Just like any big thing, worldviews can only
be properly appreciated at a distance after
a certain period of time when they
essentially crystallized. Even these days
we keep discovering a thing or two about the Aristotelian worldview, the Cartesian worldview and
the Newtonian worldview. But
it's safe to say that the thing that
we're working with has been crystallized.
It's in there, unlike the contemporary
worldview which is in a state of a
constant flux. It's constantly changing.
When we say contemporary worldview, we
essentially mean the period of the
history of science since the 1920s,
since general relativity and
quantum physics. You can imagine that so
much has happened since the 1920s.
It's almost impossible to incorporate
that into one single worldview.
What I'm going to give it today is a
clumsy snapshot of what we have at this
moment - and just the tiny fragment of it.
So what do we have here? We have quantum
physics, generality relativity, cosmology,
chemistry, genetics, biology, neuroscience,
psychology, sociology, economics, history,
mathematics, hypothetico-deductive method.
I'm going to start with this one: neuroscience!
When it was established in
the early 1900's, it brought
about a very important transition from
dualism to the contemporary view
on the subject. If you ask the scientific
community how to explain ideas,
thoughts, emotions ... anything that has to
do with the human mind, they'll say
thoughts, emotions, feelings ...  cannot exist without some material substratum.
It can be a brain and it can be a processor... anything! But there must be something
material that holds and produces the
thoughts, and thoughts cannot exist
independent of something material. So
we believe that psychological phenomena are
produced by the processes in the brain.
At the individual level, especially if
you have a religious worldview, you
may be inclined to believe the mind can
exist without material body but we're
talking about the views
accepted by the community
and implicit in our theories. And this is one
of the things that is implicit in our theories.
We believe that anything we think must be
somehow connected to what happens at the
level of the brain. Essentially the
processes in the brain are interactions
between neurons. It's fair to say that we
do not quite understand the exact nature
of the correspondence between thoughts
and interactions between neurons.
We do not quite understand how to produce a certain line of reasoning by
manipulating certain neurons. We are not
there yet. But one thing we seem to
accept is that anything that happens at
this high level, at the level of thoughts,
must be at least somehow connected to
the level of neurons that you cannot
have thoughts without something
happening at the level of neurons.
How do we know this? Because our
neuroscience seems to tell us, that it's
implicit in our contemporary
neuroscience that the mind is a product
of brain processes. They may or may not
formulate in this way but this is what
any working scientist has in mind - or 
"in brain" shall we say? (students laugh)
So what is the view implicit in this?
This is the view that we call materialism.
Another name for this is ontological
physicalism  but I like "materialism"  better.
Essentially it says that there is only
one substance and that substance is matter.
Which view implicit in the Newtonian or the
Cartesian worldview did this replace?
Dualism! Dualism says that there 
are two substances, matter and mind.
Now we are going to play a little game here.
According to dualism, there are
purely material entities
and there are purely spiritual entities which
could be angels and the Creator.
And there are citizens of two worlds,
material and spiritual creatures like
human beings. What if, for the sake of
argument, I moved the boundary from here
to there? What if I said that animals too
have minds? What sort of view would this be?
it's still dualism as it still has two substances.
What matters is that you still have
entities that are purely material and
entities that are purely spiritual and
that's what matters. It is still a version of
dualism because you still accept the existence
of two substances. Very good!
Now I'm going to move this further.
What if I say even plants are
in a sense "spiritual" and that they
essentially have a capacity of
- if not full-fledged "thinking" then at least
they have emotions feelings and some
basic level of thinking. What sort of a
conception will this be? Still dualism!
World be a very weird type of
dualism but still dualism.
Now I'm going to take this to its extreme. I'm going to say even inorganic matter is
in a sense "spiritual". What sort of view would this be? Essentially in this case you no
longer have things that are purely
material everything has a mind but not
everything has a body. And this is the
view that is known as idealism.
There is only one substance and that substance is mind. So mind can exist on its own but
in order to have something material,
you need to have a mind that lays the foundation.
(Student) "I find it a little confusing because you're still saying there's matter in mountains,
trees and animals and humans. So by 'matter' you mean something different here?"
(Hakob) Not really. Idealists do not 
deny the existence of matter.
What they do deny is that
matter can exist on its own.
and that it can exist as an independent substance.
What they're saying is that all that
exists is essentially spiritual. So these
are all fundamentally mind. There are
different versions of this. One version
is normally known as subjective idealism.
It is this is the idea that everything that
you see only exist in your mind.
They are only your feelings and emotions.
They are only your sensations.
But you shouldn't really go
that far in order to be an idealist.
You can say everything that exist 
are material things but at the
foundation they are spiritual and they
require some universal intellect to hold
this things so the only exist in so far
as their existence is maintained by
something spiritual. Let's go back to
dualism. What if I said that I
believe that there are angels but that
they also have material bodies? (Students laugh)
What sort of a viewpoint will this be?
Dualism! Because there are still two substances,
because you still believe that you can
have something purely spiritual
and something purely material. Now I'm going to push this all the way to the right.
What if I said that I do believe that
there are gods or the God but he is also material,
he's not pure mind. He is not
pure soul. What sort of a
viewpoint with this be? This is what we
call materialism. Materialism comes in
different flavors and this is not the
version of materialism that you normally
have in mind when you talk about these things.
The version of materialism you
normally have in mind is something like
that you have a material world,
everything is material, and then at a
certain stage of development of this
material world you arrive at certain
species that have brains such that are
capable of producing thoughts, rational
reasoning, theories, but they only exist
insofar as there is an underlying brain
that does the thinking. So this is the
normal version of materialism, the usual
version. But it may come in different
varieties. What if I told you that human
beings are not the only creatures that
are capable of thinking. What about this?
Let's say 200 years from now when
we finally conquer the problem of
artificial intelligence and we tell our
machines to think not just to calculate
but to think? Can anyone tell me why this
still will be materialism? (Student) "Because there is no substance that consists
solely of the mind." (Hakob) How would you interpret the thought processes here?
(Student) "You need the matter
existing in order for the thought
process to be implemented into the entity."
(Hakob) You are essentially right.
It can be your Asimovian positronic brain,
it can be some network of neurons. It doesn't  really matter as long as there is something
material that does the thinking. That's
materialism. And we can also think that
there are aliens capable of thinking.
It will still be materialism because
you have material substratum that does the thinking. OK! What about this one?
How about I say
that everything in the universe is 
both material and spiritual?
God is universe and universe is God and
there is nothing in the universe that is
not divine and there is nothing divine
that is not in the universe, that they
cannot exist without each other. They 
are two sides of the same corin.
There has been such a belief and it's quite
popular, especially among professional
philosophers. This is the view that is
called neutral monism, the idea that
there is one substance and that substance is both material and spiritual, that they
cannot exist without each other but they
are two parts of the same thing. So here
are the questions that
separate these four views.
Question #1:  Is mind a substance?
Can mind exist without any material
foundation? Can you have souls without
bodies? Can you have thoughts without
brains? This is the question. You can
answer yes and you can answer no and there
is the second question: Is matter a
substance? Can you have something
material that is not ideal in any way,
that does not require any thoughts and
feelings in its spiritual foundation?
Again you can have yes and no.
Now you tell me if I say yes to both questions, what kind view will that be? Dualism!
If I say yes that I believe
matter is substance but for thoughts
for mind you need something material,
what view would this be? Materialism.
If I say yes to mind but no to matter?
Idealism. And finally this one would be
neutral monism. Is this clear?
Now, how many dualists do we have here?
Not too many. How many idealists?
How many people who believe that
everything is spiritual essentially?
Not very popular! How many
neutral monists we have here who believe that it's all two sides of the same equation?
Quiet a few! Materialists? This
proves my point: we are living in
the age of materialism. Now I'm 
going to give you another diagram.
This time same conceptions arranged by the number of substances that they accept.
How many substances are there? You can say "one", and that would be monism.
There is only one substance.
You can say "two", and that will be dualism.
You can say "many", and this would be pluralism which was implicit in the Aristotelian worldview.
They believed that every type of thing is essentially a difference substance.
Now, what about monism? It comes in three varieties:
materialism, idealism and neutral monism.
They are all types of monism. Once again it is this materialistic variety of monism that
is implicit in our theories. There is an
open question here which is can you
really explain everything that happens
at the social level or at the level of
human culture, human thoughts? Can you
really explain that everything just by
analyzing the motion and the interaction
of the neurons? This question is open.
Some people say as long as you know how
neurons interact you must be able to explain
everything that the reason to explain
at the level of thoughts, at the level
of a mind other people tend to believe
that there is something at the level of
human thought that is not really
explicable in terms of chemistry, physics,
biology. And this is an open debate.
Communities seem to be divided.
But when it comes to the question of the
substance: whether there are non-physical
substances, the community seems to be in
agreement here that we do not believe
that they can be non-physical
substances, non-material substances.
We do not believe that mind can
exist on its own. As a scientific
community we don't believe in that. 
Very good! Next important transition
concerns the very concept of matter.
If you compare the notion of matter
implicit in the Cartesian mosaic. Was
purely mechanistic inert matter?
A typical instance would be a billiard ball.
No other qualities but a capacity to
occupy space. And then they switch to the
Newtonian view, dynamic matter, matters that are capable of interacting through forces.
Another important transition
happening in the 19th century
and in the 20th century. I'm going to explain this. Here we have a classical experiment.
You have a solid wall. You have a
wall with two slits. And here you have a
golfer who hits blue-tinted golf balls. So
it's a macro level experiment, right?
What pattern will emerge after a 
series of hits? Two blue lines, right?
It should be like that and this will be the
view from the top. So far so good!
What about this setting now? I'm going to close one of the sets. Only one of them is
open and I'm going to have a source of
light here, like that. What kind of a
pattern you think will emerge? A line!
It's a safe assumption that you have to be able
to see a line. Now I'm so going to open
the slit. So what do you
think we have to be able to observe?
Two lines? How many of you think it's two lines?
OK! Now you know where I'm going.
This is what you would expect if the
lights could postulate properties
This is the anticipated pattern. All agree?
Who says no? You might be onto something
because we are going to get there eventually.
(Student) "If the slit is narrow enough,
you will get diffraction patterns."
(Hakob) Right! In reality
you will observe something like this and this is
where it gets crazy! How on earth you see
something like? This has no
explanation if you think of light as a
series of particles. If you think the
light as a series of particles then you
have to be able to see two lines just
like in the case of the golfer and
tinted golf balls, right? Because it's all
particles. But this example shows us the
light is not really corpuscular.
So what's going on here?
The explanation was provided
by the wave theory of light.
This is the theory we've discussed.
You remember that bright dot in the center
of the shadow. The same theory explains this
phenomenon. It says this pattern is
caused by the interference of light
waves because light is a wave so what
happens is that you have a wave passing
through two slits and then as any wave
such as water waves you pass
with slits and then it would bend
around the obstacle and then the two
waves would meet again and interfere!
The same thing happens here. There are two
types of interference. One type is called
destructive interference. This is 
when the crests and troughs
of the two waves are out-of-phase. 
When it happens this way,
they cancel each other out and those
parts of the screen are dark. And the
results of constructive interference
is when the crests and troughs are in the
phase and this is when the two waves
reinforce each other when you get bright
light. So this phenomenon was explained
by the wave theory of light and was
accepted for about sixty years in the
19th century and after that this theory
became incorporated into what we
nowadays call classical electrodynamics.
Maxwell and Faraday - the same type of
explanation was given in the classical
electrodynamics. Light was considered a
wave. This is the view: there are two
types of matter, particles and waves. This
was a transition from the Newtonian view
that matter is just particles and interacting
forces. In this view you have two
different types of matter: some things
are particles, other things I waves: light,
electricity, magnetism ... those are all
waves. And then you had the particles.
They believe that there are two types of
things. Some entities are thought to be
corpuscular in nature while other
entities are thought to be essentially
wave-like and this was the view accepted
all the way until the 1920s.
And then it was replaced by the view
that we nowadays accept, the view that
says everything in nature has corpuscular 
properties and wave properties.
How is this even possible?
This is when the real craziness begins.
For that we have to go to this one:
quantum mechanics. If there is one piece
of a contemporary mosaic that nobody
really understands.
It's really really crazy.
And this is why it is crazy.
The same situation but this time we go
into the micro world so it's all very
very very very very very tiny even
tinier than that, OK?
The same setting and here you have a
particle gun firing individual electrons.
One electron at a time. I'm not sure
I'm making the right sound but you get the idea.
What pattern will emerge on the wall?
You say well it depends on whether
electrons are particles or whether they are
waves, right? If they are particles, you have
to see something like this (lines). So this is
the pattern if electrons where particles.
In reality we see something like this
and then you say well that's easy then
electrons are waves. That's a natural step
to take!
If this is a pattern - we know this is
exactly how waves behave - therefore
electrons are waves. And again we don't
have many electrons, just one electron at a time
and still get the same picture,
therefore we conclude that every
individual electron is wave-like and it
passes through both slits at the same
time if it's a wave,  if it's not a
particle, if its wave-like and fuzzy.
Imagine a drunken electron
passing through both slits
and it interferes and lines appear, OK?
Let's confirm this. I'm going to confirm
this by putting a small detector here if
electron is really a wave it should pass
through both slits at the same time and
therefore the detector would say both slits.
The detector is needed to know to which of
the two slaves the electron has passed.
If it is the right one,
the detector would receive the right one.
If it's the left one, it will receive the left one.
If it's both just as we expect it would say
both and that would be very nice.
This is where spooky things happen.
The moment you put a detector
two things happen. First, it always passes
through one of the slits. The detector
alwyas says right or left
but it never says both. It's always one
or the other and then the next thing
that happens: interference patterns
disappeared, always! It starts to
behave like a particle. What on earth is
going on? Then you remove the detector
and it's back to its normal ways again.
You put it back and there you go.
No interference patterns. So what do you
do? This is not just one clumsily done
experiment. These are the experiments
that laid the foundation of quantum
physics. So what do you do? How would you
react? The view that is accepted nowadays
is that all matter has both wave and
corpuscular properties. In some cases,
corpuscular properties manifest
themselves. In other cases, wave
properties manifest themselves but we
seem to believe that every particle has
wave qualities. In some situations,
electrons behave like all parcels.
In other situations, they
behave like waves. Essentially all the
particles of our standard model ... quarks,
lepton and bosons ... all of them exhibit
this dual behavior. All of them have that.
And this is the reason why we believe
in reality we deal with not just particles but
what can be properly called wavy particles.
This dual behavior is expressed in many equations
of quantum physics. One of them is
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle,
Essentially what we seem to believe these days is that
we deal with something wave-like or
cloud-like if you want. When you try to
measure the position. What happens is that you
disturb the momentum, and when you
measure the momentum it becomes all
fuzzy and then it's no longer localized
so you don't really know the position.
Depending on which one of the two
properties you want to measure,
you get one uncertainty or the other one.
So the more precise you want to locate in
space, the less precise is the momentum.
The more precise you want to make the
momentum, the less precise is the
position. We have a whole bunch of
theories trying to make sense 
of this difficult situation.
Some suggest that these particles or w
aves we observed are only the
results of vibrations of tiny
supersymmetric superstrings.
Familiar with Superstring theory? We've talked
about that! If we ever accept the theory,
it will provide a nice explanation for
this although the concept that is going
to be used for this explanation is even
crazier because superstrings exist in an
eleven dimensional space-time. This is
really crazy but the explanation, the
currently accepted explanation, is that
it's because of the dual nature of these
particles. It's because that it's not really
localized, unlike a billiard ball.
An old joke says why is it that quantum
physicists are so poor at sex: because
when they find the position they can't
find the momentum. And when they found the momentum
they can't find the position!
Let's sum it up then: Cartesian,
Newtonian, contemporary ...
We have dualism, dualism and materialism. And we have
mechanicism, dynamism which was
replaced by dynamic conception of matter,
matter with forces and then within the
Newtonian view there was a replacement by the idea
that its particles and waves and then
this was replaced by wave-particle duality.
Now I'm going to give you one
conception shared by both Cartesian and
Newtonians and rejected nowadays:
dualistic determinism. What is this?
The problem of determinism is
actually the one that convinced me to
do philosophy. Essentially the
question is: you have a system and then
you manage to know somehow all of the
initial conditions, the absolutely
correct description of the current state
that you know everything there is to
know about the initial state of the
system, in this particular case would be
the math and the position, whatever the
shape, whatever things are important in
this case .. the question is: is it always
possible to predict
the future states of the system?
In other words, does 
nature know where it goes
at all times? Is the future strictly
determined by the past, or is it
possible for the future to be not
determined? Can there be things that are
not really caused by anything? You see
the question? We are going to start with
Newtonian physics and the four laws.
We've covered the laws so I'm going to zoom out.
It follows from the laws that in any
material process - pay attention to the
word "material" here -  the 
same initial conditions always
produce the same effects. In this
particular case, a cannon if the
initial conditions are absolutely the
same, what happens is that you
are going to get exactly the same effect again.
You know it's going to be the same,
right? Why do you know this? Because the
initial conditions are the same as being
pre-programmed that way. The same initial
conditions produce absolutely the same
effects. This is what follows 
from your Newtonian laws.
This is true for any material process if
you take, let's say, very simple system of
falling apple. When you know the
initial conditions of the system, in this
particular case of masses and forces, you
can in principle calculate and predict
every future state of the system if you
know the initial state. And even if you
don't know, you can be absolutely sure
that nature itself knows
where it goes. You as as a student of
nature may or may not be in a position
to do all the calculations because it
might be so many different parameters,
You may or may not have the knowledge
required for that. But if you accept the
Newtonian laws as the true descriptions
of the world, then you also have to
accept that in any material system the 
future state is strictly determined
by its current state.
Take another example, the Earth and the Sun in 
this case. Again, when we know the initial
state of the system, we can in principle
calculate and predict every future state
of the system. Sometimes we do with
systems so complex that it's technically
impossible to measure their current
state - technologically impossible! But if
we were able to measure the initial
conditions, we would be in a position
to predict with absolute precision what
could happen within a day or two or a month
or a year if we knew the initial state.
The point here is not whether we as
human beings are capable of predicting. 
We know that we aren't. That is not the
question. The question here is whether
nature itself knows its course.
Whether there is one
future for every initial state or
whether nature itself is fuzzy and it
doesn't really know where it goes. This is
the question. Now what is the dualistic determinism?
Dualistic determinism is the view
that all material processes are strictly
deterministic. Their future states
strictly follow from their past states.
It applies to inorganic matters and organic matters,
everything material. But this doesn't
apply to a human mind. It doesn't apply
to anything that has to do with thinking
creatures. The laws of physics do not apply.
Why is it that they don't apply for
Newton and for Descartes?
(Student) "Because mind and matter are separate." 
(Hakob) Very good! In this worldview, the mind
doesn't have any materials
substratum, therefore the laws of
physical nature do not apply 
to things ideal and spiritual.
The mind has free will and can produce uncaused
effects. For instance, we can freely
create new theories like that one or
this one. The mind can make random
decisions albeit very stupid: should I
have a slice of pizza or a cheeseburger?
Either way it is going to kill you 
so don't do it! (Students laugh)
And the you decide to have that one. The 
thing is your choice is not limited to the two.
You can choose something
healthier or even much healthier!
The point is options according to this
view are infinite. As a free creature you
can choose whatever you want.
So the laws of strict causation do not
really apply to you. This is the view
that we call dualistic determinism. 
While in the material world all events
are strictly deterministic, our mind is
free to act spontaneously, making random
decisions thus "free will". So this view was
implicit in both Cartesian and Newtonian
mosaics. What are other options we have? I'm
going to give you the options first and
then I'm going to tell you the contemporary
view on the subject. There is the
classical view which is called
determinism which is the idea that
everything is strictly determined
including the human mind and any other
possible mind. You understand the
consequences of this view? So everything
is determined. Not only the physical
processes but also mental processes in
the mind. This is the view 
we call "strict determinism".
This is what is being said:
suppose it appears to you that you have
two choices and then you think about it and
you freely make a choice to eat this
cheeseburger. Even in this case the
strict determinist would say well
there's a cause you may or may not know,
but there was a cause: that 
was something that caused
you to choose that cheeseburger. You may
have no idea what caused it but there
must be some process within your mind,
within your brain, dependent on whether
you are materialist or idealist,
doesn't matter, there must be something
that caused you to do that and there is
something, regardless of whether you know
about it or you don't know about it. There is
essentially no such thing as free choice.
It may appear free to you but in reality
in this view it's all pre-programmed essentially,
and this includes to the last
millisecond: the moment of your birth,
everything that's going to happen to you,
the moment of your death, doesn't matter.
For strict determinists, for any set of
initial conditions there is one and only
one outcome. Nature knows where it goes,
OK? Another view is called indeterminism.
Indeterminists say that there can be 
uncaused events, spontaneous events.
These events may exist in the mind and
in the physical world so it's not only
here (in the mind) but also in the physical world. 
This is indeterminism. Essentially what they're
saying is that at least in some cases,
for some initial conditions, there can be
infinite number of possible outcomes so
it can turn out like that
or it can turn into a nice seahorse or
it can turn into a fallen apple,
or even it's really your day it can turn into
a nice cup of coffee. You say this makes no
sense but if you accept the position
of indeterminism, the idea that at
least in some positions miracles are
possible, this is proper indeterminism!
This is how it's defined: uncaused events, 
events events that have no cause
whatsoever,
completely spontaneous. In literature, 
if you read, specifically, popular
literature on quantum physics and
philosophical issues surrounding quantum
physics, very often you see the contemporary view
that we now accept is called
indeterminism. But that is absolutely
incorrect. It doesn't make much sense to
debate the labels but I suggest we 
stick to the classical notion of
indeterminism and as long as we understand
indeterminism in this way, we are not
indeterminists because we do not believe
that anything is possible, we do not
believe in that. That is not the accepted
view. The view that we accept is different.
In order to understand that view, we have
to go back to quantum physics again.
In quantum physics we have here an atom of
radium. 88 is the atomic number which is
the number of protons,
the red ones in the nucleus. And here 226
is the number of nucleons which are
protons and neutrons put together, 
OK? And this number
decides which particular variety of radium we are
dealing, with which isotope of radium we're
dealing with. In this case this would be
radium 226. Now we know that radium is
radioactive because it eventually decays.
It decays into a radon nuclus, you see, 222
and 86 and helium nuclus what we call
an alpha particle, two protons
for nucleons. According to 
what quantum physics tells us,
the half-life of radium 226 
is about sixteen centuries.
In other words, there is a 50% probability
that some of the radium 226 will decay
in 1600 years. Let's say you have
hundreds of radium. Put them in a box and
come back in sixteen centuries - may
God grant you the longevity - come back
in 1600 years, you open the box, you
are going to see that roughly fifty percent of
them decayed.
Quantum physics tells us that
there is a certain probability for
the decay to happen. The important thing 
is that the theory doesn't tell you which
particular item is going to decay at certain 
point. The theory doesn't tell you that.
It says that there's a certain tendency
for the decay to happen but it doesn't tell
you when exactly the decay is going to
happen. It tells you statistically
speaking roughly 50% of them will decay
in 16 centuries but it doesn't really
tell you exactly when a given item will
decay. What does this mean? This essentially
means that all events have certain
causes but the same initial conditions
may produce different effects. In
literature again, this is the view they
call “indeterminism" for whatever
reason, but this is not indeterminism!
I'm going to use, for lack of a better term,
"probabilistic determinism" which 
says that for any sort of initial
conditions, there is a limited number of
possibilities. It can be like this.
It can be like that. But
it can never turn into a cup of coffee
even if it's your lucky day.
Nature here chooses from a limited
number of possibilities. The number of
possible outcomes is limited and this is
the difference from proper indeterminism.
If you are indeterminist, you don't
have to say that nothing has a cause.
That's not what you are saying. You still
can believe that this thing when you
let this go, it has a cause. As an
indeterminist, for you all the events
can be roughly divided into two types:
those events that do have causes and
those very rare events which have no
cause whatsoever. For an indeterminist
there are cases when anything can happen.
And strictly speaking it's the same as
to say that there are cases when there
are no causes. We believe that it has a
cause, the cause is in its structure, the atomic
structure, the very nature of radium.
That is the cause. Just the cause doesn't
determine the outcome with strict
precision. It only determines the
probability. The important point here is that
it's not a lack of knowledge on our part.
If you accept probabilistic determinism,
you must believe that nature itself has
an open course. Not very open but open to a
certain degree. There are limited options
and at any moment of time nature chooses
from a limited number of options so it's
not us human beings who are incapable of
getting to the essence of things but it
is nature itself that is not really
sure about its course.
So in this particular case in sixteen
centuries it can continue like this or
it can end up like that but again no sea-
horses are expected in this case.
The options are limited. In this particular
case, it is impossible to say with
certainty where a given electron will
strike the screen after passing through
the slits but there is a high
probability that it will strike in one
of the bright
bands so if we look at this diagram (the
top view) and this is your probability
this curve would represent the
probability of finding an electron in
different areas on the screen. So this is
what this theory tells you. It tells you that
this is the probability for finding it here and
that's the probability for finding it
there but it doesn't tell you where
exactly it is going to happen. For those of you
who know a thing or two about those things,
you've probably heard of a famous debate
between Einstein and Bohr on the subject.
Albert Einstein said in this situation
it's a limitation of human knowledge,
it's you as scientist who don't know
what's happening but nature itself
obviously knows the outcome. By improving 
technology and science we may hope
that one day we will conquer this issue
and will know exactly when every single
electron should strike the screen and when
every single item of radium should decay so
we will have precise strictly
deterministic predictions for this.
The accepted view, however, is the one
that is not Einstein's. The view we now
accept is that there are actual
probabilities out there.
My question is: Do you think what 
Einstein says makes sense? How many of you
think that Einstein's position actually
makes sense: that it's only a limitation
of human knowledge that we will dig
deeper and we we will know the actual
reasons and we will be able to calculate 
with absolute precision? How many of you
support Einstein? (Many students raise their hands) 
At a personal level I may tend to agree with you but there is
a certain risk when we take the step as
scientists. I'm talking now not about
my individual view. I'm talking about the
scientific community and me as a member
of that community. Individually I may
believe in anything but as a scientist I
have two options: either I say this is
what my current theories tell me and
this is what I have to accept. 
That's option #1.  Option #2
is what you always have. You can say you
know what our theories are imperfect and
I'm going to stick to beliefs that I have
regardless of what my contemporary
theories tell me, because my contemporary
theories are not the final ones.
As fallibilists we know they're not the
final ones, right? This is option #2.
To stick to whatever you believe is
close to your heart regardless of what
your theories tell you. But you see 
Einstein's strategy can be applied at any
time, no matter what your scientific
theories tell you, you can always say all you
know the theories are fallible and that 
are still a chance for God to exist.
At an individual level you can
believe whatever you want but the
scientific community doesn't have a
choice. We have to stick to theories that
we have. Keep in mind that these theories
are fallible. If we're talking about the
scientific worldview, I think the proper
option is to look precisely what our
scientific theories have to tell us and
accept the results. It doesn't mean
that as an individual you cannot have your own views.
I for one believe that there is more to the story
than this picture allows. But I still
appreciate the fact that according to
the current theories, the world is not
strictly deterministic. Let's stick to
the theory that we have. This is what
separates the scientific worldview from
individual worldview or any other worldview
that is not based on scientific theories.
It's safe to say that nowadays this view is
implicit not only in our fundamental
physics. Take any field of science you'll
find probability implicit in the theory.
Do we have people
majoring in social sciences? Have you come
across any probabilities in social
sciences? Economic predictions, demographic
predictions? It's not only in social sciences
but also in biology. So it's safe to say that this
view is implicit in all the theories.
There are some exceptions but it's
sufficient to have at least some
theories that say that at least in some
situations nature offers options.
I don't want you to think that the debate is
over. I don't want you to think that "OK,
it is probabilistic determinism once and for all.
No, it's not. Einstein may turn out to be
right. We don't know. What we do know is
that given the current state of affairs
in science, this is the prevailing view.
It's a safe conclusion to make. It
gives you a chance to work
and elaborate different options but again
important thing here is that we have to
be in a position to keep the score. You can
work on whatever you want. You can pursue
whatever idea you want but have have to keep
the score. Let's sum it up. So this was
the initial question. Can there be 
uncaused events? Yes or no.
Indeterminism and determinism. 
Then we also have
dualistic determinism and since you have
the third view, my dear philosophers,
you know that when there is a third view, there must exist
another question to which this 
one says yes and this says no.
How would you formulate the question
that separates dualistic determinism
from these two? How do you formulate it 
in such a way that these two say no and
dualistic determinism says yes. This is 
the way I would put it: Can causation and
spontaneity exist in different worlds?
It's the question of having the two but in
different worlds. In one world you have
strict causation but in another world you
have free will,
spontaneity. So this is the idea that
both of these views would say no.
Strict determinism and indeterminism 
would say there's no such thing.
There is one world. Either it's all
strictly determined or there are
uncaused events everywhere. You can only
stick to dualistic determinism if
you believe in two substances, if you
believe that the world is strictly cut
into the material part and the spiritual
part. You cannot really have this if
you believe in one substance. We are going to
zoom out. Now we have a different view:
probabilistic determinism. This
view brings another important idea: all
of the previous ones would say no, it
cannot be! What is the idea?
Probabilistic determinists introduced
how would you formulate a question that
separates probabilistic determinism from
the three other views so there must
be something in probabilistic determinism
that all the previous views would
consider unacceptable. It's the idea of
nonlinear causation. It's the idea of an
open causation. It's the idea of the
causation such that the same initial
conditions produce different effects,
limited number of different things and
this is an idea foreign to strict
determinists, indeterminists, dualistic
determinists. If you asked Einstein, 
he would say that this idea is nonsense,
and it's a contradiction in terms. If something has
a cause, it has to follow from that
cause in a straight line. If something
doesn't have a cause, it doesn't
have a cause. The idea that something may
have a cause, yet follow from that cause
in an open fashion and in a
non-linear fashion is a contradiction in
terms for any of these views, you see? You
can only accept probabilistic determinism if
you believe that the same initial
conditions can bring about different
effects. Very good! Tell me which element
of the Cartesian, Newtonian and
Aristotelian worldviews is no longer
part of mosaic? It's theology!
Theology had been part of the scientific mosaic all the
way until the early 20th century.
In different communities it was different.
In some communities theology was
separated from science. In 19th
century, early 19th century, some
communities went all the way 
to 1920s or 1930's. Roughly
it's the beginning of the 20th century.
Theism is the conception that God exists.
The accepted view is the idea that there is one God,
monotheism. It was this view that
was implicit in the Cartesian worldview,
the Newtonian worldview and the Aristotelian 
worldview. Nowadays the scientific community
accepts the position of agnosticism
and it should not be confused with the
position of atheism. The only reason why I
bring this up - this is not a huge topic as
there's not much that we can discuss 
based on scientific reasoning -
is that I want you to keep in
mind that there is a distinction between
agnosticism and atheism. There is no scientific
theory nowadays that says that God does not
exist. We don't have evidence for
that. The view that is implicit in the
scientific mosaic is the one that we
just don't have evidence. It's not a
scientific issue. We just don't know. May
or may not, but it's not a scientific
question. You see the difference here? We do
not believe that God exists but we
equally do not believe that he doesn't
exist. We just refrain from answering the
question. We just don't think it's a
question that we can tackle as
scientists. So again on a personal level
you might be a believer. I might believe
in God but it doesn't make the
scientific community the theological
community. So theology is no longer part of
of our mosaic. And it was replaced
not by atheism but
replaced by the conception of
agnosticism. The tough part here is that
this question why theology was exiled.
It doesn't seem to have a simple answer.
We have all sorts of stories as to how it
was exiled. It was a gradual process.
It wasn't exiled in a day.
The final one that was exiled was the
proposition that there is a creator of
the universe. That was exiled but it was
the last to go. Before that there were
many others that gradually were exiled. So 
it is a gradual process but essentially we
don't really understand the mechanism
and we do need to understand the
mechanism by the Theory Rejection Theorem.
You know the Theory Rejection Theorem:
it says that the theory becomes rejected
from the mosaic if and only if it is
is replaced by some other theory. So what
was that element or set of elements that
enter into the mosaic which forced the
theology out of it. So this question is
not a simple matter. It could be biology.
It could be physics. It could be ...
I don't know and I don't want to 
hypothesize. It is an open question.
All right, let's sum it up then. 
We have dualistic determinism and
probabilistic determinism. We have monotheism
and agnosticism.  I didn't touch upon the
hypothetico-deductive method because
we've covered this on many occasions and
we share the same method with the
Cartesians and the Newtonians.
A few more things action by contact, action 
at a distance and then we have plenism
and vacuism. We had infinite universe 
and infinite universe. What are the
contemporary views on these issues? 
Why didn't I covered these?
There is one reason why I didn't do that: 
I want you to tackle these issues.
on your own or by taking other
courses. I'm just going to give you some hints.
Should quantum entanglement and nonlocality
be interpreted as instances of action at a
distance? In general relativity, is space
an attribute of matter or is it a separate
substance? Is it plenism or vacuism or
something else? That's an interesting question.
Are infinite and boundless the same thing or
can you think of a universe that
doesn't have any boundaries but is
finite in volume? Can you have a universe
that is finite but no physical
boundaries? You know curved space-time
allows for those scenarios.
It's an interesting thing to tackle. Very good!
Next time we will cover what characterizes
the so-called "worldview", OK? Thank you very much!
