In 1687 Sir Isaac Newton published Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which laid the foundation of determinism. Through Newton’s ideas in what we call now the Age of Reason, rose the idea of ”clockwork universe”, generally stating that by measuring things as they are, we can accurately explain all the Nature’s phenomenae and predict the future using the laws of science.
One probably could wonder, what does Newton’s work has to do with my memories. Though I haven’t read the original and was born nearly 300 years later, it had a certain impact on me. As a matter of fact, we perceive reality and interpret it through the prism of our cultural and educational background. It’s never “as it is”, but as worthy as it’s description. My father was a strong believer in science, and wanted me to be a mathematician, a kind of a weird wish keeping in mind he was a poet himself. I remember him trying to come up with a precise word, which could describe what he felt at the moment best. He often felt stressed about it as he couldn’t. I guess he thought it is easier to operate with numbers rather than words. I remember refusing going to my 1st grade in school: I demanded science. I wanted to study physics and maths, I wanted to understand the mechanics of existence. That’s why my parents have sent me to a school with advanced maths and science programs, and determinism was what they taught in school too.
My belief in numbers was ruined after I’ve read at the age of 12 some popular books on astronomy and quantum mechanics: it turned out that, with the course of time any system behaviour starts to “fluctuate” and become disordered, behaving randomly. Even orbits of planets, massive bodies, never quite follow the same path. We live in a universe which is rather chaotic, then orderly. Our brain waves, or the pattern of it’s electric impulses, is also being chaotic. This could be the origin of consciousness , free will and creativity. Our mind is ruled rather by Chaos, then Order. Continue reading ‘Feeling of being human’
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