Determinism

[Exist]

Naturalistic Determinism, actually.

Let's discuss.

 

[Exist]

Woah, nothing.

Okay, I really didn't want to go into it if no one else wanted to talk about it, but I'll say a bit.

Determinism:
We have no free will. We are biological machines.

There are determinants, and there are the laws of nature. There are no external influences. It's like a computer program: there are variables, and there are the processes.

Our "choices" are, in reality, just the outcome of a whole lot of processes, ones that we have no transcendental control over.

That is the basic belief of determinism.

You take out chaos and randomness from the universe, and you get fatalism. The processes and variables make the universe clockwork without random numbers. This belief is highly dated, and with the rise of quantom physics, you will find very few people who still believe in determinalistic fatalism.


I explained it all very poorly, but I'm tired

I'm just trying to pass the time before I'm tired enough to fall asleep.

 

[MoonlessNight]

I think that John Searle would disagree with determinism meaning that we are all biological machines, but that is more of a topic for the other thread.

 

[levi501]

First, I'm doubtless we are without freewill... regardless if this is a deterministic universe.

I do believe in Determinism, but it's in spite of quantum physics. Logically it make sense that if the exact same variables are in place the exact same result should occur. So to me the hidden variable theory sounds plausible.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I think we do have freewill, at least of a limited sort.

However, I find debates on this subject to be unprofitable. We simply don't have enough knowledge of the brain yet to settle the matter once and for all.

 

[FSTDT]

Woah, nothing.

Okay, I really didn't want to go into it if no one else wanted to talk about it, but I'll say a bit.

Determinism:
We have no free will. We are biological machines.

There are determinants, and there are the laws of nature. There are no external influences. It's like a computer program: there are variables, and there are the processes.

Our "choices" are, in reality, just the outcome of a whole lot of processes, ones that we have no transcendental control over.

That is the basic belief of determinism.

You take out chaos and randomness from the universe, and you get fatalism. The processes and variables make the universe clockwork without random numbers. This belief is highly dated, and with the rise of quantom physics, you will find very few people who still believe in determinalistic fatalism.


I explained it all very poorly, but I'm tired

I'm just trying to pass the time before I'm tired enough to fall asleep.

Fatalism != Determinism. Here's why:

Lets say you find a machine on your doorstep one day, and it is marked as a machine programmed with all the laws and physics and all the variables in the universe. In a sense, its a omniscient machine with the capacity to tell deduce every future event.

Now, lets say that machine printed out everything you were going to do for the rest of the day, you read the list and it says "first you'll eat a banana, then go to work, then break up with your girlfriend" and so on and so on. Do you have the capacity to deviate from what the machine has listed, or are you bound to it?

I presume everyone will say we can deviate from the list, but that doesn't imply we have free will. When we have knowledge of the future, that information feedbacks on the present, which necessarily changes the future; essentially, the future is fundamentally unpredictable, even in a wholly deterministic universe.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I presume everyone will say we can deviate from the list, but that doesn't imply we have free will.

It wouldn't mean that we don't have free will either.

But you are begging the question with your example. You can't simply assume that your supercomputer could correctly predict what everyone would do. That's the sort of issue in question.

 

[elman]

Woah, nothing.

Okay, I really didn't want to go into it if no one else wanted to talk about it, but I'll say a bit.

Determinism:
We have no free will. We are biological machines.

There are determinants, and there are the laws of nature. There are no external influences. It's like a computer program: there are variables, and there are the processes.

Our "choices" are, in reality, just the outcome of a whole lot of processes, ones that we have no transcendental control over.

That is the basic belief of determinism.

You take out chaos and randomness from the universe, and you get fatalism. The processes and variables make the universe clockwork without random numbers. This belief is highly dated, and with the rise of quantom physics, you will find very few people who still believe in determinalistic fatalism.


I explained it all very poorly, but I'm tired

I'm just trying to pass the time before I'm tired enough to fall asleep.

Did you chose to post that? I chose to post this. Nothing outside of me or in my environment or in my dna forced me to do it.

 

[levi501]

:d

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Did you chose to post that? I chose to post this. Nothing outside of me or in my environment or in my dna forced me to do it.

If you just keep up striking out things that did not "force" your post from being made you'll eventually end up with randomness.

 

[HouseApe]

I am a determinist. Every action I take is based upon a previous set of actions and interactions with others and my environment. The complexity of those actions and interactions are so great and incomprehensible that I am left with an illusion of free will.

 

[elman]

I am a determinist. Every action I take is based upon a previous set of actions and interactions with others and my environment. The complexity of those actions and interactions are so great and incomprehensible that I am left with an illusion of free will.

It is not illusion. It is reality and you are responsible and accountable for your decisions. The reason you are accountable is because you could have decided otherwise.

 

[elman]

If you just keep up striking out things that did not "force" your post from being made you'll eventually end up with randomness.

Nope not random. I did it. I caused it and I typed it and I hit the submit button.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Nope not random. I did it. I caused it and I typed it and I hit the submit button.

Yeah, of course. You are a deteministic bio-machine though.

 

[FSTDT]

It wouldn't mean that we don't have free will either.

That's right, because the hypothetical isn't an argument against free will. Its meant to show that determinism is not the same thing as fatalism.

Of course, I think free will is self-refuting. If we presume free will is denial of determinism, then any free will action is a random, acausal spasms.

In a moral sense, its hard to say anyone can be morally responsible for anything if all their actions are random spasms.

In a practical sense, its strange that all of my random spasms just happen to be fortuous enough to occur in a sequence that looks like deteministic. After all, how can I possibly be typing a coherent string of characters and sentences without referencing the last character and sentence type and the preceding ones; how can I do anything if all of my actions were made without reference to some past or future events? All of my actions appear consistent with cause and effect, and in fact no actions appear inconsistent with it.

I think the problem of morality and appearence of causality deliver a death blow to the credibility of free will. I think the feedback issue which illustrates that determinism is not equal to fatalism is a way to make hard determinism consistent with morality. It works like this: as rational beings we can deduce the consequences of our actions, and we can deduce whether its moral or not; knowing the outcome of actions affects how we will behave in the present, which is sufficient grounds for moral intent; if we behave with the knowledge that our actions are wrong, then we can be said to be doing moral wrong.

It seems unintuitive at first, but I believe as your actions become less constrained by the laws of cause and effect (i.e. moving toward free will), moral responsibility diminishes as well. And as your actions become more and more constrained by free will (moving toward hard determinism), you can claim moral responsibility for your actions.

But you are begging the question with your example. You can't simply assume that your supercomputer could correctly predict what everyone would do. That's the sort of issue in question.

What would philosophy be if we couldn't imagine hypotheticals?

 

[Lord Emsworth]

It is not illusion. It is reality and you are responsible and accountable for your decisions. The reason you are accountable is because you could have decided otherwise.

This contradicts, IMO. If the outcome could have been different then there is nothing that possibly could be responsible for the outcome. Hence nothing could be held responsible or accountable.

Hey, if with the exact same me (past, present experiences, body etc) in the exacst same circumstances this post here could not have been made then what would you actually hold responsible for this post being made. Me? No, that would have been the same even if this post did not exist ...

 

[morningstar2651]

The First Cause
If there are only natural laws and determinants, then what determined the first event?

Responsibility
Our choices are determined by our innate nature.
Our innate nature is determined by our experiences.
Therefore, our choices are determined by our experiences.

We are not responsible for our actions - they are determined by our experiences. It would be wrong to punish me if I went on a killing spree. My choice wasn't caused by me, it was caused by my playing a violent video game or reading a comic book.

It would be wrong to be praise or respect me for saving someone from a burning building. My choice wasn't caused by me, it was caused by my playing a violent video game or reading a comic book.

Computer Program Analogy

There are determinants, and there are the laws of nature. There are no external influences. It's like a computer program: there are variables, and there are the processes.

Our "choices" are, in reality, just the outcome of a whole lot of processes, ones that we have no transcendental control over.

Computer programs are discrete (digital) systems. Reality is made mostly of continuous (analog) systems. Computer programs have external influences. I can write a program that runs on this computer, but doesn't run on one with less memory, different drivers, etc. I can crash computer programs. What if my computer gets the BSOD while the program is running?

Experience & Will
You say that our choices are the result of processes over which we have no transcendental control. However, it depends on what you mean by transcendental control. Transcendental can mean outside of experience or outside of nature. I define nature as the sum total of all existance - therefore something that is transcendental is something outside of the sum total of all existance and does not exist. However, outside of experience is something else.

Have we experienced all there is to experience? Of course not. When we experience something new, we are transcending our experience and causing the sum total of all we have experienced to grow.

Furthermore, there exist things beyond our senses. I can't taste oxygen, smell oxygen, see oxygen, or feel oxygen. However, I know that without oxygen, I wouldn't last very long. The human eye responds to only a fraction of the known waves on the electromagnetic spectrum. I don't see Ultraviolet or Infrared, but they exist.

 

[elman]

Yeah, of course. You are a deteministic bio-machine though.

No I am not. I am a being that has the ability to make decisions and act on them.

 

[elman]

This contradicts, IMO. If the outcome could have been different then there is nothing that possibly could be responsible for the outcome. Hence nothing could be held responsible or accountable.

Hey, if with the exact same me (past, present experiences, body etc) in the exacst same circumstances this post here could not have been made then what would you actually hold responsible for this post being made. Me? No, that would have been the same even if this post did not exist ...

Unfortunately we cannot test your theory. I believe we could decide things two different ways in two different occasions if everything presented to us was exactly the same. We cannot test that because we cannot ever exactly duplicate an occasion. We never step into the same river twice.

 

[elman]

This contradicts, IMO. If the outcome could have been different then there is nothing that possibly could be responsible for the outcome. Hence nothing could be held responsible or accountable.

Hey, if with the exact same me (past, present experiences, body etc) in the exacst same circumstances this post here could not have been made then what would you actually hold responsible for this post being made. Me? No, that would have been the same even if this post did not exist ...

In my opinion it does not contradict. What would have been responsible for the different outcome would be the being with the ability to chose, chosing differently.