Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle) / quote 107 of 138
Nature is radically contingent
nature is radically contingent. Many of the most important explanatory principles in science are by no means intuitive or obvious. Think of the Schroedinger equation or Planck’s constant or for that matter, Einstein’s famous e=mc2. In each case, this is just how nature turned out. It did not have to turn out that way, but that is in fact how it did turn out. I am with Hume in thinking that the conviction that nature must necessarily be the way it is, is an illusion. So, for example, even when the billiard ball strikes the other billiard ball, it is just a fact of nature that the second will move. But it could equally well be a fact of nature that they both move backward or that the first would swallow the second. It is just that nature turned out one way and not another way. Nature is full of surprises. We should never forget, for example, that liquid helium 3 placed in a container will climb up its side.