Philosophers, thinkers and men of religion have long argued about the course of existence and everything in it, living and non-living. They have split, between and within their schools, into those who believe in predestination, those who believe in free will, and a third group that combines the two. Predestination means that everything that happens in the universe, to all its parts including humans, is decided and drawn up in advance, and nothing has any choice but to carry out its fate. Free will means that everything is completely free to chart its own course and nothing is prepared for it in advance. The third group puts some events down to fate and gives the beings of the universe free choice in others.
These schools of thought were products of philosophical thinking, by which I mean thinking that does not follow the rules of the scientific method, which relies on physical experiment as the only proof of a hypothesis. In this article I will look at predestination and free will in the light of the latest science in a field closely related to the question: the genetic map of living things. Predestination and free will are not limited to living things; they can be explored in non-living parts of the universe too, such as cosmic systems, where any observer can legitimately ask whether they too are driven or free. There is no room here to discuss both, so for non-living things it is enough to say that the laws of physics and chemistry play the role that genes play in living things (bearing in mind that living things are also subject to those laws). What we conclude about living things can therefore apply equally to non-living things, replacing genes with the laws of nature.
What do genes have to do with destiny? At first glance nothing, but in fact they are one and the same. Genes are blueprints of living things, containing all the information needed for an organism to arise and develop from the moment sperm meets egg. Genes decide what the new being will be: its sex, its organs, its physiological functions, its psychological make-up and even the diseases it will suffer. Worse still, they also decide when it will die, meaning natural death from old age or disease; death from external accidents seems to have nothing to do with genes, and I will come back to it. Genes have been shown to be fully or partly responsible for a large number of human diseases, and I doubt we will wait long before discovering how the rest are linked to genes, except diseases caused by the environment, including those caused by microbes.
So our genes chart our course through life to a high degree, which I estimate at 70%. Sadly, the remaining 30% belongs not to free will but to our environment. Take a person: their sex, outward features, psychological make-up, mental abilities (intelligence) and the diseases they will get are all decided by their genes alone. Their personality, their religious, intellectual, cultural, educational and social formation, and how far they succeed in their ambitions are shaped about equally by genes and environment (geographical, social, political and religious), with the edge to the environment, plus a very small margin of conditional free will. For example, a person may decide to change religion, but can only do so in a society that allows it. That leaves diseases caused by the environment and external accidents (such as civilians killed in wars or natural disasters), where genes may play no role and the environment is entirely responsible.
So in what areas is free will entirely responsible for a person's decision? When can any of us decide something for ourselves without the influence of our genes or our environment? I have thought about this question for a long time (and I invite everyone to think about it and try to come up with an example), and I could not find a single decision I make without guidance from my genes and/or my environment. So I can now say with confidence that we are entirely driven, and we cannot choose anything with complete freedom. This does not mean that our lives are mapped out in every detail in advance, but that our steps are so largely determined by our genes and environment that our choices are limited and constrained, not free. This conclusion may seem gloomy and negative, but if we look a little closer we find that it fits perfectly with the system of nature, of which we are only parts, which runs according to pre-set laws governing everything in it. Whatever the source of those laws and of this destiny, which may be beyond our understanding, what matters to me is that predestination is now scientifically established, no longer a possibility dreamed up by a contemplative philosopher.
By Dr Ayham Ahmad
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