We Aren’t As Insignificant As We May Think

Let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s say, for the purpose of this experiment, that we can observe the development of the universe as a third party: someone who can just sit back and watch the whole thing happen without ourselves being influenced by it. Let’s also imagine that we have the ability to calculate everything. In other words, as the Big Bang starts to “bang” we have the understanding and capacity to be able to calculate the exact position of every particle, every chunk of rock and bit of energy for any given point in time. After all, with physics you should be able to calculate everything. So if we are able to calculate exactly where every particle is moments after the Big Bang, then we can also take into account how they are going to interact moments later and calculate their new position as more time passes.

Now, naturally there is this little thing called Chaos Theory which means that the more bodies I add to an equation the more chaotic their new positions will be at any given point in time. However this just makes the calculation more complicated. Since in this thought experiment we have infinite understanding and capacity, we should also be able to understand the chaotic nature of things and take that into account when we calculate the new positions of particles as they interact.

So moments after the Big Bang we know where everything is and how they are currently interacting. We can then do an additional calculation to figure out where everything is an additional moment later. In fact, with this infinite understanding and capacity that we have let’s do this calculation over and over again until we get to the formation of Earth.

I saw on the new reboot of The Cosmos that during the formation of Earth there were theoretically two large rocks in space that almost collided but didn’t. If they had collided then Earth would not have formed in the way it did and life on Earth would not have been possible. But wait, that makes it sound like they “almost” collided. Well since, in our thought experiment, we’re able to calculate the position of everything in the universe at any given time, then we know that these two rocks were never going to collide. It’s not as though some random act would have made them collide. With our infinite ability to calculate everything, we were able to know exactly where those rocks were going to be and they were never truly in danger of colliding.

In fact, let’s extend this even further. Let’s carry this calculation all the way through the life of the universe up until the day it some day ends. We’d know the position of everything at that moment too. We look back at the different events in the universe and see that everything that happened was already going to happen based on our calculations. Just like those rocks: they were exactly where they were always going to be, and although to us humans they seem like they were in danger of colliding, as far as physics is concerned, they were never actually going to collide because it would have violated our calculations.

Well now that we’re at the end of the universe, let’s pause the clock and think about a few things for a moment. What purpose did all this serve? It’s kind of like the game of Mouse Trap that I used to play with as a boy. I’d set up a track for a ball to roll down, the ball would fall of the edge of the track into a cup, the cup would pull on a lever with the new weight of the ball and cause something else to happen. As a boy it was fun to watch everything happen so perfectly but I soon got bored of it because it never actually served a purpose. It just started and ended the way I expected it to. Don’t get me wrong, it was awesome! But it was only awesome to the observer. If you were to put a large cardboard box over it and never observe it, then it wouldn’t serve any purpose at all. If the universe is just one giant mouse trap, then why does it even exist?

I refuse to believe that. I refuse to believe that this entire universe has no purpose. So then what now? If the universe does have a purpose then it would make sense that there are parts of it that can never be calculated, even in our thought experiment with our infinite understanding and capacity. If that’s the case then what possibly could be outside the realm of calculation? What force would truly be random enough to be above calculation?

Free will. Why can’t you calculate exactly where a soccer ball will end up on a soccer field during a game? Because the free will of every soccer player means that they are independent beings and can kick the ball wherever they’d like.

In that sense a car accident is more dynamic than those rocks in space that were never actually in danger of colliding. Cars are driven by people, and people have free will, and can randomly choose to swerve.

Have you ever seen those animations that zoom out from Earth and continue to zoom out until they view the solar system, galaxy, galaxy clusters, and so on? The main point is to show how insignificant we are. Well I don’t think we’re insignificant. Of all the bodies we observe in the sky, we are the only ones that have the free will to make truly random movements. Our free will sets the entire universe apart from that mouse trap. We, along with any other free-willed life forms that may exist elsewhere, may very well be the most dynamic aspects of this universe.