It was René Descartes who developed many of the fundamental techniques of modern mathematics and gave us the picture of the universe as a Great Machine. It was Isaac Newton who formulated the laws by which the Great Machine runs.
These men struck boldly against the grip of scholasticism, the medieval thought system of the 12th to the 15th centuries. They attempted to place “man” at the center of the stage, or at least back on the stage; to prove to him that he need not be a bystander in a world governed by unfathomable forces. It is perhaps the greatest irony of history that they accomplished just the opposite.
Joseph Weizenbaum, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote, in reference to computers:
Science promised man power…. But, as so often happens when people are seduced by promises of power, the price is servitude and impotence. Power is nothing if it is not the power to choose. 6
How did this happen?
Newton’s laws of motion describe what happens to a moving object. Once we know the laws of motion we can predict the future of a moving object provided that we know certain things about it initially. The more initial information that we have, the more accurate our predictions will be. We also can retrodict (predict backward intime) the past history of a given object. For example, if we know the present position and velocity of the earth, the moon, and the sun, we can predict where the earth will be in relation to the moon and the sun at any particular time in the future, giving us a foreknowledge of eclipses, seasons, and so on. In like manner, we can calculate where the earth has been in relation to the moon and the sun, and when similar phenomena occurred in the past.
Without Newtonian physics the space program would not be possible. Moon probes are launched at the precise moment when the launch site on the earth (which simultaneously is rotating around its axis and moving forward through space) is in a position, relative to the landing zone on the moon (which also is rotating and moving) such that the path traversed by the spacecraft is the shortest possible. The calculations of the earth, moon, and spacecraft movements are done by computer, but the mechanics used are the same ones that are described in Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica .
In practice, it is very difficult to know all the initial circumstances pertaining to an event. Even a simple action such as bouncing a ball off a wall is surprisingly complex. The shape, size, elasticity, and momentum of the ball, the angle at which it was thrown, the density, pressure, humidity and temperature of the air, the shape, hardness, and position of the wall, to name a few of the essential elements, are all required to know where and when the ball will land. It is increasingly difficult to obtain all of the data necessary for accurate predictions when more complex actions are involved. According to the old physics, however, it is possible, in principle, to predict exactly how a given event is going to unfold if we have enough information about it. In practice, it is only the enormity of the task that prevents us from accomplishing it.
The ability to predict the future based on a knowledge of the present and the laws of motion gave our ancestors a power they had never known. However, these concepts carry within them a very dispiriting logic. If the laws of nature determine the future of an event, then, given enough information, we could have predicted our present at some time in the past. That time in the past also could have beenpredicted at a time still earlier. In short, if we are to accept the mechanistic determination of Newtonian physics—if the universe really is a great machine—then from the moment that the universe was created and set into motion, everything that was to happen in it already was determined.
According to this philosophy, we may seem to have a will of our own and the ability to alter the
These men struck boldly against the grip of scholasticism, the medieval thought system of the 12th to the 15th centuries. They attempted to place “man” at the center of the stage, or at least back on the stage; to prove to him that he need not be a bystander in a world governed by unfathomable forces. It is perhaps the greatest irony of history that they accomplished just the opposite.
Joseph Weizenbaum, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote, in reference to computers:
Science promised man power…. But, as so often happens when people are seduced by promises of power, the price is servitude and impotence. Power is nothing if it is not the power to choose. 6
How did this happen?
Newton’s laws of motion describe what happens to a moving object. Once we know the laws of motion we can predict the future of a moving object provided that we know certain things about it initially. The more initial information that we have, the more accurate our predictions will be. We also can retrodict (predict backward intime) the past history of a given object. For example, if we know the present position and velocity of the earth, the moon, and the sun, we can predict where the earth will be in relation to the moon and the sun at any particular time in the future, giving us a foreknowledge of eclipses, seasons, and so on. In like manner, we can calculate where the earth has been in relation to the moon and the sun, and when similar phenomena occurred in the past.
Without Newtonian physics the space program would not be possible. Moon probes are launched at the precise moment when the launch site on the earth (which simultaneously is rotating around its axis and moving forward through space) is in a position, relative to the landing zone on the moon (which also is rotating and moving) such that the path traversed by the spacecraft is the shortest possible. The calculations of the earth, moon, and spacecraft movements are done by computer, but the mechanics used are the same ones that are described in Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica .
In practice, it is very difficult to know all the initial circumstances pertaining to an event. Even a simple action such as bouncing a ball off a wall is surprisingly complex. The shape, size, elasticity, and momentum of the ball, the angle at which it was thrown, the density, pressure, humidity and temperature of the air, the shape, hardness, and position of the wall, to name a few of the essential elements, are all required to know where and when the ball will land. It is increasingly difficult to obtain all of the data necessary for accurate predictions when more complex actions are involved. According to the old physics, however, it is possible, in principle, to predict exactly how a given event is going to unfold if we have enough information about it. In practice, it is only the enormity of the task that prevents us from accomplishing it.
The ability to predict the future based on a knowledge of the present and the laws of motion gave our ancestors a power they had never known. However, these concepts carry within them a very dispiriting logic. If the laws of nature determine the future of an event, then, given enough information, we could have predicted our present at some time in the past. That time in the past also could have beenpredicted at a time still earlier. In short, if we are to accept the mechanistic determination of Newtonian physics—if the universe really is a great machine—then from the moment that the universe was created and set into motion, everything that was to happen in it already was determined.
According to this philosophy, we may seem to have a will of our own and the ability to alter the
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