Q&A: Determinism
Determinism
Question
To Rabbi Michael Abraham, may he live a long and good life, greetings.
My name is A., and I greatly enjoy the books you have written (the ones I have read). I already wrote to you about your book God Plays Dice, whose impact on the future of the nation is decisive, and in my opinion the same is true of the two books that followed it: The Science of Freedom and Truth and Untruth.
I would like to ask what you think of the following statement from the philosophical-logical-scientific perspective.
Nature is not fixed in its outcomes. One state allows, by the course of nature, more than one possible development.
In other words, nature does not rule out a range of possibilities that would be selected randomly.
I would appreciate it if you would express your opinion, and I hope this is not too much trouble.
With thanks and appreciation,
the above-mentioned writer.
Answer
Greetings.
Many thanks. If you read The Science of Freedom, you can see there that my view is completely different. Nature is deterministic, and given a set of circumstances there is only one possible outcome. That is, except at the micro level in quantum theory.
Discussion on Answer
Definitely not a logical error. It just does not empirically seem that He is involved. But of course it is always possible that there are points at which He intervenes and we do not notice. That is why I wrote “almost.”
Thank you.
May I present two additional questions.
A. In the wording of your blog post about the High Holidays, the phrase appears: “The Holy One, blessed be He, is almost not involved in the world.” I wanted to understand the word “almost.”
B. Do you regard the claim that disagrees with your words as a logical error, or simply as a mistake?
Thank you for addressing this.