The keystone of science is that everything has a cause, yet how can an act of genuinely free will be caused? Likewise, how can any chance event, i.e. one that is uncaused? When confronted with these dilemmas, natural scientists twist and turn with arguments that virtually always amount to denial of the phenomena of free will and chance. Similarly, they ignore how some people experience 'extraordinary' meaningful coincidences many times daily and argue that synchronicity is nothing more than chance coincidence, for never can a meaning or purpose be admitted to exist other than a human one. Werner Heisenberg's famous intervention is the deterministic Einsteinian physics can be summed up simply in his own words: "With the mathematical formulation of quantum-theoretical laws pure determinism had to be abandoned."¹ However, many supporters of scientist will still not fully accept the possibility of uncaused phenomena, and it appears that none accept that of both meaningless random coincidences side-by-side with a meaningful synchronous 'coincidence' of events.

Further, few natural scientists will tolerate the idea of an intelligence greater than a human being's or the existence of a higher will or cosmic purpose. I am not claiming that such exists, but pointing out that it cannot be ruled out on any remotely empirical grounds. Many scientists also evidently speak as though they reject the suggestion that some humans can have qualitatively greater understanding, wider fruitful experience and a more free will than others... and would hold up the most inventive of natural scientists as the apex of intelligence. This is not supportable scientific fact, of course. But the confusion and untenable selectivism in these notions is one legacy of unrestrained scientism, often combined with the unfounded assumption of atheism.

Great Western thinkers have almost always pursued the goal of discovering order in life and the cosmos, whether by religious, philosophical or scientific means. Early forms of civilisation already sought to account for the cause of events by what is now widely considered to be 'mythology', by explaining natural events as the result of actions of deities. Superstitious as they may seem to the casual observer, such systems of belief contributed to a kind of ordering of ideas and of social relations.

The science of nature developed by the early Greeks started from ideas of an underlying order in nature itself, a 'logical cosmos' (cosmos as logos). The nature of certain regular physical events were examined and described, which led to ideas about underlying structures or laws of nature that determined the ordering of events in time and space. With the human mind's propensity to seek regularity, such as causes and effects, order became a guiding ideal of rational thinking, the basis of the development of discursive reason and logic and also of systematic scientific research.

The ultimate origin, meaning and purpose of the cosmos and all its events has been sought by metaphysicians and theologians, artists and mystics, of many cultures. The ideal is all-embracing explanation and is set against the apparent chance happenings of the world and the fearful notion of ultimate chaos. Seeking solutions and explanations of the conflicts of human life and society led thinkers to the conception of an ethical order. This had already arisen in India centuries before with the concept of karma or the universal law of action and reaction in all things, including human actions. The Jews and the Greeks both adopted such conceptions of an ethical order operating on human destiny, which became a cornerstone of Christian and European thought.

CAUSAL DESCRIPTION OR EXPLANATION?

Science aims at the explanation, through tangible tests of some sort, of every event as having a cause. It seeks to generalise about events to show the regular orders to which they conform, whether or not this order is evident to the ordinary observer. By and large the physical sciences claim to discover just this (the main exception being micro-physics with its discovery of physical paradoxes and indeterminacy). In our day, however, the empirical scientist still tends to accept the assumption of a non-purposive universe. The revered Law of Universal Causation which asserts that 'every event has a cause' came to be interpreted rather as each event has only one prior cause. Paradoxically, the idea of the father of biology, Aristotle, that 'nothing in nature is in vain', and therefore has an inherent purpose or meaning, was thus distorted and narrowed by modern science. The impossible consequences of the position, however, are at last causing many biologists to fumble towards teleological explanations to account for evolution. The most notable and thought-provoking instance is Rupert Sheldrake's teleological viewpoint in A New Science of Life, which it is no exaggeration to say has not been welcomed by the mainstream. Sheldrake's explanation of natural forms (morphology) is goal-oriented rather than causal and Darwinistic.

Probably a majority of biologists, being mainstream Darwinists, still reject the notion of cosmic purpose of any sort (from Monod, Dobhanzsky etc. and on down to Stephen Jay Gould or Richard Dawkins) and largely join physics and the non-science mathematics (which is the very model of logic) in upholding the belief that 'chance' or 'randomness' and 'sheer accident' do occur.

When any scientist today speaks of the 'cause' of an event, what is really meant is simply 'that event which is always observed immediately to precede the event caused'. Explanation is thus a mere description of a series of events observed always to be regularly connected to one another. It is agreed by scientists themselves that such (detailed) descriptions are the only sort of 'explanations' that science can provide. What is 'explained' is simply how much more detailed and complex many events are than is generally perceived or thought. There is, however, another sense which the idea of cause usually implies which is left unexplained... what actually creates the connection between cause and effect and, further, what sustains it in every instance?

Descriptions answer questions of 'how' or 'in what manner', whereas the word 'why' asks for more than a description, but a proper explanation. Scientists might prefer that the word 'why' did not exist at all. But exist it does and, though science assumes that 'every event must have a cause', there must be a reason for the concept 'why'. The time-honoured notion of a cause, however, originally meant that there was some power, some purposeful principle or an operative Will operating on events or itself somehow inherent in events. Knowing that power, how and why it operates as it does to create and maintain order and causality in nature - rather than the reverse - would amount to explaining events fully. Philosophers and scientists agree that such a cause is not observable by use of any of the five senses or their combinations. Since David Hume wrote his famous analysis showing how observation reveals the baselessness of the idea of 'necessary connection' between cause and effect, this doctrine has virtually become universally accepted among scientists.

Empiricism has consequently re-defined the ancient idea of 'cause' to narrow its scope. Science does not try to answer 'why', it even rejects rational explanations entirely if they have no observable cause. Sometimes - but not always - an exception is made for human's explanations of their own motives or intentions, which science may or may not recognise as the sufficient 'cause', depending on the degree of physicalistic strictness in the particular school of thought.

Scientific empiricism serves to summarise and generalise the information gathered from a plethora of different individual descriptions. Scientific experiment is no more than a method of discovering which descriptions (or generalised descriptions known as hypotheses) are based on accurate observations. If the observations are lacking, the hierarchy of descriptions (from hypotheses to theories) are thrown into doubt and require to be modified or rejected, according to the seriousness of their lack of accuracy etc. This is the essence and the extent of all scientific theory and method, however intricate, however far-reaching its observations in time and space. Beyond this descriptive understanding it cannot go, not - that is - without becoming 'unscientific'. All this is long-established and unproblematical doctrine in the history and philosophy of science. The most abstract and concise theories in any science do no more than compress and unify such 'causal' descriptions of physical nature. This is the whole of it; science does not really explain but rather show us how to observe and manipulate the environment more accurately and thus effectively.

There are also anomalies that arise when trying to apply the idea of cause as it was traditionally defined, as Prof. Joad pointed out long ago, "Under the influence of the theory of relativity, twentieth-century physics tends to account for the movements of an entity X solely in terms of happenings in the immediate vicinity of X." but the facts of nature show that "...modifications are the more intense near the place of origin, less intense as we travel away from it. Now the so-called law of cause and effect constitutes a particular case of force operating from over a distance, and the law is, therefore, affected by the abandonment of the general conception of which it is a special case.²

Joad held that, for a variety of reasons the kind of causation which the mechanist theory of the universe requires, long regarded as untenable by philosophers, was in large measure rejected by physicists. This action from a distance is now called 'field effect', and is still behind a closed gate, as it were. All magnetism is field effect, with the magnetic influence of the sun and earth as impressive instances.

Now, the basic idea of causation obviously cannot be rejected, for there is no adequate replacement for this practically unavoidable way of thought. At a deeper level, though, science can even be said not to be able to explain how any event really occurs. The causes and effects described by science can themselves be said to have an unexplained cause (in the fuller sense of the word 'cause'). An example helps to illustrate this: what is the cause of the digestive processes that enable the human body to utilise the energy in foodstuffs as sustenance for the 'inexplicable' life force? It is certainly not just the presence of digestive enzymes, for this itself requires 'explanation'. The bio-chemical construction of enzymes does not help to explain their existence, only which conditions are observed as accompanying their production. Nor does any such analytic observation help explain their purpose. Like all physical science, bio-chemistry is devoid of any idea of purpose in nature. It can trace the physical origins to amazing lengths, not least going far back into the past. But the future is a virtually closed book to science, as will be discussed. Yet purpose there surely is, namely the sustenance of the life-principle in the body. What is the purpose of the life principle? This is doubtless a question beyond the methods and theories of science. Yet that does not make it a question that cannot be answered, not one that can have one overall true answer.

THE PROBLEM OF CAUSAL MULTIPLICITY

The insistence of scientific theorists on there being one cause of each event is understandable, because this has proven a very fruitful assumption indeed to the methodic progress of analysis and experiment in physics and the allied natural sciences. Isolating one factor as the crucial factor is doubtless applicable in studying the processes of nature at an elemental level. But what of nature at the higher levels, of the bamboozingly intricate and countless interacting functions of life?

The complexity of an eco-system, even of a tiny part of eco-systems such as the bacteriological processes within a cubic inch of soil, are still far beyond comprehensive observation or calculation. The same applies to the interactive system of bio-chemicals in the human body, which is a complex beyond the reaches of all analysis and calculation. The simple idea of one-cause-one-effect is evidently totally futile at the level of articulation of life reached in the human being, with its endlessly varied emotions (as described ever anew in world literature), with the billions upon billions of perceptions, thoughts, ideas, word-pictures, actions, and with the constantly changing and growing gestalts of taste, opinion, behaviour, desire, aspiration, art, music, organisation etc...

As long as we consider very basic processes between the elements in nature, the idea of 'linear' cause-effect chains of causation is useful for identifying and isolating regularities of connection of events. But nature has many levels of increasing articulation, such that it is both theoretically and practically quite impossible to analyse every kind of event - and often unique combination thereof - so as to arrive at any reasonable account of causes.

When people speak of causes of upheavals in nature, of wars or even of some important action by an individual, it is just not feasible to speak in terms of a single cause. Usually one points out many contributing 'causes', which usually are seen as human motives formulated amid all manner of physical and social conditions. What is virtually a theory of multiple causation is then called for. It is simply not acceptable to argue for one single event as causing the murder of a person such as Trotsky. No single micro event can be singled out as 'crucial' among the mass of events that brought about that terrible act. No more does it make sense to say that one single cause led Chamberlain to decide on his famous declaration of war against the Third Reich is too absurd to be even worth considering. The same logic necessarily applies to all social events where any kind of intentional decisions were involved.

What sets going and sustains the incredibly intricate interplay of chemicals and enzymes in cell life to behave organically, attracting and repelling, bonding or destroying, initiating division or impeding it, defending and attacking... is not explained at all. Some limited causes are so far described to a relatively minor extent. The bewildering bio-interactions within even the simplest living organisms make simple cause-effect thinking look a very inadequate and rough intellectual tool. Though molecular biology, which is highly analytical, still manages largely with the principle of isolating a single cause to each event, ecological biology cannot do so, and so rather seeks the holistic view. To try to isolate one single cause of the depletion of a particular species of insect in a rain forest is about as futile as trying to isolate one cause for the depletion of the world's rain forests. One may even say with considerable good reason that each such event is simply 'human greed', but this is not scientifically satisfying because it does not advance our understanding of the intricacies of the whole global process. Even to know all the inter-relations of countless billions of microscopic events within a small area of forest neglects the influence of major weather patterns, many kinds of human intervention (like logging, pollution etc.)

The above problem applies very largely in all the sciences that deal with such events which are thought to be very complex combinations of single events, which is to say most of them. Many such events, however, are unitary and have the nature of wholes or 'gestalts', such as with eco-systems of any kind and with most psychological, social, economic, anthropological, historical or allied phenomena.

It is possible, thinking of Wittgenstein's apposite remarks on the functions of language in clouding thought, that sheer grammar lies behind the fixation of scientists on the singularity of causes: the phrase 'has a cause' may have mislead reason away from what otherwise is obvious, some events can have several or more concurrent causes (often called 'factors' or 'variables' in methodological jargon), without which those events could not have occurred.

Bertrand Russell was even of the opinion that the language of cause and effect was merely a convenient shorthand for certain purposes, but does not represent anything that is genuinely to be found in the physical world. This is basically only Hume again. One weakness of this is that it undermines the chief guiding principle of science through the ages, which has contributed greatly to its advances. More serious, though, is its rejection of a concept which is found in some form in every human culture and which is indispensable according to many philosophers, not least Kant who elevates the idea of causation to the most important of the mind's inherent or a priori categories. To reject the idea of cause is like saying, 'there are no grounds whatever for anything to happen as it does'.

LIMITS TO SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION EXEMPLIFIED

If asked what difference the reliance on a fallacious theory of causation makes to our understanding of the cosmos, one can begin by pointing out the situation in which empirical sciences still find themselves as regards the most basic causes of many of the most fundamental facts and phenomena of the physical universe. The scientist can only stand and observe that certain phenomena occur, without being able to explain how causal connections themselves came into being and are sustained.

The cause of the energy of the universe cannot be explained in material terms. It is 'beyond science'. The inexplicability of creation underlies every physical phenomenon, it is the wall beyond which neither the five senses nor discursive reason can penetrate. A physicists' idea, that the universe was not created but simply came into being, is backed up by much speculation about the likelihood that what is possible mathematically will tend to be realised. Thus in effect to rename Creation simply as the 'actualisation of possibilities', amounts to empty words, unless one can state which unmoved mover initiates actualisation. The same objection applies to many phenomena that see 'simply to occur'. The following shortlist of selected phenomena that cannot be fully understood helps to illustrate this, even though one may sometimes be able to state fairly fully the physical conditions observed as necessary for their presence:-

the phenomena of gravity, vacuum, energy, momentum and inertia
the transmission of energy in vacuum (eg. light in space)
the essential nature of the power of electricity
how like magnetic poles repel one another
how electro-magnetic influences affect the human organism
how the field phenomenon works (i.e produces effects across distances)
the working of superconductors
the process of photosynthesis
how plants store their 'information' about enemies etc.
how animals (eg. dogs, cats) can retrace huge distances to owners
how the heartbeat is sustained
how the body's many intricate healing processes are orchestrated
how acupuncture etc. achieves proven curative effects
how digestion, peristalsis and metabolisms sustain themselves
how muscle power works and how the human will initiates it
how natural forms arise to fill their place in complex eco-systems
why entropy takes place and why it is an irreversible process
the assymmetry of some phenomena
how the symmetry of mammalian bodies arose and develops
what gives rise to the perceived passage of time
what causes the transition between dreamless sleep and dreaming
how the mind can move immediately between any conceived place and time
the formless existence of consciousness, capable of taking on forms
how consciousness remains independent of its objects
how and why synchronicities (very meaningful coincidences) take place
how fever, drugs, and sensory deprivation etc. cause delusory visions
how hypnosis induces specified total sensory illusions
how hypnosis can induce powerful physical effects (eg. strength etc.)
how the human mind can generalise, and also do so mistakenly
how the intellect recognises logical truths, or fails to do so
how thought transference is effected (plus many other para-normal interactions).

These are some of the most obvious instances of subjects that remain impervious to scientific causal explanation. The list could be extended almost indefinitely if we were to enter into any specific field of analysis, such as the micro-biology of proteins or anti-bodies or literally hundreds other such special areas. It is because our ignorance of the physical world is still so great that physical science still finds its many tasks and dreams of a future huge multiplication of its efforts.

What does biology or medicine, zoology or psychology know of that vitiating principle, life? The answer can only be that life itself remains a phenomenon indescribable to all physical observation, and impenetrable mystery to all the known theories supported by any sort of likely scientific hypotheses. What then is it? Does science explain the real cause and objective of human lives? No. It holds this to be an accident that 'simply happens' and is without purpose. Those scientific agnostics and atheists who speak in facile manner of God, as if science could second-guess the divine mind, ought seriously to reconsider the actual limits of scientific explanation.

CHANCE EVENTS, & FREE WILL VS. CAUSALITY

The recognition of unique or unrepeatable events is clearly unavoidable in practice in science and are certainly so in the realm of 'social sciences' like history. In the micro-physical sphere, the behaviour of individual sub-atomic particles are 'provenly' unpredictable and are thus subject to 'chance', their individual behaviour being 'unique' (not conforming to any regularity, pattern or law), though they conform to predictable laws in the aggregate. This implies that chance takes place at the elemental or individual scale of things, but in the aggregate or on the macro-scale, regularity is always found. Universal order would thus be founded and imposed on chaos in the particular.

This also implies that one cannot predict macro-events reliably from micro-events. This seems, at least, to be in accordance with all normal experience. It amounts to an overall determinism which is qualified by the exceptions of chance and freedom at the particular level, always operating within objective limits.

For example, individual persons can also be notoriously unpredictable in at least some things, even to some one who knows them extremely well. Psychology and social sciences (such as social economics) may sometimes approximate how the statistical aggregate will behave, but cannot avoid the common sense notion that, from our own conscious point of view, we individuals have a 'will of our own' which enables us not only to defy any prediction if we wish to prove it wrong, but also on occasion to act independently of any known or conceived general law. Between the supposed 'causal chains of events', human volition sometimes steers towards goals that have no precedent whatever in any past experience. The moment of indeterminacy, of choosing through the mind's inward decision, somehow inserts itself into the chain of events... between stimulus and response, cause and effect. There is not even an iron 'law of survival', for people can and do commit suicide, even sometimes only to prove a point, as occurs in political protests, relationships and so forth.

As soon as we leave the realm that science still treats as 'dead' or inert matter and come to mankind and society, the human sciences have to deal with additional complications. The basic problem, as noted, is that of 'free will'; the will to choose between alternative courses of action within given situations and limitations. This idea of free will is ineradicable in human life, for without it there can be no responsibility, no just law, no philosophy other than fatalism and even no democracy. Human beings would be sheer automatons in a (very complex) mechanical type of universe without any freedom of will, however limited. But free will cannot be caused, for it is precisely 'free' of causal determinants.

Causal science has a problem with all voluntary goal-oriented 'social processes' such as revolutions, fashions and anything affected by subjective motivations and ideal purpose. Neither the 'creation' of original meaning, as in the arts or sciences, nor the idea of meaninglessness can be explained as a result of determinacy. Telling evidence that human will somehow breaks with any iron law of causality is the fact that - unlike physics and biology - sociology, economics and political science are never able to predict. Innovation, future events or trends are not predictable with any reasonable degree of reliability, even under fairly well known circumstances.

Events that are or can be influenced in any way whatever by human will are similar and thus can only be understood when the following or subsequent events and the intended consequences are taken fully into account. This is the reverse of the empirical idea of causality in that it sees the cause of an event in terms of a lack, that is the absence of some required condition or as a shortcoming in some state of affairs. This perspective is future-oriented because it analyses existing conditions on the basis of what would, could or should be.

Despite Einstein's great achievement in showing the fruitfulness of causal reasoning and its applicability to the vastnesses of the universe though the special relativity theory, he remained unable to appreciate what has become an equally incontestable theory, that of indeterminacy in quantum theory. He was even rather vehemently unwilling to consider such a view of nature. His famous dictum that "God does not play dice" is proven wrong. Indeterminacy shows that everything is not causally determinable. His great authority as a scientific figure did not save him from making this huge mistake on a central scientific question that has more momentous consequences for humanity than the mistake he claimed himself to have made in preaching the benefits of developing the process of nuclear fission.

The consequences of allowing any conception of freedom of the human will (however limited) are very considerable for the limits of what science can know, what it can do and how it must view itself. The literature of the sciences, especially that of the non-physical sciences, still demonstrates overwhelmingly that the consequences have not been appreciated widely by the scientific community or its intellectual offshoots. Most great thinkers in the European and classical Grecian traditions asserted the freedom of the will, despite the many limitations with which nature or fate hedges it. The modern fact of physical indeterminism makes room - within the otherwise iron determinism of universal causality - for the reasonability in principle of the truth also claimed almost universally by great scriptures, namely that God indeed can and does play dice in allowing the human being a measure of free will.

Prof. Paul Davies has pointed out that Einstein would have hated the results of the latest experiments with photons (the two prisms back to back for photon 'duplication') because they support Bohr's complementarity thesis and quanta theory.³To do Einstein's memory better justice, however, his own famous words redress the balance and must be a bitter pill to most Western intellectuals who still subscribe to physical scientism today:-

"Our time is distinguished by wonderful achievements in the fields of scientific understanding and the technical application of those insights. Who would not be cheered by this? But let us not forget that knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the inquiring and constructive mind."

CHAOS THEORY AND CAUSALITY

The fact that chance or chaos seemingly has to exist for there to be anything for laws to operate upon or apply to is recognised - at least implicitly - in so-called 'chaos theory'... itself a strangely self-contradictory term. Though some people interpret chaos theory as supporting causal determinism, the key concept of chaos (disorder) is its basis. The nux of the theory can easily be exemplified: if a fire is lit, one will never be able to predict what the ultimate effect of the motions and changes it brings will have on the global system of temperature and movements of the elements, or on any other effects this will produce anywhere at any time in the future. It makes little or no real difference for us whether this inability is due to practical limitations or theoretical impossibility.

The ideas of chaos vs. cosmos, chance vs. cause, accident vs. purpose lead to various apparent paradoxes. Chaos theorists who emphasise that no theory can account for and thus predict all events, must therefore admit the absence of a satisfactory theory of chaos! Meanwhile, those who believe that a theory is possible which will allow prediction of all otherwise 'chaotic' events thereby must also deny that such a thing as chaos occurs.

So, without any contingency in the existent worlds, whether they be regarded as physical or mental, order could not arise. Without their teeming and overflowing disorderliness and change, everything would be a fixed plenum within which development or evolution of any sort would be an impossibility.

Since order implies something unruly and unregulated - to which it can be applied - scientific advance may be said to bring order to what appears as disorder in our experiences and ideas. Undiscovered order (i.e. meaning or purpose) may be discovered as having existed unseen in otherwise disparate events or to be still only potential in them. Were none of this so, all further research would be entirely futile. However, the question remains: are not some events or acts intrinsically a break with order (the laws of the universe)?

The idea that events can occur 'by chance' or 'by sheer accident' is rooted in modern culture, supplanting older ideas of fortune, fate and destiny which were the opposite of sheer chance. The word 'chance' does not refer only to one straightforward concept, for it is used to mean both 'not caused', 'not in accordance with any known regularity' and even 'coincidental'. The 'technical' jargon of particle physics has a comparable concept in 'indeterminacy', which accents the inability of an observer to determinate the nature of particular sorts of atomic event (like the direction of movement of any individual atom) and the impossibility in principle of predicting such an event. This very broadly accepted idea of quantum theory famously implies that no causes apply at the very fundament of nature. Below I consider other phenomena which strongly indicate this, such as the unpredictability in social science of individual behaviour, improbable coincidences of many kinds and - later - events having no other explanation than 'acts of divine grace' or miracles.

RANDOM SELECTION AND PROBABILITY

If, on the other hand, one accepts that there are 'uncaused events' in the sense of events without physical cause but which are the result of acts of human free will (or occasional supernatural intervention or divine fiat), then probability theory is undermined and cannot be universally valid. In that case, statistics would be useful only where natural or predictable habitual events were concerned.

Statistical theory often relies heavily upon the concept of chance in that it uses as its standard the idea of 'randomness' of selection. Examples of what science regards as 'random patterns of distribution' (itself a rather self-contradictory concept) are the distribution of galaxies in the universe, of the fall of leaves from a tree in autumn or of the craters on Venus. To consider the distribution of craters on Venus, which were discovered by the Mariner probe and then confounded all current theories of the evolution of planetary features: the craters are seen to be 'randomly distributed', which was demonstrated by making a half-dozen computer simulated 'random distributions' and seeing if experts could choose the genuine picture from the computer models.

The result was that no-one could distinguish which was the "actual" random pattern - thereby proving the 'randomness'. However, the photograph of the craters showed very even distribution. So 'random pattern' turns out to be an empirical concept. But even patterning speaks of order, so 'randomness' cannot be equated with chaotic chance. It is evident that even randomness is a form of regularity, and hence there is a law governing it. Thus it cannot be a question of chaotic chance or mere unregulated accident! Only when looked at 'close up' does the contingency appear, but at a distance it looks like part of an even 'pattern'.

With the statistical method, one sets out to discover regularities in events, which are observed or registered in some more or less reliable way, being 'quantified' by some kind of measuring. One then looks for concomitant variations in events, which is to say 'correlations' between different chains or types of event. The key to deciding whether there is or is not a correlation is whether or not the numerical values that vary with one another are closer to one another than one would expect compared to the 'chance' relationship of the same values. Relatively simple mathematical techniques are used for these calculations, according to probability theory.

For example, the probability that the same card in a pack of 52 will be drawn at random twice running in 52 to 1. For it to occur three times running there one will on average have to wait 52 times 52, which is 2704 times... and so on. If the same card occurs significantly more often than 'chance' indicates, it would imply (disregarding operating errors and fraud of all kinds) either that the choice is not being made in a purely random way, or that even a long-term outcome is not always predictable. To put it bluntly, even the bank of Monte Carlo has been broken... or, no one can guarantee 100% that rigidly following statistical laws will make a casino bank unbreakable! To support this is the fact that persons who publish list of random numbers for various uses have to doctor their numbers because meaningful series of numbers occur in all random mechanical kinds of selection, and these must be eliminated from a random list! Does not this suggests that there is something fishy about the concept of randomness and thus chance?

Hitherto I have disregarded the possibility of a miracle or break with the laws of the universe. The assumption of statistics, as used in science, is that there is can never be any higher intelligent agency than that of human beings at work where the 'laws of chance' fail to hold up. There is of course no soundly conclusive evidence to support this assumption but there is a tremendous mass of testimony to the contrary.

An event is called a 'coincidence' when it coincides with another event to which it is not related by causal laws or by other regularly-observed connections between events. When such a coincidence is regarded as particularly significant or meaningful, it is nowadays sometimes termed a 'synchronicity', which implies that, even if there is no physical causal connection between the two events, there is some form of subtle relationship which is either of psychic or spiritual origin and which is intended to stimulate the understanding or the faith of the experiencer.

The fact of synchronous events is an exception to the laws of classical physics in that their simultaneity breaks with the law of causation. Because of the inherent meaningfulness to the persons involved of most synchronous connections events and the demonstrability of this meaningful nature. however, a higher type of 'law', intelligence or will is seen to be operative. Genuine or 'highly improbable' coincidences are thus not regarded as random or chance events, by events guided by factors unknown to science. In fact, the existence of synchronicities undermines the entire fundament of statistics and thus also brings into question many aspects of physical theory built on statistical probabilities.

When we pass a group of persons talking on the street, the words we hear soon become mere voices. As we move away, the figures diminish and eventually become indistinguishable. When, from a great distance, we approach a group of persons doing something, their movements may look inexplicable until we are near enough to see what they actually are doing. This shows how the observer's perception and interpretation is all important. Without it the phenomena are totally hidden, unknown noumena. With it they figure on the background of the observers entire psycho-physical and spiritual make-up and depend on the state of his being and of his mind at the time.

In short, randomness is merely a function of the perceiver's 'position'. Physical phenomena that are 'random' can depend upon the physical perspective of the viewer. Meaningful phenomena (like what people talking in the distance are saying) depend upon the understanding of the observer. Likewise, what appears 'random' or 'mere accident', only does so - I submit - because of the attitude, mind-set or currently held theory of the observer(s) in question. It is the lack of a cogent explanation that constitutes the idea of chaos. However, to eliminate all chaos (i.e. all ignorance of real 'cause') implies that one reaches the perspective of omniscience, per specie aeternitas.

STATISTICAL THEORY AND CAUSATION

The use of statistics has increased vastly in the twentieth century. There are any number of textbooks which explain the benefits of such theory, the possibilities it offers and the methods of its application to many differing types of problem. I do not see it as my task here to expand on the possible benefits of statistics and the theories based on them as this has been done excellently already. What has been less well presented is the case against relying unduly upon statistics.

To adhere to the axiom 'every event has a cause', is in principle to exclude the possibility of chance or authentic 'accident'. However the very basis of statistics is probability theory, which inevitable relies on likelihood or chance (as in 'probability') in calculating the significance of apparent statistical correlations (what is technically termed their 'reliability', 'validity' etc.).

Even if an event has an identifiable single cause, statistical theory could not establish the connection. This basic insight of logic is increasingly overlooked and is seldom mentioned by those who live from statistics in one way or another. It has long been recognised that a statistical correlation between two classes of event (or 'variables') gives no proof of causal connection. It simply points to the likelihood of some causal relatedness.

A statistical correlation, however well-founded, is not itself proof of a causal relationship because, even where events are concomitant through changing circumstances and appear therefore to be related, they can be the effect of different causes which are causally related. There can well be hidden intermediate events between those appearing as cause and effect. In that case they are only indirectly related, which is not itself the cause-effect relationship. Statistics may sometimes point towards causes, but they may as well mislead as to the 'real' cause, of which many examples are to be found, right back to early works on logical fallacies.

An example of this may be: the incidence of a certain type of muscular ailment may concur to a significant extent with disturbances in people's heartbeat. This 'correlation' does not indicate that either one is the cause of the other. Instead, the cause of both symptoms may be the intake of heavy metals which upset the immune system and in turn cause a variety of illnesses, infections and diseases.

Some events - or series of events - may also be concomitant while there is only one element therein which is a causal bond. To illustrate this by extending the same example; the incidence of the particular muscular ailment may be caused only by disturbance of the immune system by the body's intake of quicksilver (inorganic mercury), coming from the wear and tear on dental amalgam. The other heavy metals - like gold, silver and platinum - may contribute only to the process of breaking down of the bond of silver and mercury in dental amalgam (i.e. work more or less as catalysts) or contribute further to the immune system's disturbance (eg. lead, aluminium etc.).

Despite statistical correlations not of themselves constituting adequate scientific evidence, they are still widely relied on to 'solve' some questions that instead call for a much deeper and more thorough form of penetration. This is particularly the case in some forms of social medicine, psychology and other social disciplines.

The severe limitations of statistical 'explanations' are illustrated by asking a simple question: "Could statistical methods alone ever have revealed the structure of DNA?" The same can be asked of any major discovery in the physical sciences. The answer is obviously no!. Statistical information has been instrumental in the growth of a theory of genetics and in quanta physics, but the solution to basic or what we call 'immediate causal' questions can never validly be shown by statistics.

Statistics has undoubted value in discovering general trends, but the danger of hasty or wrong questions and interpretation leading to the conflation of facts and causal confusion is very real, itself probably more likely than not. The results can also seem convincing but be trivial, such as the statistical fact that all persons on average have one breast and one testicle. That the uncertainties of statistical 'proofs' are legion can of course also depend on many other circumstances involved in such work than on the uncertainty of the universal validity of probability theory.

Any chain of events wherein a conscious individual makes a choice between some number of alternative courses of action will be impenetrable to statistical study unless one knows with certainty the real motivation of each individual act. It would require a great deal of other information as well, and it all presumes that human behaviour is ultimately all causally determined. Besides, since knowing the real motivation or truthful intention of even the simple human acts often presents unsolvable difficulties, such as is often demonstrated in courts of law, interpretations made on the basis of statistical studies are therefore often highly questionable where human acts, whether individual or collective, are a connecting link.

Because one cannot transpose qualitative events like motives or intentions into quantitative information without losing their holistic meaning or their relative importance in an overall situation, attempts to grade the strength and type of motive in interviews are highly uncertain and often subject to many sources of mostly uncheckable error like forgetting, subjectivity, deception and misinterpretation and suggestion in questions and cues. This is the great weakness of interviewing, such as in opinion polls. The more intricate and deep the subjects interviewed on, the greater the likelihood of influencing and 'steering' the interviewee by the mind-set of the researcher's questions and the interviewer's expectations of some response etc. One cannot, for example, generalise meaningfully about a complex social and political situation by methods which rely on translating the qualitative and nuanced reasons given by many individuals into numbers, nor by making cumulative scores for opinions.

The massive increase in statistical studies in the political, social and psychological sciences in recent decades does not therefore mean that anything like a correspondingly massive increase in knowledge of what influences individuals or groups. One has more information about various, often important, aspects of their registered or observable behaviour. This does not amount at all or to any extent in understanding why this behaviour comes about, what motivates it or how environmental, social and psychological influences work in the interplay of human minds and consciences that are the driving force of behaviour and most changes in society.

In practice, statistics are themselves very often highly selective, however 'representative' they try to make their selections. This is seen frequently in opinion polls, which are only reliable when there is considerable stability or stagnation in the politics of a nation. There is some wisdom in the modern adage "you can prove anything with statistics", because there is much room for both conscious and unconscious bias in formulating the survey and its aims, in the selection and gathering of data, in the wording of interview questions and many another subtle factor in gauging opinion. The presentation of results can also be angled in such a biassed manner, even at the level of mathematical models and methods, that too much reliance on statistical evidence is fraught with many dangers.

The consumers of statistics are invariable large organisations, not individuals. In short, they provide information which is really only useful in all branches of government and economic planning, in profit-maximalisation in business, in international politics and in a large number of specialised fields of scientific research. This can be an important fact to remember when the bogus slogan of 'scientific freedom of research' is hawked (invariably by scientists). The great majority of scientists involved in researches that rely much upon statistics are thereby producing the raw materials required for consumption by large institutions, not just whatever it is of interest for the individual to know. This does not mean statistics necessarily serve bad ends, obviously... they have virtually become a necessity of the modern state and can be progressive in revealing inequalities that need to be righted and burgeoning problems that need to be tackled.

KNOWLEDGE AND COSMIC ORDER

All philosophy and science aims to discover 'formulae' (or even 'the' formula) that will correctly express an unchanging order to which an otherwise incoherent field of events conforms. Philosophical metaphysics or ontology attempt this at a much more comprehensive or embracing level than each of the mutually delimited sciences.

Why assume, as most thinkers do, that creation has some given structure or constancy of form? For example, why believe that the physical body consists in a uniform type of electro-chemical and magnetic process? Because, one may answer, it is so? Or should we not rather say that it is because it can be perceived and thought to be so, not because we have any certain means of knowing that it necessarily is so. New structurings of matter can be conceived at new levels, as rapid changes in physics partly demonstrates. The history of thought shows that being has proven not to be adequately definable once and for all by any means, and there is no sound reasons for believing that this will be so future.

A different example: why believe that the human being has one corporeal body rather than three (or five or seven) 'bodies' of differing degrees of subtlety (eg. mental, etheric and spirit), as various so-called 'mystical philosophies' claim to be the case? The answer in each case will usually say 'because we perceive it to be so?', depending on the practitioner... medical doctor, yogi, clairvoyant etc. There are grounds for affirming that each of these views is founded on much hard-won experience, which ranges from the controlled empirical sort, through the emotional and intuitional to the highly refined supra-sensory.

One may choose to start out from the assumption of a sharp distinction between subjective mind and objective matter and see each as embracing entirely different orders of phenomena. Such dualism (typified by Descartes' philosophy) is one approach to understanding reality. Monism, however, can regard body and mind as separate but parallel aspects of being (eg. Spinoza's 'substance') or as complementary phenomena (i.e. 'appearances' which but conceal the essential unitary reality). Both approaches have their uses, according to the orders of facts they seek to encompass or to the level of intellectual sophistication required by the users of such theories.

It is apparent from the history of philosophy that, whenever any assumed premises are absolutised (i.e. made the only key to understanding reality) the theory runs into unsolvable problems sooner or later, when applied to new experiential facts. This has been the fate of many foregoing disciplines of the modern natural sciences and also in social-economic theories (eg. the case of Marxism), in classical psycho-analytic theory, in logical positivism and many other theories too numerous to detail.

This is supporting evidence for scepticism about the possibility of ordering the infinity of existence under any one integral system of ideas. At the root of the problem are the facts of the temporal relativity of the theorist combined with change and indeterminacy. This is illustrated by the map-maker whose product is never 100% up-to-date because the ground is changing even as the map is being made ready.

Those who are so trained as to perceive in terms of a theory which orders apparent reality each necessarily conceive new appearances on the basis of previous assumptions and grounds. One cannot, at the conclusion, assert that the forms finally described, or the order supposedly 'discovered' exists as such. The reason for this is that nothing is known independent of the perceiver. This again argues the impossibility of one single theory or overall explanation being able to 'fit' all reality in any manner which will be satisfactory in application by any persons of all times and places. Ones' assumptions define the scope and fruitfulness of possible results, some assumptions produce some results, others yield different ones. Different kinds of system can be functional for different spheres of life and objectives at various levels.

Unless one believes oneself to have discovered the universal purpose which convincingly orders everything and explains all, two possibilities seem to remain: that human aspirations towards this end are unfulfilled and unknown as yet, or that there is no such ultimate order and purpose in or behind all things.

The successive discoveries of order at more and more general levels in the history of scientific thought lends weight to the thesis that progress is being made and that the goal therefore is not entirely illusory. On the other hand, science has not been a dominant philosophy for very long, and is still far from universal acceptance in the world population. It may yet well prove to be a temporary diversion from the mainstream of human spirituality, a worldly materialism that even distracts us from humanity's task as anciently defined: the inner process of self-realisation. The epistemological goal of total knowledge, if it is to explain every event at any level including both natural and human phenomena, seems highly unlikely ever to be achieved by science. This can be argued on reasons of epistemological principle as well as on practical grounds. There are also other highly subtle grounds that many philosophers and advanced religious mystics in various cultures have expressed, which I shall however bypass for the present.

The above suggests adopting tentatively the following position: that the phenomena of reality cannot totally be construed according to any one fully explicit and coherent system that satisfies strictly logical reason. This assumes an actual overall purposive order in reality, yet one that is too subtle, intricate, deep and extensive to be fixated in an definitive or complete way by the human mind. This is to say that the mind cannot fully understand the purpose or meaning of the universe, not least because this exceeds the mental sphere altogether. I call this the 'thesis of no fully-comprehensible order'. This thesis stands in (partial) opposition to the principle of universal causation ('every event has a cause') and in complete opposition to the belief that everything has a complete explanation.

Some universal physical laws are most likely already known to us, though they do not actually serve to explain all that much of life on the whole. There are good reasons why only the hypothesis of a wholly-intelligent Creator is adopted in religion, for it alone makes for a satisfactory resolution of these difficulties. To be satisfactory, it need not be total, but it must give an account of all phenomena observed and of what reason conceives. An overall, total rational purpose in or 'behind the scenes' applying to every phenomenon might seem to amount to total determinism: and 'automatic mechanical universe', however intricate. This thought cannot satisfy the human mind. But if, as many mystics assert, the universe is created out of divine bliss and with universal love for ineffable purposes, one would not be able to say it was primarily rational or could be understood fully in rational terms.

The thesis of not-fully comprehensible order gives room for what otherwise would be the awkward fact of chance, accident or contingency, without denying the possible existence of an overall purpose in all being. As noted, the very idea of order also implies that of disorder, just as heat implies cold, day implies night and good implies bad. Cosmos implies chaos and determinacy brings indeterminacy close upon its heels (eg. in physics). This need not be seen as an insurmountable dualism but as a complementarity of two aspects or poles of apparent reality where the one simply represents a lack of the other.

Differing cultural and social systems constitute differing sorts of political and spiritual order that regulate the main intercourse of their members. Tenets of belief and faith affecting all aspects of life largely distinguish one culture from another and one group from another within any culture... as well as being at the root of individual personality. No social system is free of malfunctions, dissent and crises, which fact reflects the disorder that characterises much of the world and natural events.

It may be that time perspectives will alter our understanding of such events; an order or purpose that is potential may become evident only when or after it has become actualised. Much longer time-spans than allowed by the scientific concept of the immediate cause-and-effect relationship can be at work here. Whole life-spans, so far only approached in biography, should also ideally be a unit of systematic study. The 'causality' of the law of action and reaction (karma) includes natural scientific principles like the conservation of energy. This, the most comprehensive form of understanding does not only conform to physical models, for it is seen as further operating at all levels... the mental, ethical, social and spiritual.

CAUSATION, PAST-ORIENTATION AND TELEOLOGY

A more understandable theory than that of universal causation would be 'every isolated physical event is caused, while every intentionally-chosen act is uncaused'. This makes causation less than universal. However, this may be mistaken, if no human actions are absolutely voluntary - that is to say - entirely unforced by any directly preceding event. Now, an action may be influenced by any previous event without being enforced, for the agent can take account of them yet still remain free to choose an alternative that ignores them and goes against past experience. Examples may be taking chances against all odds, bold acts of heroism, risking on entirely unprecedented enterprises as well as 'meaningless' acts of sheer fecklessness, desperation or demonstrative refusal.

The truncated notion of cause, to which science limits itself by the assumption of sense-empirical materialism, ties it down to description within a sense-observational framework. This is a useful tool for analysis, but useless where synthesis (i.e. wider or integrated understanding) is involved. Science cannot therefore even accept evidence of inherent purposes, of goals or aims (telos) implied by and fulfilled by the causal process. Scientific method as determined by physicalism is unsuitable as an instrument of discovering purposive order or of meaning that is inherent in the most important areas of human life: the realm of purposive action, of the inner relations of mind and of spiritual vision. Here the fact of social change often demonstrates how one order becomes 'disorder' and subsequently gives way to another. It is here too that competing social, political and religious precepts of moral order enter the fray with questions of purpose, meaning and ethicality.

One could say that the explanatory scope of science falls short of the Eastern view of karma, which includes both the scientific idea of natural causality (the preceding physical event which 'pushes' according to determining physical laws) as well as the that of purpose (the goal which 'pulls' through the privation of completeness). Aristotle recognised the objectivity of a 'pre-causative' end-result or purpose inherent in observed natural forms. From observing growth in nature, a particular type of seed was seen to contain within itself the species 'ideal' or model of what it is to become ('ideally', that is, when all the surrounding conditions are present like sufficient heat, light, water, nutrients, growing space, absence of poisons etc.) For example, we know from experience that a grape vine will produce grapes, not some other fruit. The end is inherent in the earlier stage.

So far, this teleological view is based on experience. A problem arises with this for the empiricist when dealing with things for which there are no set purpose and which may aim at many purposes. A piece of clay, for example, may become many things. A human being likewise. Aristotle solved this by reason, holding that the characteristics of anything (its form - eidos) determined its highest or ideal purpose (areté). Since the purpose is not itself observable, but is determined by reason which - though based on experience - remains dependent upon some basic evaluative judgements, science has rejected this approach. The idea of form determining ideal purpose (or 'virtue') happens to be Vedantic, considerably predating Aristotle. There is no reason, however, why it cannot be used for forming testable hypotheses in future-oriented social investigation and interaction.

As a means of systematising experience, science develops very concise generalisations to cover all known phenomena (generalisations known as hypotheses or theories, and often expressed mathematically). But 'all known phenomena' means only all phenomena so far observed... in other words, past phenomena. The explanation of an event in a preceding cause. That scientists are bound to the past rather than the future is seen in the strong emphasis of physical science on the original physical event, the Big Bang. So when science wishes to try to explain or predict something, its firstly turns to its stored up fund of theory and calculates the consequences of the particular case in question. Thus it plots the future on the basis of the past. However, some research does obviously attempt to look ahead of what is established and even to break the existing mould. The inertia of past knowledge itself makes acceptance of such studies a very difficult task, and all the more so if integral parts of an entire thought paradigma is in question.

If we assert, say, that one of the causes of drug delinquency is the lack in the social environment of sufficient examples of good values and spirituality in practice, the idea of cause here has nothing to do with any preceding event. This is a goal-oriented view of causation (teleological causation). Evidence for and against it can be studied and sought. Nor is such an hypothesis based on imagination, for it arises from certain kinds of experience.

So what if events turn up something previously unknown or if something unprecedentedly new occurs? Almost every month or so in astronomy and astrophysics, old hypotheses are challenged by new ones, old phenomena are discounted as misobservations and so on. Yet none of this involves radical rethinking of physical cosmology or its most basic assumptions, of course. How can a past-oriented theory adequately account for something it was not designed to account for? One obvious answer is that a complete rethink of the particular theory within wider mental horizons is required.

If indeed the mind is fundamentally free to construe perceived facts within whatever framework it chooses, in any of the many directions it can conceive, this supports the idea of as degree of 'freedom of the will'. It could also mean that there can be no intrinsic order expressed in each and every event, for it all depends who interprets them and how. The mind knows itself to have some considerable freedom, but only within limits set by experience, memory, upbringing, training, opportunity, psychological habit and much more (such limits are known as 'karmic conditions' in Vedantic thought). The mind's ability to make order is, however, paralleled by its possibility of making disorder, both in the realm of ideas and in the practical world. The mind has invented very many different and often conflicting and incompatible explanations, which has resulted in a disorderly range of philosophies and world-views... none of which are infallible or capable satisfactorily of explaining the full meaning from all perspectives of every event. Does this not also constitute a case of disorder? Ignorance of the truth certainly seems to be a case of lacking order, just as darkness is a lack of light.

The most universal expression of the idea of causality is the age-old theory of karma. This is the Vedantic equivalent of the scientific assumption of regularities and 'laws', but which extends the principle of law beyond what the sciences today are able or willing to consider seriously. The theory of karma is not simple, as many current sources suggest, but a very many-sided philosophical conception of nature, man and the cosmos which leaves - in principle - few major questions untackled. Suffice here to indicate the standpoint of Vedantic theory of cosmic law (karma) as follows:-

"The Cosmic Law of Karma is not fatalistic or deterministic. Karma is self-determined in the sense that it is a resultant of the forces of determinism and indeterminism acting on the personal self. The universe of inanimate matter is governed by causality and the universe of animate matter is governed by teleology. The universe is 'pushed' by mechanical causes and 'pulled' by conscious purposes. The Karmic Law of self-determinism recognises the existence of an absolute and unconditioned Cosmic Will and a relative and conditioned personal will."⁴

Go to Contents - chapter overview
Robert Priddy, Oslo 1999