We live in a deterministic world where every movement is a result of the infinite movements preceding it. I could limit this claim to the 13.8 billion years preceding this temporally measurable moment but then that would give people the idea that there was an initial movement at that time, one created by some impossibly intangible superior being. Why claim though that there was an infinite mover than to simply claim that movement itself is infinite? Thus we acknowledge that it is likely that the movement 13.8 billion years ago was simply a result of a movement that preceded it.

A confused vision of our earth claims misunderstanding or even inability to understand. But everything can be understood; we can trace the movements. This trap of belief in a world that transcends the physical has pulled many people to overwhelming confusion, to believe that their problems are abstract, that the issues we face do not have a traceable cause and therefore do not have an alternate series of movements that could have prevented them.

We are manipulations of the world around us. Phenotypically, we claim we are products of our genetics and environment. But what are genetics, if we grant a purely physical universe, inescapable from this series of movements, but products of environment themselves? Charles Darwin initially pointed this out and we now nearly unanimously agree upon it. In reality, we are products solely of our environment. And our environment is a product of the environment that preceded it.

Our environment, our bodies themselves, is not some abstract intangible. We are a collection of chemicals bound to the same laws of physics that apply to everything else. All my actions, all my emotions, even the formerly taboo, love itself, is a result of a series of movements, a collection of elemental collisions. Every act of a human ever made, every moment of empathy or display of altruism, every crime and action of greed, every brilliant composition or awe inspiring piece of artwork can theoretically be traced to the series of movements that came before.

The difficulty is not, should not be, in grasping that this is the nature of the world. The challenge truly is instead to apply this understanding to altering the series of those movements. Understandably, those alterations would certainly be products of the preceding movements, determined all the same. That reality no less alters my inspiration for making the alterations. To write this post is a product of those movements. Theoretically, each of these words, each of the stokes of my finger, every typo, could have been acknowledged at that initial explosion in the universe, that is if we had a computer more intricate than the universe itself. But these key strokes are not of defiance to the natural world. They are merely me complying with reality, as we all do with each and every action and observation.

This is not daunting though. This is fascinating and hopeful. If every movement is simply along a series, if we can recognize and map those movements, then we can find an alternate route. This is the way we have ever cured a disease. Trace the pathology, find the source, and next time alter the course.

I don’t understand the attraction to an intangible universe, one littered with the crime of a malevolent, omnipotent super being. In reality, we live in a purely reducible universe, and we live with the ability to figure it out. I understand this can be overwhelming initially. But the prospect of being capable of fixing nearly everything seems worth the awe associated with a deterministic universe. I’m not crazy, nor am I revolutionary. I am simply a product of a series of movements, those movements including all the bullshit about the supernatural I’ve had to listen to my entire life.