Albert Einstein (credit: Wikipedia) 

It is important to reiterate here that quantum theory is not talking about the uncertainty of events at the macro level, a kind of uncertainty that we say we are forced to accept because of practical limits on our measuring abilities. Under the Newtonian view, one may believe that we humans see events that look unpredictable, from our limited human level, but still also think that the universe is a deterministic place. But quantum theory says that the processes taking place at the subatomic level are always occurring in ways that appear to us to be uncaused—what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” (he hated the idea of it). Furthermore, the point for my goal of trying to find a basis in physical reality for a moral code is not affected by these distinctions. Probability, quantum and non-quantum, as an overriding quality of reality, is ubiquitous and eternal. We must live with a probabilistic reality and adapt to it as a fact of life.

Physicists are unclear about how or even whether quantum uncertainty and non-quantum uncertainty enhance each other. The huge range of outcomes in complex systems may be influenced by both quantum and non-quantum forces. Currently, we just don’t know. The exact nature of what is going on down there is still being debated.

However, our moral models are not affected by these distinctions. In the level of reality at which our choices are made and our actions are measured, we experience reality as being made of probabilistic events. And in those chains of events, informed, guided, chosen human actions can effectively intervene and alter the likelihoods of at least some outcomes. This is all that really matters for moral philosophy.

Therefore, in all that follows, I will speak of the probabilistic quality of reality as being one of the crucial and basic facts that we humans must deal with. When I speak of uncertainty, I will be referring to the total uncertainty of reality, quantum and non-quantum, that we must face and deal with.

             

                                                    Charles S. Pierce (credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

Quantum theory breaks the backbone of classical determinism. At the tiniest level that we have been able to study, events are not connected by single paths of direct cause and effect. They are connected by forces that do not obey exact laws of cause and effect, but instead can be described only by laws of probability. The consequence for humans is that life is full of uncertainty, or to be exact, probabilities. In science, the usual term for this kind of system “stochastic”. Most of the time we know to a high degree of probability what is going to happen next, and also, with a fair degree of reliability, how we may be able to influence what is going to happen next, but we never know for certain what is going to happen. This view was anticipated by American philosopher and scientist Charles Peirce in the 1890s and has been further developed by many thinkers right into the twenty-first century.^4,5

We can and do act in bold, informed, calculated, and skilful ways, and our actions alter the probabilities of the various events that may happen in the next few seconds or decades, but it is also true that we can’t ever act so intelligently or skilfully that we can be 100 percent sure of any outcome, good or bad. The elements of surprise and risk are built into reality.