Was it truly meant to be?

Science most likely can provide us with a definitive answer

I was having dinner last night with some new friends. I told them the story of the unlikely confluence of events that lead to me meeting my wife back in 1999. A month before I met her, my mom had sent me an article about a book that I then bought and read which convinced me my then long term relationship was doomed so I ended it. I was searching on what was then Matchmaker.com. I usually searched within a 50 mile radius. That day I chose 60 miles. I recognized my mistake but was too lazy to change it. Someone new appeared who was 51 miles away. Just a mile outside my normal range. She only appeared because, after having decided to let her account expire, she renewed it when someone else sent her a message. She had to renew her account in order to read it. There were other variables as well that made our meeting unlikely but it happened anyway.

One of my new friends at dinner said, “It was meant to be!” I’ve heard this before. We all have. When something seems so perfect, so right, and in many cases, so unlikely, the only answer we can come up with is some form of the universe made it happen. That’s poetic and sweet of course but is it true?

When we think back, we consider all the other possible paths our life might have taken. Change something even seemingly insignificant and the important event might have never taken place. We do this with negative outcomes as well. If only I had left 5 minutes later, I wouldn’t have been going through that intersection when the other car ran the red light. We look at these alternatives with the consideration that they are just as likely as what actually happened. Are they?

This is where science plays a role in helping us answer that question. What if my mom had not sent me that article? Well, she did send it to me. What if she didn’t? That’s a situation that can only exist within our imagination. Why? Because of the principle of cause and effect which is fundamental to the laws of physics. Every cause is the result of a previous cause. Something caused my mom to send me that article. That something was caused by something else. This becomes a logical and natural near infinite regression back to the beginning of the universe. While we can’t predict the future with 100% accuracy or anything close to it, our ability to replay the past is far more (though never completely) accurate. Because of the nature of cause and effect, my mom was always going to send me that article. I was always going to get on Matchmaker as a result. I was always, in that moment, going to choose 60 miles instead of my usual 50. We can’t know any of this about the future but the moment an event happens, it has happened as the result of a previous causal chain of events. Thus, we can say that upon reflection, there is no real possibility that anything except exactly what has happened was ever going to happen. Everything that has happened in the past, up to this very moment, truly was meant to be.

Upon accepting this, it would be tempting to believe that this makes for a convenient excuse to therefore entertain and execute just about any action one might imagine. While that could be true for some, there are often consequences for our actions. That it was always going to be as it was, doesn’t change this fact.

The inescapable conclusion of course is that the kind of free will most of us think we have, that there’s a you in there somewhere, independent of the influence of your genes, the circumstances under which you grew up, your past experiences and the universe at large, that can truly choose anything free of all of that, in a completely libertarian fashion is not only a myth, but is also incompatible with the basic laws of physics that govern the universe. Every choice you make is caused by a previous cause which was caused by a previous cause like a near infinite set of dominos that lead back to the beginning of time itself. If this sounds incredulous to you, consider your last choice. Why did you make this choice? You’ll likely have an answer. That answer is itself another choice so why did you make that one? Again, you may have an answer. But continue with this regression and you’ll soon reach a point where you can no longer answer. You might say to yourself that that’s just your preference or how you feel. And that’s likely true. However, your preferences and such are also the result of previous causes. In a very real sense you didn’t choose those either. We also have an unconscious habit (one that is well documented by science) of creating story to explain past events in our lives. We each inherit quite a bit of who we are from our parents. Personality for example is almost entirely genetic. We also know from scientific experiments that when you make a choice, you are not consciously aware of the choice until somewhere around 100 milliseconds after you have made it. Where is the free will in any of that?

If all of this sounds a bit distressing, you may be happy to hear that there is a silver lining. If free will is the illusion that it almost certainly must be, it also means that getting upset at people who don’t meet your expectations, in most cases, doesn’t really make any sense. Whatever they did was what they were always going to do. In rare cases, the best way you can prevent them from not disappointing you in the future might be to get mad at them but in most situations that’s really not the best reaction. It also means that when someone can’t follow the rules of society resulting in a law or two being broken, while it may be good to protect society by removing them from it, simply locking them away and expecting them to change for the better is utterly foolish. We really need to rethink our system of justice. That is a blog post for another day. Will I ultimately write it? Who knows? But should I do so, it was always what was going to happen.

And so yes, when you think to yourself that something was meant to be, you are absolutely right. It most certainly was. That for almost 20 years I was looking for my soulmate, that one special person that would make me feel loved in a way that no one else ever has, it’s even better knowing that it was always meant to be.