our lives... and it play a much larger role than we give credit
to...

Kropotkin

and one might ask, what is the ''law'' of history?
or the ''laws of economics?" and one will totally miss
the point until/unless one approaches this with chance or randomness
built into it...

one might say, it is a ''law of history'' that the ''great men of history''
is a true and correct historical theory.... you have to include and understand
the role of randomness to make any true theory of history.. and we can't do that
right now...

Kropotkin

let us continue this idea with a look at one who created
a ''law of history'' Oswald Spengler... I have read his book,
the two volume "Decline of the West"... granted it was 30 years ago, so,
I have a vague remembrance of the book...but its basic point is that
civilizations operate as living beings... that cultures and civilizations
are akin to biological entities, each with a limited, predictable
and deterministic lifespan...

now as I have pointed out, this is done without any regards to the
problem of randomness and chance in history.. history does flow,
but not necessarily in a straight line... as recent history has proven....
every tide has its ebb, quite often for no real apparent reason....
and it does so, without any regards to what we humans think or do,
but it happens differently every time... in other words, the general action
gets repeated, but in different ways every time...

had Spengler thought about it, he too would have
notice the role and place of chance and randomness in
every aspect of our existence.... both in the ''laws'' we
see, both man made and naturalistic laws, the law of gravity
and of thermodynamics.... and in the laws of man, of history,
of science, of economics, of philosophy....

let us think about several philosophers who created ''laws''
that passed by or ignored chance or randomness....
we can include Spinoza, Hegel, Kant, Plato, and Heidegger, as examples.....
and who has made chance/randomness a part of their philosophy?

Hume, to a certain extent, as did Nietzsche, again to a certain extent....
the next philosophical movement must include randomness and chance to
make it fit into our understanding of the reality we exists in....
we don't necessarily live in a Newtonian world, of the large movements of
galaxies, and stars and planets, but we do live in a random, quantum mechanics,
world, where events and actions are random and have no rhyme or reason...
and philosophically, how are we going to express this? we can't create a
logical, rational explanation of the universe because there isn't one....
if, if the universe has a random element of chance and chaos within it....

how can we have physical rules about the universe if
those rules can be undermined by elements of chance and randomness.....
and with that, we say goodby to Marxism and his fairly deterministic
universe... and we say goodby to most ism's and ideologies...

but the heart of the physical universe, the laws, in regard to say, evolution,
has evolution having at its heart, chance and randomness...
means that the rules of the universe must take into account
for randomness and chaos and chance...

at some distant point in the future, we may be able to
predict randomness and chance, but that day, isn't today.....
and because of that, we have theories of the universe that can't
make sense of the universe because they don't have some understanding
of randomness and chaos and chance... and so, many, many theories of the
law, science, philosophy, economics and history go away because
they don't take into account the random nature of the universe....
and thus, we say goodby to Mr. Spengler...

Kropotkin