The document discusses the concept of an uncaused event and determinism in the universe. It argues that an uncaused event is impossible to accept as it would have no reason or explanation. It also discusses Laplace's Demon and how if you knew all the variables of the universe, you could theoretically trace everything back to the Big Bang and map out the future. Several factors are presented that could influence a person's personality and choices, including brain damage, genetics, drugs, social environment, and chaos theory. However, it is ultimately argued that free will is a flawed concept and we cannot truly separate cause and effect in the world.

1. The Uncaused Event
• An uncaused event is impossible to accept, if you
think about it.
• It’s like asking a mechanic why your car didn’t start
this morning, and her saying: “There’s no reason.
Everything is working the same, it’s just not starting
now.” – We’d presume she’d missed something.
• An uncaused event = no reason, no explanation, no
mechanism, no WHY or HOW.
• Even a miracle has a why and a how.
• Bear this in mind as we talk about the rest....

2. Mechanics
Everything in the physical universe obeys the laws
of physics
The universe, then, works like clockwork

3. Laplace’s Demon
If you could know the state, location and direction of every atom
in the universe
+
The laws of physics (mechanics, chemistry etc.)
=
You could trace everything back to the big bang/map everything
until the end of time

4. Laplace’s Demon
If you could know the state, location and direction of every atom
in the universe
+
The laws of physics (mechanics, chemistry etc.)
=
You could trace everything back to the big bang/map everything
until the end of time
The universe is pre-programmed, set on its path by it’s starting conditions,
playing itself out – no room for variation or “free choice” – life is not even
a road, it’s railtrack!

5. Us #1: Biology

6. Damage or surgery to the brain can alter your
personality
Violent criminals used to undergo frontal
lobotomies to make them less aggressive.
Cats are neutered for similar reasons
(hormones)!
Phineas Gage > had an accident at work that
shot an iron rod through his skull, severely
damaging his frontal lobes. Apparently hard-
working, responsible and popular before the
accident, he became childish, aggressive,
impulsive and hard to control after. His
personality changed so much his friends said
he was “no longer Gage”.
This Richard Hammond guy recovered fully from
his crash on Top Gear – but now likes celery.


7. Memory
Memory is certainly affected by brain damage, and is a huge part of our
identity and personality.
People who have severe amnesia often develop different characteristics to
their previous personalities
Alzheimers is physical disease that eats away at the brain, and in advanced
stages often appears to destroy the existing personalities of the people it
affects.

8. Genetics, Development and
Neuroanatomy
The way your brain is structured can apparently determine if you are
schizophrenic, dyslexic, autistic etc. and maybe whether you are an artistic
person or an athletic person or a scientifically minded person - possibly,
even, if you are straight or gay!

9. Drugs
Drugs chemically alter the brain
and it’s processes and can
have profound effects on your
mood, experience and
personality – whether it is as
treatment for a mood/mental
disorder or illegal
narcotics/mind-altering
hallucinogens…

10. Us #2: Social and
Environmental
Factors

11. • Maybe you don’t buy this idea that consciousness simply = the composition
of brain and body (I don’t – there are massive problems with it) - But even
outside of the biology, cause and effect is at work...
• Our lifestyle, beliefs, opinions, choices and responses are
determined by:
• The situations we find ourselves in, our time and place in
history, our previous experiences, what we have learnt,
habit, our upbringing, our society and culture, our
interactions with others – the influences on our behaviour
are innumerable – all we really do is respond, whether

12. Ways Out? #1: Chaos Theory
• The “butterfly effect”
• Chaos Theory does not get us out of
determinism – it is all about cause and
effect!
• It says that some systems (like the
weather) are unpredictable because
they so complex ie. they have so many
factors that you could never account
for them all – and the smallest factor
(like a butterfly) could, via cause and
effect, snowball to have a massive
effect.
• Important – these systems are
unpredictable in practice, but not in
theory – it’s all about the knock-on
effects of tiny causes.

13. Ways Out? #2: Mind is not part of the
mechanical universe
• This has a long history, especially in
Religious/Spiritual thinking, but
ultimately does not get us out of
determinism
• Because, even if it is the case, the mind
still has to cause what the body does,
and the respond to things happening in
the world – it is still in a causal system
with the material world, so even if it’s
not “physical”, the logic of cause and
effect still applies.
• We just want to be the cause of
everything, and never the effect – like a
“prime mover” – but that means we
would never have a reason or
explanation for our actions!

15. Ways Out? #3: Randomness
• Determinism says there is no such thing as true Randomness – eg. Tossing
a coin.
• A random event = an UNCAUSED event (no explanation, no mechanism)
• There appears to be no way of proving an event was actually random –
always presume you just haven’t found the mechanism
• Randomness does not help Free Will anyway – we have no more control
over random events than strictly determined ones.

16. Quantum Mechanics
• However – in the sub-atomic world, scientists have had to accept that
some particles apparently act in a random way
• Some particles just don’t act in the way they should according to standard
mechanics/the laws of cause and effect – they act paradoxically
• However, the way they act is still predictable – because they always act in
that paradoxical way – so we can make new laws for how certain particles
act, thought strictly NO-ONE can explain the mechanism behind it. We
just have to accept that that’s the way it is.

18. Hume: Constant Conjunctions
• Way back in the 18th
Century, Hume pointed
out that that’s how it is with ALL cause and
effect.
• We only accept that this thing causes that
thing, because that’s the way it has always
happened.
• Like quantum mechanics, we just accept that
“thing 1” responds like this when we do
“thing 2” to it, because of habit – constant
conjunctions of cause and effect. There is no
logical reason why it couldn’t act differently
next time, except that it’d break all the
“constant conjunctions” of cause and effect
that we’re used to. This is (kind of) what
happened when we came to study the
quantum world.

19. • If we split the world into “cause” and “effect”
there is always a gap that cannot be bridged
between the two.
• In reality we cannot divide things neatly into
“cause” and an “effect”, because everything is
constantly happening in a continuous chain –
there are no beginnings and ends – everything
is ONE THING.

20. Conclusion
• “Cause and effect” is our concept of how
things work. We can’t make sense of the
world without it, yet it’s a flawed idea.
• “Free Will” is even more fuzzy and hard to pin
down as a concept.
• If there is a problem reconciling the two, it’s
down to how we concieve of these things –
which shows just how inadequate our grasp of
“how things ultimately are” is.