Is Destiny a Matter of Chance or Choice?

The scientists, like Isaac Newton, believed that there was a universal law and everything was ordered in line with this universal law. Since everything in an order, the future can be predicted because it was already arranged by the universal law. This is also called destiny or fate and it means that people believe their role in this world is given and they cannot change it. However, people’s life is not destined by a universal law or by God. With the new discoveries in science, it has been claimed that 18th century scientists were wrong in their view on universal law. The chaotic scientists of the 20th century

claimed that the chaotic system is random and not related with destiny because any

change in the initial condition will affect the behaviour of the system. In this respect, this

essay will firstly explain different views on universe; secondly it will demonstrate that is

not a destiny that elucidates events of our life but choices and chance.

When Isaac Newton discovered the law of the gravitation in the 18th century, he realized that there was a force that was responsible for this, and for the other movements in the universe, like the force that holds the moon in her orbit. ( Newton, Determinism and Chaos, pg 1) In this regard it was then considered that there were fixed physical laws which allow the future to be predicted. In his article “Law and Disorder” R.C.L state that the 18th century scientists viewed the universe as a “gigantic clock” where everything happens according to certain laws so that prediction of the future of any object or system is possible. As stated in the article: “ … if you only knew all of the initial conditions and how the clock worked you could predict what would happen at any point in time”.(Law and Disorder, R.C.L, p 2). They also believed that after God created the universe, God did not interfere with laws. The outcome of this belief is the development of new beliefs excluding God such as, nihilism, existentialism, behaviorism and communism. As David Atkatz clarified in his article “Newton, Determinism, and Chaos”, for the objects, it is possible to determine the future by counting in its initial position, velocity and forces acting upon them. Atkatz say: “…for collections of objects: given the initial conditions- the position and velocity of each body- and the acting forces, the entire future history of that system is determined uniquely” (Atkatz, p 1). In brief, if mechanistic functions and initial conditions were known, the future of an event could be predicted. This can be the case for the objects; however, it is not possible to apply it to human beings. Although there are some limitations, human beings have their free will and they can make choices which make the future unpredictable.

In the 20th century it was realized that at the nuclear level, the behavior of the atom and individual electron could not be predicted. With the development of the Science of Chaos, theory of fixed universal law lost its importance. The chaos theory describes the behavior of nonlinear dynamic system which is highly sensitive to initial conditions. Since initial conditions are sensitive, any effect on conditions makes the system behave randomly. In other words, the world is not a gigantic clock, there is not an order or fixed law; it works in jumps, in a non-linear manner that predictability is not possible. There are two determinant factors that make predictability impossible (Law and Disorder, R.C.L, p 4). These are freedom and free will, called as Strange Attractors. They admitted the universe’s having laws but these laws are general, flexible and can change over time and these changes can show differences according to conditions and facts. As R. C. L say: “Self organization is the rule, not the exception. Everything is not pre-determined by a rigid and complex system of detailed laws which specify exactly how everything works. There is no detailed blueprint of the universe, just a general set of laws”. Chaos theorists explain God as: the Strange Attractor, the origin of inexplicable and unpredictable order from chance (Law and Disorder, R.C.L, p 6 ). This is called as �Fractal order’ which is based on relatively few basic structural principles from which many transitory laws follow (Law and Disorder,R. C. L. p 6). In other words, they give God a role in the system by saying that God plays dice which rescue them from the prison of determinism, where everything was set. In this connection, the chaotic view supports that everyone has a chance to decide their own fate along the lines of freedom and free will. Briefly, D. C. L states