Determinism, Relativism, Absurdism
… and how they teach us to live.
A basic understanding of space and time does not have to be complex. In this article I want to summarize large concepts and connect them to concrete actions you can take to make the most of your life. If anything is confusing or incorrect, please make a comment too — I would love to learn from it.
Determinism
The present moment can be defined as a slice in time — giving us the following 3D grid:
We assign sequence to these “slices” by categorizing slices into 3 buckets: past, present, and future. This creates the everyday concept and feeling of “time”. I want to emphasize here that this is a perspective that we created. We define this sequence of slices according to our understanding of laws of physics at that time. For example, let’s take an apple falling from a tree. Each moment of the fall can be divided into its own slice in time and space. But, because we have laws of motion in place, we define one slice (apple on the tree) as before another slice (apple on the ground).
Newton said that because we know the laws that govern the change in these slices, we can determine the state of the past and present. This is called Determinism. This assumes there is only one absolute way to slice the present, one absolute order of slices, and one absolute way to determine the distance between slices. The apple can not move from the ground to the tree in this lawful world we created.
Relativism
Determinism has since been refuted by modern quantum theory. Quantum theory (this is a very broad summary and I’m not a quantum physician) says that everything exists and doesn’t exist. Why? Let’s turn this grid from above into a box. We exist within this box of space and time. Thus, our idea of space and time is limited to our experience in this box and limited to our understanding of the laws of physics. If we step outside of this box, our idea of time could be true or false or both or none.
With this perspective, time no longer has direction. All slices simply exist without sequence. Our personal feeling and definition of time, therefore, is all relative. Which is why Einstein argues there isn’t a single way to slice the present — aka Relativism. But, this doesn’t mean that Relativism is outside of that box of space and time or that it is true or false or none or both. Every theory is bound by the environment it was invented in.
So what?
Uncertainty brings comfort. Absurdism accepts and is comforted by the idea that our existence is… absurd. It’s absurd in that there is no meaning, there is no hope. It is not special and special at the same time.
To find comfort in a meaningless world we must give up on trying to find meaning. We must accept that our understandings and explainations will never be certain. Inside our box of space and time, it is impossible for us to be certain about anything. We can understand only in human terms. Scary, right? No. Without a meaning, life prescribes us no appeal. This gives each of us room to create our own appeal. Find our own flame, our reason to be in this absurd world.
“For the absurd, there is but only one life.” — Albert Camus, Myth of Sisyphus
Resources
- PBS Space Time on YouTube
- A Brief History of Space and Time by Stephen Hawking
- Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
- Naval, Podcast
Topics to dig depper
- Zeno’s Paradox
- Decision theoretic way of understanding probability
- Quantum double slit experiment
- Beginning of Infinity
- Induction
