Responsibility for Randomness

The Randomness of Life and Responsibility

Speaking in evolutionary terms, the fact that life exists on earth results from random processes. Even Darwinian evolution does not comfort me in its explanation of the origin of life. So it is said that were started as a single-cell organism in Africa, and that cell multiplied, and we became multicellular. Ok, on the cosmology side, they say we are in the Goldilocks zone where the parameters are just right for life on earth. So much seems to have happened by chance in the zillions. If Darwinian evolution is perfect, where are all the other species, like humans who look like you and me but don't have an appendix? The human cell is complicated enough, and the DNA makes matters worse since it contains the code of life. It all reeks of some form of intelligent design than darwin's theory of evolution. On another note, there are more than 100 million Spermatozoa per ej, which means that you are one in zillions. The idea that you made it to earth is just mindblowing. But we are so sure of ourselves that we don't even consider this fact.

The randomness of life events, incidents, and accidents is hidden in plain sight. We usually blame individuals for the randomness of life events. The stories we create and believe, including rules on interactions, assure us that when I do A, then B will occur. Life is quite far from being predictable. Although with deep enough knowledge, one can sharpen the ability to predict events. Deep enough knowledge here is from knowledge, experience, deep thought, and logical real-time thinking. Although real-time systems have their own issues, such as the inability to predict long-term events.

Given this randomness, it is one of the reasons why we must live in peace with nature or our surroundings. Know its limits and be in harmony. Like others say, be like water. This is difficult to practice given the current state of our society, where we have huge expectations and materialism. We tend to focus the most on the future. I once read that; the past and future do not exist. You must live today, now. This relates to living in harmony with what life has given you today and being content while hoping for the future.

All our interactions as human beings are based on stories (Yuval Noah Harari - Sapiens), procedures and laws that we have created and believe as humans. Interaction is best explained by the information processing theory. For your story to be heard, there needs to be an interested listener who will be charged up (stimulated) to tell it to other people. The stories, procedures, rules, and laws are a form of filtering or guiding system that tries to dampen randomness. It gives us some form of assurance that events are causal; hence, we blame people. These guides are similar to street signs; they will take you where others have gone, and even if you follow them strictly and meet all the requirements, sometimes the outcome will be different. People called trailblazers are those who have accepted the randomness of life and stomached it. They decide to ditch street signs and pave a new way. They chose what I (Gollum) call a trisky road, which is tricky and risky. This is the lonely road that is less travelled.

We can all agree that luck plays a big role in the direction of our lives. However, luck is a random event; you have to somehow be at the right place at the right time, like a place where hard work meets opportunity, some biblical proportions stuff. The unexpected events in our lives have altered our direction and prospects through space-time. That's why it is almost impossible to accurately predict how your life would have turned out if you didn't do the things you did in the past and vice versa. Upon hearing this, your mind quickly gives you some assurance that you know because it quickly references some street signs, such as if you didn't finish the undergraduate degree, you'd be flipping beef patties. But you know for sure that you are not so sure. That's exactly the randomness I'm talking about. Some will say life is not random but planned by a deity or written in the stars, or it's for you to craft it. There are many philosophies, but it is largely random from a mathematical point of view.

Here are other random events which we are so sure aren't random:

• Meeting your current partner/spouse/friend/whatever was a random event that completely changed your life, for better or worse. What got you guys hooked to each other was also a result of something random like being of the same racial group, age, village, etc.
• Your place of employment was also a random process. You have applied to many so many companies, but your application was successful where you are today. A friend might have called you and offered you a job, but where and how you met your friend was a random event.
• The way you discovered the artists that changed your life was probably an act of randomness as well. Although the Google PageRank algorithm and Youtube recommender algorithm have something to do with it.

The last scary example is that we live on a protruded-sphere cruising around a hot ball called Sun. While cruising around, this place is a shooting gallery with asteroids and meteorites showering in what we call the sky. Oumuamua visited us a few years back from interstellar. We also have many asteroids in our solar system. Some took out the Dinosaurs and the many species from the Cambrian period. One of the theories from cosmology is that our moon (a.k.a Lunar) is a result of a body that struck the earth, took a piece of earth and then started orbiting it.

I find it very difficult to assume responsibility when so much of our lives seems driven by external agents in the environment-space where we act. The external agent can sometimes be felt when new ideas emerge in our brains; it feels like someone just said something. Maybe this is what we referring to when we say, "I heard a voice". 

In summary, what we actually mean by taking responsibility for the randomness I stipulated is to take responsibility for not following the street signs and missing obvious answers which are dictated by the herd. Finally, life's randomness does not absolve us from owning every step we take.