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The Challenge of Chance: A Multidisciplinary Approach from Science and the Humanities
This book presents a multidisciplinary perspective on chance, with contributions from distinguished researchers in the areas of biology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, genetics, general history, law, linguistics, logic, mathematical physics, statistics, theology and philosophy. The individual chapters are bound together by a general introduction followed by an opening chapter that surveys 2500 years of linguistic, philosophical, and scientific reflections on chance, coincidence, fortune, randomness, luck and related concepts. A main conclusion that can be drawn is that, even after all this time, we still cannot be sure whether chance is a truly fundamental and irreducible phenomenon, in that certain events are simply uncaused and could have been otherwise, or whether it is always simply a reflection of our ignorance. Other challenges that emerge from this book include a better understanding of the contextuality and perspectival character of chance (including its scale-dependence), and the curious fact that, throughout history (including contemporary science), chance has been used both as an explanation and as a hallmark of the absence of explanation. As such, this book challenges the reader to think about chance in a new way and to come to grips with this endlessly fascinating phenomenon.
- GenresNonfictionScience
283 pages, Paperback
Published May 31, 2018
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January 2, 2022
While mathematicians implicitly presume they enjoy a monopoly over the theory of probability, given the nature of the subject – chance as it discovers itself in the real world – the field ought to be viewed, rather, as inherently interdisciplinary if we are to make progress towards a just characterization of its object. The virtue of the editors of the present collection, Klaas Landsman and Ellen van Wolde, entitled The Challenge of Chance: A Multidisciplinary Approach from the Sciences and the Humanities (from the Springer Verlag Frontiers collection, published in 2016), is not only to have recognized this fact but also to have acted upon it by calling upon scholars in fields ranging from the obviously to be expected – mathematical physics, statistics, genetics and biology – to the seemingly more remote – cognitive neuroscience, economics, ancient history, philosophy and theology, to prepare the papers reprinted together here.
The first two introductory chapters by Landsman, van Wolde and Noortje ter Berg and by Christoph Lüthy and Carla Rita Palmerino, respectively, do furnish a relatively good review [pp. 9-48]. Much of the discussion centers on the issue of fixing the sense of basic terms such as ‘chance’, ‘coincidence’ etc. As happens with any significant concept, these things lend themselves more to ostensive than to analytical definition. Chapter three [pp. 49-66] on mathematical foundations of randomness raises two interesting points i) randomness has to be defined relative to some standard; ii) in its final section, algorithmic-complexity-type measures though highly abstract actually have meaningful practical applications.
Landsman’s own contribution on fine-tuning and design [pp. 111-130] seems to be tantamount to a piecemeal assemblage of a few clever points that paradoxically tell against the conventional inference to design, but fail to articulate any reasons behind them or coherent argumentative flow into which they may be molded (unlike what is the case with say Hume’s celebrated dialogues on natural religion published posthumously in 1779). The ratio of citations to the literature versus original research winds up being too large, one would have to master a large domain just to be in a position to evaluate a handful of seemingly minor points – original authors do not write in this fashion!
To delimit the scope of the present piece, let us focus gratuitously on two chapters, van Wolde’s analysis of chance in the books of Job and Genesis and Corjo Jansen’s discussion of accidental harm under ancient Roman civil law.
1) van Wolde’s thesis in nuce [pp. 131-150] – Job and his friends are mistaken in their common assumption that good resp. bad luck are necessarily linked to good resp. bad behavior, but rather,
in God’s speech out of the whirlwind [Job 38:1-41:26], chance is linked to a multifocal view of the universe and understood in terms of position, perspective and scale. Also the opening chapter of the book of Genesis offers a non-deterministic view on chance. (p. 131)
Her claim that traditional Judaism and Christianity sponsor a view of Job based on a simplistic understanding of retributive justice does not seem very plausible. Job after all protests his innocence throughout! Re. creatio ex nihilo – how does this treatment compare with Beierwaltes’? A stress on a three-tiered model of the world (heaven-earth-netherworld) strikes one as a little too literal. True, modern physics sees the world as uniform, but from the functional point of view (i.e., our experience of the Lebenswelt) the differentiation into heaven and earth makes sense: which basis is the right one?
Van Wolde wants moreover beresit [בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית] to mark an absolute starting point in time or else the traditional view of creation would be wrong [p. 143] – a false dichotomy; clearly the absolute starting point has to stand outside the temporal series. Nevertheless, van Wolde goes on to assert the following:
Genesis 1 is usually read from a chronological and causal perspective. Therefore, the text is understood as a temporal arrangement in which the first thing told happened first and the next thing told happened later….This linear interpretation of Genesis 1 rivals the scientific view, because it understands causality in the same way as science does in the sense that they both provide a linear explanation of the actual causal relations between objects and events. However, does this linear arrangement actually apply to the text of Genesis 1? (p. 145)
From a source-critical point of view, though, the placement of the Elohistic account immediately after the Priestly hardly poses any hermeneutical difficulty; everyone knows that in the final redaction the Elohistic author is merely resuming the story of creation. But this remains a minor matter; the proper rejoinder would be that van Wolde’s claim here must again be wrong since the usual reading is in terms of logical not chronological order, sc. Augustine’s reading of ‘in principio’ in his literal commentary on Genesis [see On Genesis: A refutation of the Manichees, unfinished literal commentary on Genesis and the literal meaning of Genesis, New City Press, New York (2002)]. The reasoning behind this interpretive move is of course the self-evidence to the church fathers of the presumption that the scriptural author intends to teach theology, not a mythology aiming to compete with natural science [q.v., Christoph Schönborn, Ziel oder Zufall? Schöpfung und Evolution aus der Sicht eines vernünftigen Glaubens, Herder (2007) and Joseph Ratzinger, Im Anfang Schuf Gott: Konsequenzen des Schöpfungsglaubens, Johannes Verlag (1996)].
As for the second paragraph on p. 145, it is indeed unclear whether linear causality (true enough of classical mechanics) can be maintained in light of quantum contextuality (q.v., Heisenberg’s Gifford lectures of 1955/56, apropros of his intersubjective reading of the Copenhagen interpretation; for our review see here). To linearize requires a prospect from an elevation, if one has no vision it would pass by unrealized. Isn’t it strange, however, to omit [pp. 145-148] any consideration of the theological content of the creation narratives; how can one understand a text while ignoring what it contains and why it was written? To recapitulate van Wolde’s argument, non-linearity in place of linearity appears to be her watchword. Whatever could she mean by it? A linearly ordered series of causal relations could look completely non-consecutive if viewed in terms of ill-adjusted variables. At the root of every scientific discovery rests the insight to frame the phenomenon in the right terms. In light of this, van Wolde seems to be saying just that the conventional spatio-temporal coordinates are not necessarily the right frame to use for any but the most elementary collisions of billiard balls – if so, this recensionist would agree with her. Is this an acceptable way then to rephrase her conclusion? –
God’s speech out of the whirlwind in the book of Job and the opening chapter of the book of Genesis both offer a non-deterministic view on chance. Chance is not the exception in a causal or necessary chain of events, but is scale dependent. The view is unmasked that causal relationships have to be conceived as if they are ontologically present. In his speech in the book of Job, God invites its readers to examine their views on the topic of chance as this exposes the human quest for causal explanations that results from the human need for moral order, logical structure and an understandable system. The text teaches us that chance accompanies our quest for necessity, for moral and logical patterns and our desire to call patterns God’s design. In addition, chance is linked to a multifocal view of the universe and understood in terms of position, perspective and scale….In Genesis 1, chance is not an exceptional event that disrupts some causal or deterministic chain of events, but rather it is highlighted within a framework of non-linear thinking where totality and instantaneity alternate. In a world where God zooms in or out on various lower-level components, any claims for completeness or order can no longer be made. In sum, in both Job and Genesis 1, chance is presented as a disqualifier of causal chains and even as an ultimate denial of necessity. (pp. 147-148)
The suggestion that alternation between scales means that the narrative could not represent a temporal sequence or a causal arrangement must be deemed debatable! Clearly, an overarching teleological cause will lead to seemingly chance occurrences from the local temporal point of view without entailing an ‘absence of a causal chain of events’. Can we be so naïve as apparently Descartes and Leibniz in fact were, to envision the soul as if it were localized spatially at a single point? Hence, this concluding paragraph does not follow. A final meditation would be apt here – we can all agree that chance is a very mysterious thing, for our world appears to be neither wholly predictable nor utterly unpredictable. Perhaps this recensionist has been misled by van Wolde’s language and if it could be phrased in a more conventional metaphysical terminology would be inclined to grant it a measure of validity. Suffice it to remark that the completely deterministic worldview of classical mechanics, with its everywhere precisely delineated spatio-temporal trajectories, has forever been exploded, as Niels Bohr was the first to discern. In a quantum-mechanical setting, the collapse of the wavefunction normally occurs distributed over a region, so that prior to collapse there could by the uncertainty principle be no infinitely sharp determination of all configuration variables there: is something like this what van Wolde wants to tell us? Or this, together with the further stipulation that living creatures find themselves in a position to shape events by somehow intersubjectively partially determining the outcome of collapse of the universal wavefunction?
2) Corjo Jansen in ‘Accidental harm under (Roman) civil law’ [pp. 233-247] enters into a discussion of legal issues originating in Roman praxis centering on culpability for accidental harm. Interesting, both from an etymological and from a moral philosophical standpoint, indeed by far the most stimulating chapter in the present collection. What does Jansen say?
A leading idea under the law is that [an accidental] loss should lie where it falls. This notion reflects the old adage under Roman law, ‘causum sentit dominus’. An owner has to bear the risk of an accidental loss or an accidental deterioration which has resulted in harm to him. (p. 234)
The Latin term for the loss is ‘casus’, from which both the English ‘case’ and ‘cause’ derive. Clearly, the crux from a legal point of view resides in determination of fault, i.e., whether a given loss is to be deemed accidental or someone else’s fault, in which case the other party would be found liable for damages. By this means, the practical-minded Romans were drawn into speculations on fate and on the unforeseen or unforeseeable. Jansen goes on to review the implications of this circle of ideas for Roman tort and contract law, then moves forward in time to consider modern-day Continental legal systems. This reviewer, not being a lawyer, can scarcely appreciate all the details of the legal discussion, but they’re there for those who might be curious to follow up on them.
Kaleidoscopic overview of remaining chapters:
Johannes Thijssen and David Loy discuss western versus eastern perspectives on the relation between happiness and invulnerability to vicissitude [ataraxia], unfortunately with too much dependence on a certain French scholar Pierre Hadot [pp. 153-156], whose take on the ancient world does not appear to be all that novel, peddling the obvious? But Plato on happiness [eudaimonia] against chance [tuchê] invokes the daimon – see p. 157 – , which in modern terms might better be described as the absolute ego: one’s calling is not a matter of chance though the manner in which it manifests itself in time may seem so up to the end, when it becomes clear in retrospect. The remainder of this chapter is pretty basic on Epicurus, Stoics, Epictetus and the skeptics, but the contrast with Buddhism may be less well-worn for many readers. If [p. 162ff] they commit the mistake of simply equating concupiscence with sexual desire, it leads one to wonder whether the authors’ account of karma is similarly wrong-headed? Oddly, Thijssen and Loy have nothing to say about detachment in western mystical theology [cf. p. 167].
Michiel van Elk, Karl Friston and Harold Bekkering seek an integrated psychological and neurocognitive perspective in terms of which to understand the experience of coincidence, not in this recensionist’s opinion getting all that far beyond the common observation that we all are subject to cognitive biases [pp. 171-185].
Han Brunner’s chapter on random causes of birth defects and cancer [pp. 187-196] falls short of the promise one might initially ascribe to it, apart from quoting a few good experimental numbers on mutation rates. Hans de Kroon and Eelke Jongejans’ succeeding chapter on biological variation and the nature of causation in ecological communities [pp. 204-205] is interesting in that they indicate that neutral theory (i.e., positing no fitness differences across species) does just about as well empirically as the usual models. Could this mean that Darwin’s vaunted mechanism of natural selection, so evident a priori to everyone, suffers from insufficient a posteriori proof?
The chapter by Olivier Hekster on counterfactuality in history [pp. 215-232] turns out to be more thoughtful than the previous two chapters; contains an interesting reference to an essay by Max Weber from 1905. Lastly, Roeland van Hout and Pieter Muysken on chance and variability in linguistics [pp. 249-266] will be thought-provoking if not itself very analytical, for it does introduce linguistic concepts that may not be that familiar to non-experts.
Three stars. Though there is some raggedness in the level of the various contributions to the present volume, the subject matter itself is ever very engaging. Any reader willing to wrestle with the texts as well as with his preconceived notions will come away with some enrichment, whether he be converted to the authors’ respective viewpoints or not!
The first two introductory chapters by Landsman, van Wolde and Noortje ter Berg and by Christoph Lüthy and Carla Rita Palmerino, respectively, do furnish a relatively good review [pp. 9-48]. Much of the discussion centers on the issue of fixing the sense of basic terms such as ‘chance’, ‘coincidence’ etc. As happens with any significant concept, these things lend themselves more to ostensive than to analytical definition. Chapter three [pp. 49-66] on mathematical foundations of randomness raises two interesting points i) randomness has to be defined relative to some standard; ii) in its final section, algorithmic-complexity-type measures though highly abstract actually have meaningful practical applications.
Landsman’s own contribution on fine-tuning and design [pp. 111-130] seems to be tantamount to a piecemeal assemblage of a few clever points that paradoxically tell against the conventional inference to design, but fail to articulate any reasons behind them or coherent argumentative flow into which they may be molded (unlike what is the case with say Hume’s celebrated dialogues on natural religion published posthumously in 1779). The ratio of citations to the literature versus original research winds up being too large, one would have to master a large domain just to be in a position to evaluate a handful of seemingly minor points – original authors do not write in this fashion!
To delimit the scope of the present piece, let us focus gratuitously on two chapters, van Wolde’s analysis of chance in the books of Job and Genesis and Corjo Jansen’s discussion of accidental harm under ancient Roman civil law.
1) van Wolde’s thesis in nuce [pp. 131-150] – Job and his friends are mistaken in their common assumption that good resp. bad luck are necessarily linked to good resp. bad behavior, but rather,
in God’s speech out of the whirlwind [Job 38:1-41:26], chance is linked to a multifocal view of the universe and understood in terms of position, perspective and scale. Also the opening chapter of the book of Genesis offers a non-deterministic view on chance. (p. 131)
Her claim that traditional Judaism and Christianity sponsor a view of Job based on a simplistic understanding of retributive justice does not seem very plausible. Job after all protests his innocence throughout! Re. creatio ex nihilo – how does this treatment compare with Beierwaltes’? A stress on a three-tiered model of the world (heaven-earth-netherworld) strikes one as a little too literal. True, modern physics sees the world as uniform, but from the functional point of view (i.e., our experience of the Lebenswelt) the differentiation into heaven and earth makes sense: which basis is the right one?
Van Wolde wants moreover beresit [בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית] to mark an absolute starting point in time or else the traditional view of creation would be wrong [p. 143] – a false dichotomy; clearly the absolute starting point has to stand outside the temporal series. Nevertheless, van Wolde goes on to assert the following:
Genesis 1 is usually read from a chronological and causal perspective. Therefore, the text is understood as a temporal arrangement in which the first thing told happened first and the next thing told happened later….This linear interpretation of Genesis 1 rivals the scientific view, because it understands causality in the same way as science does in the sense that they both provide a linear explanation of the actual causal relations between objects and events. However, does this linear arrangement actually apply to the text of Genesis 1? (p. 145)
From a source-critical point of view, though, the placement of the Elohistic account immediately after the Priestly hardly poses any hermeneutical difficulty; everyone knows that in the final redaction the Elohistic author is merely resuming the story of creation. But this remains a minor matter; the proper rejoinder would be that van Wolde’s claim here must again be wrong since the usual reading is in terms of logical not chronological order, sc. Augustine’s reading of ‘in principio’ in his literal commentary on Genesis [see On Genesis: A refutation of the Manichees, unfinished literal commentary on Genesis and the literal meaning of Genesis, New City Press, New York (2002)]. The reasoning behind this interpretive move is of course the self-evidence to the church fathers of the presumption that the scriptural author intends to teach theology, not a mythology aiming to compete with natural science [q.v., Christoph Schönborn, Ziel oder Zufall? Schöpfung und Evolution aus der Sicht eines vernünftigen Glaubens, Herder (2007) and Joseph Ratzinger, Im Anfang Schuf Gott: Konsequenzen des Schöpfungsglaubens, Johannes Verlag (1996)].
As for the second paragraph on p. 145, it is indeed unclear whether linear causality (true enough of classical mechanics) can be maintained in light of quantum contextuality (q.v., Heisenberg’s Gifford lectures of 1955/56, apropros of his intersubjective reading of the Copenhagen interpretation; for our review see here). To linearize requires a prospect from an elevation, if one has no vision it would pass by unrealized. Isn’t it strange, however, to omit [pp. 145-148] any consideration of the theological content of the creation narratives; how can one understand a text while ignoring what it contains and why it was written? To recapitulate van Wolde’s argument, non-linearity in place of linearity appears to be her watchword. Whatever could she mean by it? A linearly ordered series of causal relations could look completely non-consecutive if viewed in terms of ill-adjusted variables. At the root of every scientific discovery rests the insight to frame the phenomenon in the right terms. In light of this, van Wolde seems to be saying just that the conventional spatio-temporal coordinates are not necessarily the right frame to use for any but the most elementary collisions of billiard balls – if so, this recensionist would agree with her. Is this an acceptable way then to rephrase her conclusion? –
God’s speech out of the whirlwind in the book of Job and the opening chapter of the book of Genesis both offer a non-deterministic view on chance. Chance is not the exception in a causal or necessary chain of events, but is scale dependent. The view is unmasked that causal relationships have to be conceived as if they are ontologically present. In his speech in the book of Job, God invites its readers to examine their views on the topic of chance as this exposes the human quest for causal explanations that results from the human need for moral order, logical structure and an understandable system. The text teaches us that chance accompanies our quest for necessity, for moral and logical patterns and our desire to call patterns God’s design. In addition, chance is linked to a multifocal view of the universe and understood in terms of position, perspective and scale….In Genesis 1, chance is not an exceptional event that disrupts some causal or deterministic chain of events, but rather it is highlighted within a framework of non-linear thinking where totality and instantaneity alternate. In a world where God zooms in or out on various lower-level components, any claims for completeness or order can no longer be made. In sum, in both Job and Genesis 1, chance is presented as a disqualifier of causal chains and even as an ultimate denial of necessity. (pp. 147-148)
The suggestion that alternation between scales means that the narrative could not represent a temporal sequence or a causal arrangement must be deemed debatable! Clearly, an overarching teleological cause will lead to seemingly chance occurrences from the local temporal point of view without entailing an ‘absence of a causal chain of events’. Can we be so naïve as apparently Descartes and Leibniz in fact were, to envision the soul as if it were localized spatially at a single point? Hence, this concluding paragraph does not follow. A final meditation would be apt here – we can all agree that chance is a very mysterious thing, for our world appears to be neither wholly predictable nor utterly unpredictable. Perhaps this recensionist has been misled by van Wolde’s language and if it could be phrased in a more conventional metaphysical terminology would be inclined to grant it a measure of validity. Suffice it to remark that the completely deterministic worldview of classical mechanics, with its everywhere precisely delineated spatio-temporal trajectories, has forever been exploded, as Niels Bohr was the first to discern. In a quantum-mechanical setting, the collapse of the wavefunction normally occurs distributed over a region, so that prior to collapse there could by the uncertainty principle be no infinitely sharp determination of all configuration variables there: is something like this what van Wolde wants to tell us? Or this, together with the further stipulation that living creatures find themselves in a position to shape events by somehow intersubjectively partially determining the outcome of collapse of the universal wavefunction?
2) Corjo Jansen in ‘Accidental harm under (Roman) civil law’ [pp. 233-247] enters into a discussion of legal issues originating in Roman praxis centering on culpability for accidental harm. Interesting, both from an etymological and from a moral philosophical standpoint, indeed by far the most stimulating chapter in the present collection. What does Jansen say?
A leading idea under the law is that [an accidental] loss should lie where it falls. This notion reflects the old adage under Roman law, ‘causum sentit dominus’. An owner has to bear the risk of an accidental loss or an accidental deterioration which has resulted in harm to him. (p. 234)
The Latin term for the loss is ‘casus’, from which both the English ‘case’ and ‘cause’ derive. Clearly, the crux from a legal point of view resides in determination of fault, i.e., whether a given loss is to be deemed accidental or someone else’s fault, in which case the other party would be found liable for damages. By this means, the practical-minded Romans were drawn into speculations on fate and on the unforeseen or unforeseeable. Jansen goes on to review the implications of this circle of ideas for Roman tort and contract law, then moves forward in time to consider modern-day Continental legal systems. This reviewer, not being a lawyer, can scarcely appreciate all the details of the legal discussion, but they’re there for those who might be curious to follow up on them.
Kaleidoscopic overview of remaining chapters:
Johannes Thijssen and David Loy discuss western versus eastern perspectives on the relation between happiness and invulnerability to vicissitude [ataraxia], unfortunately with too much dependence on a certain French scholar Pierre Hadot [pp. 153-156], whose take on the ancient world does not appear to be all that novel, peddling the obvious? But Plato on happiness [eudaimonia] against chance [tuchê] invokes the daimon – see p. 157 – , which in modern terms might better be described as the absolute ego: one’s calling is not a matter of chance though the manner in which it manifests itself in time may seem so up to the end, when it becomes clear in retrospect. The remainder of this chapter is pretty basic on Epicurus, Stoics, Epictetus and the skeptics, but the contrast with Buddhism may be less well-worn for many readers. If [p. 162ff] they commit the mistake of simply equating concupiscence with sexual desire, it leads one to wonder whether the authors’ account of karma is similarly wrong-headed? Oddly, Thijssen and Loy have nothing to say about detachment in western mystical theology [cf. p. 167].
Michiel van Elk, Karl Friston and Harold Bekkering seek an integrated psychological and neurocognitive perspective in terms of which to understand the experience of coincidence, not in this recensionist’s opinion getting all that far beyond the common observation that we all are subject to cognitive biases [pp. 171-185].
Han Brunner’s chapter on random causes of birth defects and cancer [pp. 187-196] falls short of the promise one might initially ascribe to it, apart from quoting a few good experimental numbers on mutation rates. Hans de Kroon and Eelke Jongejans’ succeeding chapter on biological variation and the nature of causation in ecological communities [pp. 204-205] is interesting in that they indicate that neutral theory (i.e., positing no fitness differences across species) does just about as well empirically as the usual models. Could this mean that Darwin’s vaunted mechanism of natural selection, so evident a priori to everyone, suffers from insufficient a posteriori proof?
The chapter by Olivier Hekster on counterfactuality in history [pp. 215-232] turns out to be more thoughtful than the previous two chapters; contains an interesting reference to an essay by Max Weber from 1905. Lastly, Roeland van Hout and Pieter Muysken on chance and variability in linguistics [pp. 249-266] will be thought-provoking if not itself very analytical, for it does introduce linguistic concepts that may not be that familiar to non-experts.
Three stars. Though there is some raggedness in the level of the various contributions to the present volume, the subject matter itself is ever very engaging. Any reader willing to wrestle with the texts as well as with his preconceived notions will come away with some enrichment, whether he be converted to the authors’ respective viewpoints or not!
May 12, 2022
This is a well balanced and considered edited collection. I adore projects like this. A central trope or issue is selected - like chance - and a diversity of researchers and disciplines offer their lens.
From language research to mathematics, this is a well written and innovative book that shows what diverse researchers can achieve when they unify around a topic.
From language research to mathematics, this is a well written and innovative book that shows what diverse researchers can achieve when they unify around a topic.
March 23, 2020
Each chapter is written by a different author(s) and it is hard to evaluate it as a whole. I liked some chapters and didn't like (even abandoned midway) some. Generally was worth reading, but I have following points:
1. In some chapters it feels author(s) is trying to relate his/her field of study to chance, somehow artificially.
1. In some chapters author(s) forgot that this is a multidisciplinary book written for a broad range of readers, making their essay a bit too technical.
1. In some chapters it feels author(s) is trying to relate his/her field of study to chance, somehow artificially.
1. In some chapters author(s) forgot that this is a multidisciplinary book written for a broad range of readers, making their essay a bit too technical.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews