Ask Dr D: What left Sarfaraz Ahmed open-mouthed on the field against India

Dear Dr D
Since I am in England captaining the Pakistani cricket team, I thought I should read something on the bus. I chose Isiah Berlin’s 'Historical Inevitability'. The cover announced that Berlin postulated a human ability to make free choices. His lecture ‘Historical Inevitability’ attacked determinism as a foundation of the view that “the world has a direction” and that society is governed by deterministic laws. Instead, Berlin suggested that determinism was implausible, because it would require radical changes to our “moral and psychological categories”.

However, my own view (which comes from the Marquis de Laplace) is that all events, including moral choices, are completely determined by previously existing causes. Meaning that humans cannot act other than what they do and have no free will. The universe is utterly rational because complete knowledge of any given situation assures that unerring knowledge of its future is possible. Knowing, as I do, that we have been hammered by India without fail at the World Cup, whether captained by Imran, Javed, Inzy or whoever else, I arrived at the realisation early in the match that it was all over even before it even began. This realisation made me yawn. Was it so horrible a thing?
S Ahmed, Kings Cross-Karachi


Dear Mr Ahmed
I take Berlin’s view, that man is free to create his destiny. But I empathise with your action. There is an inevitability about your team and ours these days that makes me yawn as well.