Haiku 2023–266

determinism

means everything affects

everything else

— —

It has been determined since the universe began that you, dear reader, would think about Taco Bell right at this very moment.

Why?

…because in the summer of 1990 in a classroom at the University of North Carolina a philosophy professor told me that it had been determined since the universe began that we would be talking about Taco Bell at that moment. That’s determinism. I’ve now decided to pass that burden on to you. You’re welcome.

Regular readers of my haiku… or at least the captions of my haiku… may have discerned that I’m in the middle of a string of offerings regarding the interconnection of all things in the universe. It’s true — everything single thing in the universe has, has had, or will have something to do with everything other thing in the universe even if that relationship is infinitesimally small — kind of like my example from two days ago where the pencil is pulling itself to earth just like earth is pulling the pencil. The ‘big bang’ is perhaps the easiest way to wrap your mind around this because that singular event set everything in motion.

Want to prove me wrong? Try to stop thinking about Taco Bell right now. You will find you have to think about Taco Bell in order to force yourself not to think about Taco Bell — there’s just no avoiding it. In other words, it has been determined since the summer of 1990 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina that you would be thinking about Taco Bell right now. I’ll let you follow the path back from that on your own.