(11.1) Being governed by the laws of nature, all possible changes in matter of is are knowable, even if unknown in time present.

(11.1.1) The extent of possible changes is limited only by the different things consisting of matter involved in the change. As an example, approximately, 13,892436 stable chemical compounds can be made with up to eleven atoms either of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, or fluorine. Further, all 13,892,436 of these stable chemical compounds are composed of only three subatomic particles, up and down quarks and electrons, in 13,892,436 different permutations as prescribed by the laws of nature. The laws of nature are not intimidated by a large number of possibilities.

(11.1.2) Some changes in matter are probabilistic but the actions of probabilistic change is deterministic. As an example, the unstable carbon-14 isotope has 6 protons and 8 neutrons but will eventually undergo radioactive decay to into nitrogen-14 atom with 7 protons and 7 neutrons when one of the neutron decays into a proton with the emission of an electron and an electron anti-neutrino. Exactly at what point in time this will occur with a given atom is impossible to know as it occurs spontaneously without warning. But what we can know is that is 68% probability that half of all the carbon-14 atoms will undergo this transformation over a time interval of 5,730± 40 years as measured by ticks of a clock. This knowledge is used for “carbon dating” of archeological time past.

(11.2) All changes in matter, deterministic or probabilistic in their occurrence, are governed the invariant laws of nature and give rise the phenomena of determinism of the effect of the actions which arise from one or more causes.

(11.2.1) Some changes in matter are probabilistic but the nature of the actions of probabilistic changes is a deterministic invariant. As an example, the actions of a carbon atom in relation to other elements in nature is invariant and deterministic. However, the actions of the fundamental subatomic particles of the carbon atom are probabilistic at any point in time even though they ultimately enable the deterministic action of the carbon atom itself in time future. That is, the probabilistic nature of the fundamental particles that comprise the carbon atom and, indeed, of all other elements, is itself deterministic. The only unknown is the time interval before the change occurs which gives rise to its probabilistic nature

(11.2.2) Humans live their daily lives almost exclusively at the deterministic level of the atom, not at the probabilistic level of subatomic quantum particles. But we are subjected to interaction with subatomic particles of light and electrons. Indeed, humans depend upon the light probabilistically emitted as subatomic photon particles from the sun for the very energy humans require to live their daily lives. And because the emission of radiation from the sun is probabilistic, the amount of radiation emitted varies by about 0.1% per year, a variance equal to about 2 million times more energy than all that the earth receives from the sun each year.

(11.2.3) Effects at the probabilistic level of subatomic level do play a minor role in the lives of humans. As an example, the human body does have a small but finite number of carbon-14 atoms which undergo probabilistic radioactive decay into nitrogen-14. The emission of an electron as a result of decay will have little effect but the change in chemistry may. If the carbon 14 that decayed happens to be in a strand of DNA, then the change in chemistry can cause a mutation affecting the living organism. Fortunately, the chances of this happening at the right place in the strand of 6.4 billion base pairs at the right time present is quite small. But it can and does happen.

(11.2.4) By far the much greater effects of deterministic change at the atomic level in the chemistry of the living organism. These deterministic effects in chemistry enable the creation of a new organism, the living of the life of that organism and the inevitable death of the organism. The cause of the effects of chemical change is governed by the invariant laws of nature. The chemical changes that must happen do happen with an a near absolute certainty with the exception any probabilistic changes such as skin cancer resulting from exposure to radioactivity which, of course, has a great deal of effect on the lives of dermatologists who make their living surgically removing them.

(11.2.5) Indeed, at the atomic level of existence of humans, chemistry dominates everything the human is and does. Chemistry provides the means for reproduction of the physical entity that enables the continuation of the life process. Chemistry provides the means for creation of the cells that constitute the physical body of the organism that, in turn, carries our the physical actions the organisms take. Chemistry keeps the cells alive by converting the chemical energy in food gathered from the light energy from the sun to sustain the chemical processes necessary for life. Take away the chemistry and the atoms from which the living entity are composed are a collection of atoms as undifferentiated as they were when atoms were (and still are) created from subatomic particles within the stars and sent throughout the universe when the stars exploded as supernova. Life only became possible when deterministic order was subsequently created by chemical processes occurring at temperatures low enough to maintain stability of differentiation of atoms as organic molecules containing carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. That temperature range is quite small. The highest known temperature is the Planck Temperature, which equals 100 million million million million million °C while the lowest is the -273°C of absolute zero (0°K) at which nothing moves. But, on average, the universe is a very cold -270.4° and no known living thing can survive for long outside the relatively narrow temperature range of -2°C to +122°C. For humans the survivability range is even narrower at +13°C to 42.3°C. Life as we know it is extremely picky about its immediate thermal environment and body temperature.

(11.2.6) Once the earth had cooled to a temperature at which a multiplicity of organic chemicals could exist as stable entities, all deterministic chemical reactions involving carbon, oxygen hydrogen and nitrogen became possible to happen. One or more of them, following the laws of nature, resulted in the creation of systematic string of atoms in a polymer which today we know as ribonucleic acid (RNA). This polymer had the unique property of being able to exactly replicate itself when sufficient energy and atoms of carbon, oxygen hydrogen and nitrogen in the right chemical state was available. The COVID-19 virus causing the flu pandemic of 2020-2022 is a direct descendant. The process of life as we know it today took its first step. A double stranded version of the RNA polymer emerged as the polymer we know today as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). DNA enabled the systematic production of chemical compounds called proteins with which it would surrounded itself with a membrane to form a cellular structure. The membrane delineated the cell from the external environment, enabling the effect of action and change independent of causes in its external environment. This second degree of freedom of action and change of the cell apart from its environment we shall call biological determinism. No longer did the entity depend entirely upon its environment for cause and effect actions. The laws of nature could govern the cell in entirely ways other than that dictated exclusively by its environment. The cell was no longer a rock with a single degree of freedom to act. Indeed, the cell was now able to produce a variety if internal structures independent of it environment according to a blueprint encoded in its DNA to serve various functions, including reproduction of itself. Biological life as we know it had begun.

(11.2.7) First came simple cells that could only absorb the nutrients necessary for life from its immediate environment. The cyanobacterium surrounded by filaments of a fungus in lichen is an example of such a cell still extant today. Then came the ability to differentiate between various chemicals in it environment and ability to respond to them with the action of motion to move towards or away from them. The amoeba is an example of such a cell still existent today. The cell now had a primitive awareness of its environment and a primitive response to in accordance with its biological determinism. Unlike a rock which can undertake no action at all as a physical entity in response to its environment, the cell could now respond to it in three different way: (1) move towards the chemicals in its environment, (2) move away from the chemicals in its environment, or (3) do nothing in response to them. The rock can only remain immobile and undergo changes in response to chemicals in its environment as dictated by the material laws of nature. It possesses no way of gathering sensory data from its environment and acting in response to it.

(11.2.8) Humans have retained this same ability as the amoeba to respond to its chemical environment through of senses of taste and smell. We are repelled by the smell of sulfur dioxide in rotten eggs and attracted to the "sweet, fruity, pear-like, waxy, winey, with a slight tropical nuance" smell of methyl nonanoate present in grapes, butter, oranges, and rose blossoms. Movie theaters use scent marketing with the smell of popcorn because the majority of money made by a theater is from the concessions sold, not the movie tickets. We are unconsciously attracted by the smell of buttered popcorn in the air and to move to the concession stand to acquire some of it to eat. Biological determinism in action.

(11.2.9) Over time single cell organisms evolved into multiple cell organisms with specificity for each new cell. Some become cells in the muscles in legs and others in the heart. Other cells created a matrix of cells as sites on which hydroxyapatite crystals are deposited to create bone. But some cells differentiated into neural cells that comprise the brain, neural system and transducers of stimulation by the environment into electrochemical sensory data. These sensors primarily detect forces acting on objects with mass (touch) and the movement of the of mass within a certain frequency range (hearing), the presence of electromagnetic radiation (light) and, of course, the chemical state of atoms (smell and taste). But these sensors are limited in scope. They cannot sense mass, force or energy directly. They can sense only a small portion of electromagnetic and even that varies form life form to life form and even within a given specifies. Humans can sense the quantum particle of protons of light but not the 100 trillion quantum neutrinos that pass through their body every second. Humans cannot hear some sounds that cats can. Humans can only smell or taste certain chemicals with water, one of the most essential chemical for life not being one of them. Humans cannot feel the force of gravity in free fall within a gravitation field like that present around the earth. Humans cannot sense the kinetic energy of their body in motion. Humans cannot directly sense any of the numerous fields of the physical world. The result is that humans have very limited awareness of reality. Much and, indeed, likely most of reality is hidden from humans.

(11.2.10) But what we can observe is that all human actions originate with the sensory data that is extracted from interfacing with nature. We breath because our body senses the need for oxygen. We eat because, like the amoeba, we sense the need for the energy in food. Our heart beats because if senses the need for nutrition and oxygen. All are driven by the biological imperative to sustain life. The body does them as dictated by biological determinism just as the body uses the oxygen and nutrition in accordance with the material determinism of the laws of nature. The difference is that the extra degree of freedom afforded by biological determinism enables the living entity to initiate a change its environment to seek out oxygen and nutrition rather than only the laws of nature to have a single degree of freedom to initiate change in the body that result in death of the entity from deprivation of oxygen and nutrition. To survive and reproduce itself a COVID-19 virus must depend solely upon the laws of nature to somehow move it into the lungs of a human where it can invade a living cell in the lungs to survive. The amoeba with the second degree freedom of biological determinism can move initiate action to move itself to the source of nutrition that is demanded by the laws of nature to sustain the chemical process of life.

(11.2.11) As the brain developed over time it developed structures to process sensory information produced by sensory transducers in the cells responding to stimulation from the environment and resulting in an electrical signal that is passed to the brain by a network of neural cells for sensory processing. For sensing force, this is, in fact, no different than an electric scale which, when acted upon by a force, results in an electrical signal being sent from its transducer to a microcomputer which processes the sensory data into something representative of the force. Perhaps it is a voltage signal sent along to cause an action in the scale, say, calculating the price of something being bought at the point of sale or rejected an underweight bag of green peas at the packaging facility.

(11.2.12) The same is true for all our other senses: sight – digital cameras, sound – microphones , (taste and smell) – spectrographs. Be it instruments or humans functioning as an instrument, each must have a physical transducer for converting environmental stimuli into an electrical sensory data. And disruption of the sensory data, be it a defect in the transducer/sensory cells, electrical circuit/neural system, or data processor/brain and all awareness and perception of the environment is lost to the instrument/human.

(11.2.13) The mechanisms in the cells for sensing the stimuli, transmitting the signal to the brain and transducing the electrical signal in reverse into physical changes in the neural configuration of the brain are now well known. We also know how the brain sends out electrical signals over the neural network to cause the effect of actions in the physical corpus. What is less well know in how the brain uses the changes in neural configuration of the brain to result in the phenomenon of awareness, sensation, consciousness, thought and decision making. But we have observed neuron in the brain being reconfigured as the result of sensory inputs. Indeed, we know that about 70% of the neurons in the human brain are reconfigured every 24 hours in the course of data processing. Whatever the phenomenon of awareness, sensation, consciousness, thought and decision making might be, we know that it is the direct related to the reconfiguration of neural cells and networks in the brain. And because these sensory signals are electrical signals we can euphemistically say the phenomenon are a direct result of "rewiring" of the brain as the result of sensory data input to the brain. The tree fell in the forest and created perturbations in the air pressure. But that was not sound. That was only a change in the environment. The pressure transducers in the ear sensed the perturbations and sent a sensory signal to the brain which used them to created the perception of the phenomena of the sensation of sound. The perturbations in air pressure caused by the tree striking the ground occurred whether anyone sensed them or not. Sound itself exists entirely in the mind.

(11.2.14) So it is that the brain receives a variety of sensory data respresentive of the environment which it integrates and processes to create awareness of that portion of the environment for which we are sentient. The integration of the sensory data results in a variety of sensations including all those of qualia and especially of emotion. As an example, the brain as the ability to have the sensation of the color purple but the eyes have no sensors for the color purple because there is no light with a wavelength corresponding to the color purple. What we do sense as the color purple is sensory inputs from the eyes for the color red and for the color blue which the brain processes as the sensation of the color purple which does not and cannot exist as a reality in nature. Light producing the sensation of red is found on the low frequency end of the visible spectrum while light producing the sensation of blue is found on the high frequency end of the visible spectrum. Light with a frequency midway between them produces the color sensation of yellow and not that of purple. The perception of the qualia of colors is an illusion of reality in the mind. Reality itself has no color attributes and light itself is a part of reality only at the quantum level of existence in the material world.

(11.2.15) Experiences with the environment have similar results from processing sensory data from all the various sensors of sight, sound, touch, small and taste. The sensory data from each the different sensors representing different aspects of the environmental source are process by the brain and amalgamated into a collective perception of the environment. These collective perceptions are used by the brain in the creation of the phenomena of emotions experienced as the quale of emotional feelings which serve as a cause for subsequent actions. Rather than experience the quale of the colors of red or blue colors, we experience the quale of feeling of happiness, sadness. love fear, hate, etc.

(11.2.16) Emotions engendered by experiences can be stored in the brain as memory of a collection of the qualia associated with the experience. Accordingly, conscious recall of an experience or encounter of a similar experience will result in the sensation of the same emotion having the same quale of feelings. If you don't like broccoli now you will not like broccoli in the future unless something changes in a new experience with broccoli to alter your quale of feelings about broccoli.

And herein lies the source of biological determinism.

(11.2.17) A rock is entirely indifferent to its environment. It has no emotional response to it and undergoes the same physical changes to the same changes in its environment. Its response is entirely governed by the material laws of nature. If the temperature increases, it increases in volume. If the temperature decreases, it decreases in volume. The corpus of humans do the same. Humans, however, also have the ability do differentiate their response to their environment. At the biological level, human can respond in multiple ways to a change in temperature. If it is cold, they can put on more clothing or move closer to a source of heat or increase the body temperature by exercising it or huddling together with others to conserve body of the group. They are not bound by the laws of nature to a single action as an effect. They have an additional degree of freedom of action – biological determinism – in response to their environment that separates them from a rock. It is the sensation of the qualia of coldness and the emotion of displeasure that prompted them to take one or more of the courses of action available to them. Humans are capable of responding to an given experience in multiple ways.

(11.2.18) As a result of biological determinism, two or more individuals may respond to the same experience in their common environment in completely different ways. The response will be due in part to the present circumstances but also in part to similar experiences in time past that have been stored in the brain as memory. That is biological determinism if far from being universal and differs for each individual.

(11.2.19) Consciousness and memory are not the cause of biological determinism, but are the effect of the actions resulting from biological determinism in sentient living things having brains capable of developing the phenomenon of consciousness
.

(11.3) A change in one aspect of matter produces a change in any and all things of matter as a result of what we shall call physical determinism. This phenomenon presents as material cause and effect.
Physical determinism enables the actions dictated by biological determinism. Physical determinism is possible without biological determinism but biological determinism in not possible without physical determinism.

(11.3.1) In this case all is inclusive of every material thing that is a part of is with varying degree of effect. These effects occur not only at the smallest known level of physical existence on the subatomic scale as the Planck length, mass, time and temperature, but at the largest level of physical existence on the cosmological scale of the universe, all as the effect of every change in the physical state, large or small, in any and every material thing. This we shall call “absolute determinism”. “Absolute determinism” precludes the logical possibility of free will as an agent of biological determinism of sentient living things but not the false perception of free will in the mind.

(11.4) Not being matter, nimbus is not governed by the laws of nature and any changes in nimbus of is at any point in time future is probabilistic and unknowable in time present.

(11.4.1) Changes in nimbus are the stepchildren of actions resulting from cause and effect by way of consciousness and memory. That is changes in nimbus are deterministic


(11.5) Being composed entirely of matter, all actions of unus are deterministic.

Summation

(11) All changes at all levels of existence in the material world are deterministic as dictated by the invariant laws of nature. All effects of changes in the material world caused by the actions of living things are the direct result of biological determinism on the molecular scale which is itself the result of material determinism on the atomic scale of the material composing the living things. Free will does not exist in nature which includes humans.