The Course of Inevitability

Inevitability is defined as the quality of being certain to happen. In quantum mechanical terms, nothing is ever a certainty and neither is it an impossibility. However, inevitability in day-to-day life usually stands as the certain outcome in any given scenario. In human life, death, ageing, and illnesses are inevitable. This inevitability tends to catch up with human beings wherever they may go or whatever they may achieve - except, perhaps, the elixir of immortality.

There are deep ties between the physics and the metaphysics of the conundrum of inevitability. The physics explains one side and the metaphysics explains the other - this theory is the resolution of the logic loop that lies somewhere along the line bridging the gap between the two, with regard to this matter. To introduce the physics, we must first talk about the spacetime continuum. In the fabric of spacetime, the four-dimensional continuum the Universe exists in, events and the time in between them coexist. Say there are three events A, B, and C with distinct time intervals separating them. Also say that there are two observers in this portion of spacetime that are observing events A, B, & C take place. There is a large possibility, depending on the observer’s frame of reference, that the two observers will disagree on the sequence of events and even the time that separates them. For example, Observer 1 could observe a sequence CAB whereas Observer 2 could observe the sequence BAC. Terming the events in a chronological order, event C is Observer 1’s past, A is the present, and B is the future. However, for Observer 2, B is the past, A is the present, and C is the future. This itself raises a major dilemma because one observer’s past becomes another observer’s future. The event itself, in this case, cannot be changed from occurring at all. All events being clearly defined at some point or the other severely questions the regular uncertainty of human life. Where does this leave our sense of free will? Where goes the notion that we are “masters of our own fate” if we can’t stop certain events from taking place?

Using this frame of reference, we see that free will does not really exist. From birth to death, an individual lives his/her life as the pawn in a game of chess that’s already been played before. No room for true innovation, no room for true choice, no room for change. In case of catastrophic events in this individual’s life, the choice is not really theirs to make every time that version of reality plays out. If this is true, many theories that explain the ramifications of choice on an individual’s life simply collapse. Here is where the deep ties between the physics and metaphysics of this question become truly evident. Talking about the multiverse theory, coined by Princeton scientist Hugh Everett, becomes inconsequential because there is only one outcome in a universe sans free will: the outcome that the individual has coded into their lives. The multiple universes Everett proposes fall apart and one of the largest and most widely accepted interpretations of quantum mechanics is discredited. Inevitability becomes a 100% certainty, a technical scientific impossibility (oxymoronically so), and free will is dead.

The reconciliation of a world with both inevitability and free will lies in the events. The proposal in this case is that the events in an individual’s life in question remain inevitable. If a person is to be diagnosed with cancer, the cancer itself as an event remains inevitable. However, the reaction, along with emotional, mental, and physical health, of the individual is the deciding factor between one outcome or the other. Put simply, our actions, born out of free will, change the interpretation of the inevitable event. An individual diagnosed with cancer could go about the news in a plethora of different ways. In this case, we take two examples: one where the individual attempts to live a healthier life, get treated, and try to maximise efforts in recovery and one where the individual gives up on life, picks up drug- abuse as a coping mechanism, and eventually overdoses. Say the difference between those choices is 30 more years of life in the first scenario. Therein lies the theoretical caveat to a universe that functions on both inevitability and free will of sentient beings such as humans: the reaction to an event also plays a role in deciding the outcome of an event, rather than just the event alone.

However, a darker question looms over the premise of the reconciliatory theory: what stops the reaction governing the outcome of the event from being predetermined: part of the code in the individual’s life? To answer this, I can use the help of nothing but other prevalent theories as data to support my theory doesn’t exist yet - and may never. Again, in this case, if a reaction of an individual to an event is predetermined, it can only be predetermined to yield one reaction. If the event has a plethora of possible predetermined reactions to choose from and chooses one at random, the phenomena is exempt from being bound by a theory in the first place. It would be the equivalent of placing a number into a mathematical function that yields different values of data every time the function runs. This would be a theory only possibly created using the help of existing data sets: however, these data sets cannot exist without data sets available for other quantum mechanics interpretations, proving or disproving the above statements with reference to the truth behind the multiverse theory. Even when conceding to the premise that the reaction is predetermined as a prerequisite for the existence of human beings in the spacetime continuum, we fail to factor in theories that may disrupt the consistent functioning of the sequence of causality.

Chaos Theory, or the Butterfly Effect, explains the effect that small anomalies have on any given situation. The most common example of this theory is the possibility that when a butterfly flaps its wings at some point on Earth, the wind generated is a possible trigger for a tornado in another part of the world. Accounting for this kind of an anomaly is virtually impossible and, thus, changes the outcome by a little, to say the least. Even in this scenario, the premise of there being just one outcome to a sequence of events collapses as a second version then exists. Thus, breaking out of the logic loop that exists on the bridge between the physics and metaphysics of the question of free will in the universe, this theory points the existence of free will in a universe whose events can be called inevitable and provides a point of reconciliation where both coexist within the laws of physics.