If our making a decision on a particular action is preceeded by a
prognosis of the possible course of events (an analysis of the actual situation, or a
thought experiment) and the result of this prognosis is acceptable by us, and the act of
making decision is perceived by us as a conscientious act, then we can speak of a free
(deliberate) choice. Here prediction of the possible course of events takes occasionally
the form of an anticipation of the future not quite worked out in detail. This specific
mechanism of decision-making, by virtue of its tremendous efficiency, has rooted in the
human consciousness as a specific idea of the freedom of choice, and has thus become a
structural element of the self-consciousness of the personality, strongly suggestive of
the personality’s self-sifficiency in taking decisions.
According to the concept in question, humans and human communities are
regarded as self-developing and self-conscious structures, with an hierarchy of
preferences and with a mechanism of decision-making as defined above. One can therefore
assume, with a good reason, that this structure has originated in a determinate flow of
human existence. Has it emerged evolutionarily or has it been created intentionally –
this is a point of minor importance for the present discussion; it should be conceded,
however, that, in the latter case, one might have invoked the idea of God, even if the
source of life was initiated in the science laboratory of a preceding civilization. The
phenomenon of conciousness, emotions, and intelligence of human beings – the
functional properties of their exceptionally complex nature – is not at variance with
determinism. This parenthetical remark is, certainly, a hypothesis, however, as reasonably
well justified as any other. Intelligence imparts a new quality to life and provides the
possibility to model environmental processes in terms that reflect specific features of
the external reality as well as the nature of mechanisms of perception of this reality.
Objectives are outlined and conditions are provided for their implementation. Life, its
quality and preservation become targets on which the intellectual efforts of the man are
focused.
The structure in question (alternatively, it may be named the cognitive
system) identifies itself as a free one, since decisions it takes are in conformity with
its system of preferences. As far as its evaluation of a situation is adequate to the
reality, the projected plans can in principle be realized, and the human activities,
initiated by the decisions taken, become thus formative factors of the future. Ethical
norms emerge when a community of individuals recognizes the necessity to render the
interest, pursued by an individual, commensurate with the communal interest, that is, when
the comminuty accepts the idea of interdependence of individual and communal interests;
neglect of a communal interest can set an individaul interest at risk. We shall desist
from going into the particulars of how an individual can tolerate or accept ethical
norms. This is a separate topic. Ideally, ethical norms should have been accepted a
priori, which might have provided, in a natural manner, a way to the prosperity of a
community of individuals and to good fortunes of life (at a definite level of
accomplishments in science and productive forces). However, the ideal is far from reality,
and this discrepancy in fact lies at the root of all social problems and necessitates the
search for palliative and by no means simple solutions.
Philosophers and scientists have been committed, from time immemorial,
to the search for, and implementation of, these circuitous solutions... Intellect,
however, resolves its tasks staying confined to a determinate flow of human existence. Its
freedom of choice has an internal definition (as given above), quite sufficient within the
framework of life. Although the sphere of life is part of the Universe (undoubtedly, an
infinitesimal part in terms of extent), it is a center of existence for the carriers of
life, a focus of their world, a system of reference, and the starting point for
comprehending the things as they are. They came into being here, they became aware of
their selves here, they became conscious here of their separateness from the surrounding
world and their link with it, and they are inalienable from their nature.
The standing of humans as a cognitive system has a temporal origin
– it is the time when a hierarchy of preferences has emerged. In the human
self-consciousness, this creates a sensation that the act of volition is independent of
the processes of antecedent preferences; in fact, the previous history of preferences
becomes eliminated. But it is precisely the previous history of preferences that makes it
possible to regard humans and human communities as entities involved in the determinate
flow of being.
So, it is natural to assume that all is predetermined on condition,
however, that the pattern of the future in all its details will never be accessible
to human prognosis and that the imminent future may carry in itself implementations of
human designs in the same measure as usually thought of. In other words, humans, incapable
of escaping from the determinate flow of being, do notwithstanding exert influence on it
in pursuit of realization of their projects. If so, such a predetermination acquires
attributes of the human creative activity.
We do not assert by any means that rigid determinism does indeed take
place in realty; we are perfectly aware of the fact that the laws of the microworld are,
according to quantum theory, probabilistic in character. Arguments of a more general
nature can be advanced against the absoluteness of a rigid determinism – such a
determinism can never be strictly substantiated. In any event, any proof presupposes
clearness and definiteness of the original postulates. However, if we are concerned with
the general aspects of the universe and all-embracing inferences, original postulates of
such a dimension simply lack foundation to be built on. Such postulates, once formulated,
reflect of necessity our immediate perception of the surrounding world and bear features
of an intuitive understanding (for example, the notion of an "instant of time").
Fundamental notions such as time, space, casuality – all these are human abstractions
that have come from the human perception of the surrounding world and from the experience
of human activities in real world. All possible inferences reached by an extrapolation of
these notions beyond the limits of tangible human activities are always issues open to
debate. For this reason, any substantiation with pretentions to a global generality is
merely a plausible argumentation. Its validity can be supported only by conclusions
derived from the existing reality; however, alternative interpretations are not ruled out
either.
Here rigid determinism is regarded as a hypothetical assumption that
throws no unsurmountable obstacles in the construction of a model of the human existence;
within this scheme, the freedom of choice is always a plausible argument. This
construction holds true for any other form of determinism.
In a definite manner, rigid determinism can be motivated. An
observation that occurred to the present author in his youth has become the starting point
for subsequent reasoning concerning the problem in question: "If like causes produce,
under like conditions, like effects, and the universe as a whole encloses all causes of,
and all conditions for, its development, then the course of events must be perfectly well
univalent." As follows from the aforesaid, these arguments cannot be accepted for a
proof. Simultaneously, there is no indisputable reason for a categorical rejection of any
form of determinism putting, as an argument, the probabilistic nature of microworld laws.
Even the mathematical theory of dynamical (strictly determinate!) systems admits of
statistical patterns. It may also be assumed that the probabilistic character of quantum
mechanical laws is a limiting form of knowledge that is conceived of under the conditions
where not sufficiently adequate notions and terms of macrophysics are used for description
of microscopic processes. It may be conceded that the intrinsic processes leading to a
probabilistic behaviour do indeed occur in reality; however, they remain yet a challenge
to the present-day science. The occurrence of statistical regularities and associated
therewith implications is at present a problem open to scientific endeavour.
As an example illustrative of an application of the concept in
question, one may refer to an not-easy-to-solve problem bearing on the principle of
compatibility viewed from the standpoint of rigid determinism (see [3, 5]).
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