Determinism and the Oracle

Delphi, Greece

It is hard sometimes to visualize the magnificence of Ancient Greece amid these tumbling ruins. We walked the sacred path today up to the Delphic Oracle and cast our questions to the wind. We got no cryptic reply and went on our way unenlightened.

Apollo is the god of intellect, healing and music, and was worshiped all across the Hellenistic world, and it was his sanctuary that we visited today. Legend goes that he traveled all across the world looking for the most beautiful place to build his temple and finally settled on the steep mountain sides of Delphi, which sits below towering rocky peaks and looks out towards Peloponnese and the Aegean Sea. People would come from all over to worship him and have their fate told by the oracle. Both city-states and individuals vied for prestige by presenting the god with elaborate gifts and statues making this place one of the most elaborate and richest places of worship in the ancient world. The sacred way up to the temple used to be crowded with hundreds of these presents but now is just an empty walk way leading up to the remainder of the once great temple. Some of the statues and offerings survived the ages and now rest in the museum at the site, the most famous being a life size bronze cast of a charioteer and his horses. It would have been a remarkable feat to make many of these pieces in the 21st century much less the 4th Century BCE. I can hardly wrap my mind around the artistry and mastery of the marble carvings, the intricate and fine detail and care put into each piece is phenomenal.

I find it sad how much of the Ancient Greek buildings and culture has been destroyed over the years. Much of the destruction on the Parthenon was caused during the Second World War when it was bombed and the Christians when they began their mass spread of Christianity often tore down the temples and destroyed the statues considering them sacrilegious or even blasphemous. Although, in the case of the Parthenon they just converted the temple into a church and used it as their own sanctuary. Other temples were not so fortunate, the temple of Apollo was torn down by Apollo’s cult to protect the sanctity of the structure and similar fates befell other buildings around Greece.

Our teacher has proven quite savvy because after we toured the temple we made ourselves a picnic lunch – think cheeses made at a monastery, hard salami, cucumbers, olives, tomatoes, bread, feta, wine, tzatziki, oranges, grapes and all assortments of Greek yumminess – took it to a hillside looking down into the bay out over the town of Itea and there we talked philosophy. Specifically, we discussed fate and whether or not the future is determined or if we have free will. It was a pretty appropriate subject given that we were just standing around the place of the world’s potentially most famous and influential place of prophesy. To be honest I’ve never seriously considered this question before and it was fascinating to listen to the discussion around me. Do we or do we not have free will? Aristotle seems to think that we don’t and his logic is pretty irrefutable but something inside me still resists the idea that we have absolutely zero control over our lives because we are fated to do everything we ever do. It takes the responsibility out of life and pretty much makes people unaccountable for their actions. It also eliminates any possibility of morality or personal ethics, which doesn’t feel right to me. I can’t figure out a way around the idea of determinism but nonetheless I resist it. Can we not have both a determined future and free will? The answer to that is a definite no because they are so seriously at odds with each other but perhaps there is a way that they can coexist.

There is a theory called Compatibilism, which is pretty much what I was just suggesting but doesn’t quite satisfy my desire for free will. Compatibilism suggests that our fates our determined but we have a certain amount of surface free will. For example, if you do what you are wanting to do you are exercising free will but that free will is already determined. However, if someone forces you to do something else then what you would like to do then your causal chain or surface freedom is taken away, which interrupts your free will. To try and be clear, the choices we make that aren’t forced by an external power or force are us exercising free will, which is also determined. I myself still feel pretty confused by this all and I just did my best to translate what my philosophy major friends are saying into plain English but it is difficult. Some how talking about philosophy is far less confusing than writing about it, so forgive me for my babbling.

The sun is about to set here in Arachova and my stomach is grumbling for dinner. I think I might go seek out a place with some moussaka, which is the Greek version of ratatouille. It’s kinda a conglomeration of lamb, potato, eggplant and perhaps other assorted vegetables with a white creamy sauce dribbled over the top. It’s supposed to be their signature dish – other than the Gyro, which is the Greek equivalent of a hamburger – and I have yet to try it. So I’m off to find me some food.

Incongruity of the First World

I feel so at home up here in the mountains way outside any major cities. I could die here a happy soul. Or maybe it might be more appropriate to say I could live here and have a happy soul. It is so beautiful. I feel like we are way up in the mountains and I guess in some ways I am. It looks a lot like Switzerland come to think of it. The towns are built on what seem to be sheer cliff sides, the mountain tumbling below them into the olive groves far far below. I love it. Rocky peaks are jutting up through whispy white clouds and pierce the sky with their jaggedness. The air is fresh and cool and sweet with the smell of birch trees and running water. The towns are quaint and beautiful, especially the town we are staying in. It is a ski resort and feels a lot like Telluride or Aspen. The buildings are all stone, lit up with Christmas lights, fires flicker welcomingly from heating grates (it’s a lot colder up here than in Athens) and quite cafes line the streets. 

One thing I was thinking about today was Greece’s status as a “first-world” developed country. I realized as we drove up to Delphi from Athens that there are a lot of things here that don’t fit my cookie cutter idea of what a developed country should be and it make me wonder, “What does make a country considered developed or undeveloped?” I’ve spent quite a bit of time in what people consider undeveloped countries and I find that there are a lot of similar things here in Greece that I attribute to the developing world. For example today as we drove through the country side we passed a lot of agricultural land and the houses on it were true shacks, rundown and decrepit looking. Shepherds in rags herded their flocks of wandering goats and sheep by the side of the road and by the looks of it there was just a lot less infrastructure in that part of the country. Perhaps I need to expand my view of what it means to be a developed country but these people appeared to be really struggling to me. I am no political science major but it seems to me that perhaps Greece is considered developed because it is a part of the European Union and because its cities like Athens and Thessolanike have good infrastructure and amenities that I associate with developed countries. Is it that these places generate enough GDP that the country as a whole can be considered developed when really much of the population appears to be struggling? Maybe so.

My guess is that the classes here are really quite stratified, like they are in the United States but it is more obvious here because the country is so much smaller than the US and the poor are out in the open, so to speak. In the US I feel like we sweep our lower classes under the rug and glorify the upper classes when really we need to work on bridging the economic gap among our citizens and bring everyone up to a standard of living that is acceptable. I see a similar trend here in Greece and it concerns me. I just feel like there must be more room in the human heart for compassion and an ability to reach out to those less fortunate than ourselves and help them. I believe that this can work on a national level and that indeed it must. The poor and lower middle classes of a country are still very much a part of the country and often make up the foundation of the working classes and thus deserve all the help they can receive. I do not know what it is exactly that Greece is doing for these people but I know that today I saw a lot of poverty in a “first-world” country. I don’t really have a concluding thought for this semi-rant, I just thought it was an interesting incongruity between the notion of what Greece is and the reality of the people on the ground.