It Must be Beatiful - Great Equations of Modern Science
Edited by Graham Farmelo
Excerpt: Chapter Five, The Logistic Map. Author: Robert May
Henry Horn suggested that here at last is the reconciliation between free will and the foreordained nature of human fates as seen by Calvinism and some other religions. The Creator has placed us in a world of deterministic chaos, obeying defined rules with no random elements, but S/He alone can know the exact initial conditions that determine how the future unfolds. For us, the system's sensitivity to initial conditions means that it is unpredictable, and we interpret this as free will. Horn initially suggested this as a jocular aside, but it now enjoys a modest scholarly literature!
Horn focuses on each person's fate, but it may be more relevant to think of it outside of a particular religion. The world is mostly deterministic, so how are a person's beliefs so unpredictable? As with any chaotic system, it's dependent on initial conditions. No, I don't mean the old "you have the same belief as your parents" argument. Your genetic makeup, along with a few influential childhood experiences will set you off into the deterministic world like in a pinball machine, armed with ideas that are unique to yourself and unknown to others so that no one can even guess who you'll turn into.
