Diogenes Fernando is having a fascinating conversation in the Feisty Fisherman with an expat who also happens to be a retired quantum-physics professor.

The prof has explained the theorem which says that we live in a deterministic universe in which everything that happens is predestined. Ergo, no free will.

Diogenes was quick to grasp the implication. In that case, he said, all my past follies and errors of judgement must also have been predestined. Ergo, not my fault.

Not so fast, said the professor. It’s only a mathematical theorem, and while some scientists take it seriously, many don’t. Because to be a scientific theory, it must be empirically falsifiable à la Karl Popper. But thus far it ain’t been, might never be, and possibly can’t be…

But Diogenes is undeterred. Of our 225 parliamentary MPs, he points out, many don’t have a single ‘O’ level. Moreover, whom amongst them have even heard of this theorem, much less grasped the implication?

Which is, if they did but know it, the perfect excuse to escape the blame for their past follies and errors of judgement that have destroyed the economy and brought the country to the brink of ruin.

It’s our karma, they could say, not our fault. It’s destiny, we were bound to do what we did, blah blah, etc etc. And it must mean that the people who elected them can’t be blamed either, for the same reason. So who is to blame? Where does the buck stop?

Funny you should ask, said the professor. I became a physicist, he said, after I was raised a Buddhist and as a schoolboy read ‘The Tao of Physics’ by Frijof Capra, which says that quantum physics echoes Buddhism on the nature of reality.

And the nature of reality in Sri Lanka is … complicated. On the one hand, he said, is misguided government statism and exceptionalism that fosters cronyism and corruption. On the other, misguided voters who think that living on borrowed time and money is a birthright.

It’s a circular conundrum, he said. Politicians repeatedly gull voters into believing what they want to believe, and the voters repeatedly gull themselves into believing that this time it will be different—which, by the way, is a classic definition of insanity.

All this, he said, in a nation of Buddhists who don’t properly understand the underlying metaphysical philosophy of Buddhism beyond virtue-signalling obeisance to self-serving monks.

Whoa, said Diogenes. Millions of Sri Lanka’s Buddhists live as best they can according to the noble truths and eightfold path, and they understand the metaphysics of suffering all too well!

Again, not so fast, said the professor. My point was merely to illustrate the ‘free will or no free will’ question as it pertains to over-entitled citizens in denial about their own follies and errors of judgement…

Furthermore, he said, one of the country’s erstwhile ruling family has said on record that all elected governments since 1951 have bribed a compliant electorate with shedloads of borrowed money, thus the voters themselves are also responsible.

And whether you like it or not, you can’t fault his logic. So to answer your questions, in any representative democracy it’s the people who are ultimately to blame, ergo, the buck stops with them. Another beer?