Our car tires steamrolled over the jagged searing asphalt to match the flat terrain, as we traveled highway 30 between my grandparents’ farm and my uncles’ fancy home in the city. Highway 30 divides the state of Iowa in half from east to west, the heart of the heartland where endless fields of corn swagger in the breeze of each passing vehicle.
The stream of sunlight flashing through each row of corn is mesmerizing. It can lull a young girl into a sense of complacency. Was this all there was in the world? Endless fields of corn where my only option was to become a farmer’s wife? Sure, I could choose to attend college after high school graduation, learn another skill that would change the trajectory of my life. But my grandfather always held sway that it was an M.R.S. degree that I would be seeking.
This seed of thought took root, and I chose to seek my degree without having to spend dollars, that I didn’t actually have, on an education, that was just a piece of paper according to my mother.
Looking back from where I am today, these antecedent conditions held a grip over what I thought was my free will choice not to attend college. In other words, it was the cause and effect of my life experiences that made the choice for me. That I did not actually freely choose to not attend college. The causal chain of determinism holds merit in this narrative.
Over a quarter of a century later this narrative has changed, and I find myself seeking illumination granted by attending an institution of higher education. However, the question still swaggers in the breeze. Did I make the choice to attend college as the result of my own decision (free will), or was it the result of a complex chain of cause and effect (determinism)? The Heisenberg uncertainty principle guides me to an answer I can conceptualize.
I am a tiny particle, smaller than a quark, in a large universe of organic and inorganic matter. Matter made up of protons, neutrons and electrons, which according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, it is with enormous uncertainty that we can measure anything as tiny as an electron. If one can ascertain the position of the particle, its motion is unknown. Or one can measure its motion, but then one will not be able to know its position.
Therefore, being a tiny particle surrounded by other subatomic material, it is impossible to predict, where I am or where I am going. It is impossible to use the concept of determinism to know exactly what my future will look like. It is within this unpredictability that gives my free well its authority to choose.
