Determinism thoughts?

Question

"Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition and behavior, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences."

To paraphrase Richard Dawkins, a flipped coin lands heads or tails based entirely on its conditions. A life could be a same way. First off, you're only alive (being flipped in the air) because the human species wants to grow. Any thought or action you make is based on prior conditions that lead to those particular climaxes.

What argument does free will have here?

Hey Jackson, that only shows how the coin itself is limited to conditions. I wouldn't even be alive if my Mom had aborted me!

I think that these terms have been warped too much. I could have come to other conclusions if I would have interpreted free will differently.

Answer 1

Free will can throw that "plan" off! Just because the coin is in the air doesn't mean it will land at all. Someone could decide to catch it on the down, which has nothing to do with the condition of the coin! Dawkins assertions basically state that everything is planned out for us, that there is no such thing as coincidence. It could be argued that the gift of free will can interrupt those "plans". What if I decide not to throw the coin in the air in the first place? Then the coins condition is no longer a factor!

Answer 2

I know of no physicist who disputes Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle. None. Think about what this means.

Because of uncertainty, it is not even theoretically possible to predict things in a deterministic way. There will NEVER be a time when we can take even completely inanimate objects and figure out exactly what will happen to them.

It's nice and all for determinists to suggest that the flipping of a coin is determined exactly, but this is just simply not so. Nobody can and nobody ever will. Period.

So there is plenty of room for free will. There will never be a deterministic final 'answer'. And even if everything is determined on some level we can never measure and know, it is a bit pointless to dwell on it, since what we are doing will be predetermined anyway, neh?

Answer 3

I like that someone brought up Heisenberg, but it doesn't negate determinism. It just means that we won't actually be able to use it, especially at the quantum level. Because we can't know both the position and the momentum of a particle (without changing them) doesn't mean that the particle doesn't have both and will act accordingly. The coin example doesn't prove anything either; it was merely an imperfect example of a process with 2 possible outcomes. There were really more than 2.

But I do have a beef with determinism, not just because I like my illusion of awareness and will, but because of scientific discoveries about the nature of reality. Determinism can never be ultimately proven, because to do so, one will have to declare that they have gotten to the absolute bottom of the levels of our reality, and worked out that this level too is governed by processes which are entirely predictable. Right now, determinists are just assuming that this is true, and they go off half-****** to try to shatter our illusions.

But as we probe deeper into the nature of our reality, past atoms and forces to the fundamental stuff ("string" and "branes" in modern theories) making up everything, things just seem to get weirder and less certain. Who can predict where the vacuum will produce a particle from a quantum fluctuation? What sort of computer could ever operate on that level without changing all the conditions around it?

Determinists argue that what appear to be random processes (like what direction an atom will send a photon when it fluoresces, or when a particular atom will fission, or how the neurons in your head will fire) are merely poorly understood predictable processes - that if you had enough information about the entire system, down to every jostle of every quark in the nucleus - you could actually predict these seemingly random events. But how does that fit with the researchers who coaxed an atom to exist in 2 places at once? (or was it 2 quantum states at once...?) Modern physics looks at time like cones tip-to tip, opening outward, growing wider with possibilities with time, with all possibilities occuring somewhere (Many Worlds Theory) but in determinism time is just a straight line with one possibility. And that would be acceptable, if it could ever be proven as true instead of merely inferred.

Free will has been traced to the activity of our thoughts, which have been traced to the activity sometimes of what single neurons do, which could depend sometimes on where single neurotransmitter molecules are, which could depend on intermolecular forces dependent on the activity of single electrons, which themselves could be vibrating loops of string subject to forces on the Planck scale. As long as that final level remains beyond the reach of our complete understanding, one can not say with certainty that the will is completely determined.

Answer 4

Actually, even the "wanting" of a species is false under determinism. Under determinism, there is NO WILL AT ALL. Any will is an illusion, including "collective" will. Species have no desires, merely blind tendencies. Everything is a blind tendency. You did not actually post to Yahoo. You are not reading this. You cannot read. You do not actually think in a deterministic universe, you merely have the illusion of thinking. You merely have the illusion of awareness. You are not actually aware, since everything is just a blind random dance in determinism. There are no minds in a determined universe. It is not possible to have discourse nor doubt, thus, any doubt is merely an illusion of doubt, all is certain.

Answer 5

Determinism and free-will are just two sides of an idea. Neither really mean anything. Any occurrence could be classified in either way based on the belief system of the 'observer'. In reality there is neither observer or observed but only random spontaneous movement and rest. Nothing is planned or determined and no one has free-will to 'make' anything really happen. You are conditioned by your culture to respond to certain types of stimulation and your body takes care of the rest.

Answer 6

1) Unless someone making the claim of determinism can show that the laws of hard science actually supervene over the mind, they are on dubious ground.

2) It makes no difference. Nothing changes if we have or do not have free will. If you can show me what any answer might affect, I will look into it.