Why Determinism could never be disproven or shown to be unlikely

[Kriminal99]

Philosophy teaches us to deal with human reasoning itself and since all human endeavors use human reasoning to achieve their goals, philosophy allows us to come to universal conclusions that hold true regardless of the circumstances or what discipline they are applied to.

 

Here I will show that it is impossible to disprove determinism or reduce the likelihood that it is true.

 

The lesson learned from skepticism

 

Here is a statement about what philosophy has taught us regarding skepticism, or the limits of induction or lack of human knowledge or whichever name you want to use for it.

 

For every belief, there are infinite models of the universe that disprove said belief and are not mutually exclusive with the experiences that led the person in question to form said belief.

 

Each of these models are equally likely to be true as they are to be untrue, since by their very nature they explain how what you saw can be true and your beliefs still wrong.

 

Applied to determinism

 

With this in mind, we can see that any potential disproof of determinism can be ruled out by categorizing it as a simple lack of information. One need not be a quantum physicist in order to do this.

 

Now on the other hand we might try to say that the only reason we believe determinsim to be true is because the world we experience everyday (the macro world) seems to be deterministic and we have never been given a reason to doubt it. Then we could say that these experiences might not represent the quantum world.

 

Well it is not hard to show that many kinds of non deterministic worlds do not make any kind of sense, or at least, they seem to contradict the idea that "A=A" therefore making deductive reasoning impossible and since our consiousnesses are dependent on this being true it is useless to try and speculate on the nature of such an enviornment, if it ever could or did exist.

 

Abnormal Time

 

On the other hand, it could be that a certain definition of determinism could be used that depends on time behaving a certain way and it could be claimed that this kind of determinism fails when time fails to behave in that manner. IE if you could go back in time and effect the outcome of past events. However one could simply respond that this is still determinism, just a much more complicated kind of determinism.

 

Everything that happens still follows a set of rules, and can be calculated from start to finish with enough processing power using an objective time line that seperates a point in a subjective timeline into a point before and a point after it was influenced by future events in order to produce an usual effect.

[ughaibu]

First I'd like to know what relevance determinism has. In my opinion, it's a quasi-religious cop-out, an attempt to subvert acceptance of inevitable ignorance and short comings in human potential to understand.

[Kriminal99]

I believe you are referring to lack of free will correct?

 

The pilgrims who founded the US were said to follow a belief set that free will did not exist, yet at the same time that people were responsible for their actions.

 

The idea behind such beliefs is similar to that of private ownership of land. True, as the native americans say, noone really owns the land and is certainly not resonsible for it's creation etc. However taking ownership of the land causes people to take better care of it, thus making private ownership a means to an end and only in this way is it justified.

 

Similarly, a person's actions can be a product of their past experiences and yet they still are able to "take ownership" of their behavior and alter it to best adapt to their surroundings. Doing so is a product of the person realizing that it is the best way to achieve their goals.

 

Additionally punishing people for failing to behave in a certain manner can be justified as a means to an end even though the person truly "Didn't know". The only way the person can know is by being punished...

 

For example spanking a child for stealing crayons may be percieved as random punishment initially by the child, but hopefully once he learns that any time he steals from others he will be punished he will no longer steal from others. This is the model nature uses, for if no parent or teacher intervened the child from which the crayon was stolen would which would teach the child the same lesson.

 

The lesson to be learned from all this is that if you are in a position of power over others such as law enforcement or law in general then the best way to handle your job so as not to encourage crime is to treat people like you are only using force against them because you have to given the consequences of not. Verbal abuse is fallacious and self centered on the part of people in law enforcement/ law because they are wholly ignorant of the criminals past experiences.

[Erasmus00]

I feel as if you bring this up again and again, and don't bother educating yourself in between. I highly recommend reading Bell's proofs, reading about Aspects experimental work, etc.

 

For every belief, there are infinite models of the universe that disprove said belief and are not mutually exclusive with the experiences that led the person in question to form said belief.

 

But often every one of these "infinite" models might share common features. Consider the data of an Aspect type experiment. There are no local causal "universes" that can consistantly explain these experiments.

 

With enough DIFFERENT experiments/experimental data, the subset of allowable universes that explain this belief gets smaller. It could very well be possible that there is only one consistant way of explaining the universe(by which I mean the totality of possible experiments), no one has proven otherwise to my knowledge.

 

With this in mind, we can see that any potential disproof of determinism can be ruled out by categorizing it as a simple lack of information. One need not be a quantum physicist in order to do this.

 

This is not true. Bell has shown that there is no completely deterministic model that can explain the aspect experiment. Bell showed this using deductive reasoning.

 

Well it is not hard to show that many kinds of non deterministic worlds do not make any kind of sense, or at least, they seem to contradict the idea that "A=A" therefore making deductive reasoning impossible and since our consiousnesses are dependent on this being true it is useless to try and speculate on the nature of such an enviornment, if it ever could or did exist.

 

What of the kinds of non-deterministic worlds that DO allow for deductive reasoning? There are many. This is a straw-man type argument.

-Will

[ughaibu]

Recently, on a different board, a determinist poster remarked that upon learning about probabilistic effects in quantum theory, he was "shocked" and found this "unimaginable". This isn't very far removed from the creationist position that "the universe is too wonderful to be natural, there must be a god", both are cases of denial and come under "appeal to incredulity". However, the determinist has a degree of scientific respectability, as appeal to so called physical laws can be evoked. I have concluded that, in at least some cases, determinism is espoused as a comforting mechanism and functions as an atheistic parallel to the motivations, of some, to adopt a religion.

Another point, in line with this thread's title, determinism cant easily be proven false, as the definition allows the follower to simply say that the universe in state A, being followed by the universe in state B, is determinism. However, as with religion, this is an attempt to switch the burden of proof, the experience, and even the existence, of our individual consciousnesses is a direct contradiction of strong determinism, and as such, can be awarded primacy by any theory of truth.

I'm interested to know what others feel are the motivations for adopting a determinist stance(?)

[Kriminal99]

The whole quantum mechanics thing just boils down to a lack of comprehension of skepticism. IE just failure to be able to imagine alternate explanations for what you see.

 

Some of these alternate explanations are investigated by the community at large but not all of them. When you are dealing with a situation that involves things totally different than what you are used to dealing with, everything becomes an unfounded assumption. IE you are likely attributing properties to quantum particles based on your experiences with the macro world without recognizing that you are doing it.

 

The whole idea that you can recognize all the assumptions you are making is fallacious in any discipline. These assumptions infact always number in the infinite. The only defense against this is that if any of these infinite assumptions were to fail, hopefully you would see it's effects somehow. For instance if a ball were to have a mass that changed during the course of an experiment.

 

But when you are dealing with something like QM, you have very little ability to observe what is going on. There isn't enough input to allow you to identify when something you assumed was the case about the particles isn't true. In the macro world if something like a ball of changing mass were to occur, it might take centuries for someone to recognize what was going on. And it would be possible because we live in the macro world and make observations about all the consequences of eveything that happens. In the world of particles, our information is a negligable fraction of that which we have in the macro world.

 

Recently, on a different board, a determinist poster remarked that upon learning about probabilistic effects in quantum theory, he was "shocked" and found this "unimaginable". This isn't very far removed from the creationist position that "the universe is too wonderful to be natural, there must be a god", both are cases of denial and come under "appeal to incredulity". However, the determinist has a degree of scientific respectability, as appeal to so called physical laws can be evoked. I have concluded that, in at least some cases, determinism is espoused as a comforting mechanism and functions as an atheistic parallel to the motivations, of some, to adopt a religion.

Another point, in line with this thread's title, determinism cant easily be proven false, as the definition allows the follower to simply say that the universe in state A, being followed by the universe in state B, is determinism. However, as with religion, this is an attempt to switch the burden of proof, the experience, and even the existence, of our individual consciousnesses is a direct contradiction of strong determinism, and as such, can be awarded primacy by any theory of truth.

I'm interested to know what others feel are the motivations for adopting a determinist stance(?)

 

I could just as easily refer to an imaginary person who did not understand the concept of skpeticism/limits of induction and say they were in denial that it could not be proven that determinism did not exist and how blind faith in science was similar to creationism. However this is not an actual argument.

 

I think at the very best, people attempting to claim determinism is false are using a different definition of determinism than those defending it are.

 

For instance one definition says its the belief that all events have a cause. While another might refer to prior events being causes for events. The latter is an example of one that might be more likely to be disproved, but does not represent what true determinists have an attachment to.

 

IE time could be reversed or could go back and forth or future events could effect past events etc and all still be within the limits allowed by a true determinist. For reverse time, determinism would refer to the bidirectional relationship between events. For future events effecting past events, to use a metaphor imagine a time rope with a not in it, and to see the real chain of events one would simply untie the knot to see the true chain of events. IE you would create a different kind of timeline where it shows at what point a future event effected a past event and what happened after.

 

Until these possibilities are dealt with, there is little evidence against true determinism.

[ughaibu]

By "true determinism", do you mean 'strong determinism'?

[Kriminal99]

By true determinism, I mean what it is that people think of when they say that determinism cannot be disproven. I also mean determinism which does not depend on time behaving in a certain manner, but rather only depends on events having causes.

 

What is strong determinism?

[ughaibu]

Your explanation doesn't help me understand your definition.

Strong determinism holds that everything in the universe is connected and in reaction, thus the entire past and future of everything, including your thoughts, was/is inevitable.

Here's a short introductory overview of determinism: Causal Determinism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

[Freddy]

Determinism comes in many shades: theological, economic, sociological, biological/genetic, and cosmological. Personally, I am a hard determinist of the sociological and biological persuasion. Human behavior is controlled by genes and environmental influences. In my world view free will and determinism are mutually exclusive making compatibilism meaningless. What evidence is there for this? There are thousands of sociological and biological experiments that point to causal relationships between sociological and biological influences and the resulting human behavior.

[Kriminal99]

Your explanation doesn't help me understand your definition.

Strong determinism holds that everything in the universe is connected and in reaction, thus the entire past and future of everything, including your thoughts, was/is inevitable.

Here's a short introductory overview of determinism: Causal Determinism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

Well your strong determinism seems to indicate a dependence on time behaving a certain way, which isn't necessary for what I believe most people think of when they are so sure determinism must be true.

 

In other words, your definition could only be considered the same as my definition of determinism if by past and future you meant a sort of more general time line that included any self interaction in what is typically though of as the timeline.

 

So let's say I am Dr. Who. Today I get up, eat breakfast then, then go stop a dalek invasion of earth. Then a dalek goes back in time and hides my Wheaties so I am not 100% and then fail to stop the invasion.

 

What we would normally think of as a timeline would be confusing and unclear and would cause a problem with some kinds of determinism (perhaps your strong determinism).

 

However the timeline for this brand of determinism would look different.

 

It would show that Dr. Who originally got up and ate breakfast, then was defeated the daleks, then afterwards a dalek stole his wheaties, then the new verson played out. Thus a knot has been straightened into a line, and determinism is safe once again.

 

Of course it's irrelevant if time travel is impossible regardless of what is involved (People or particles)

 

Just to show how confusing of a situation this could create and still be deterministic, imagine a pool table and how the balls react when you hit them. In a normal scenario there are many interactions and it would be difficult to plot and follow all of them. Now imagine that the balls, for whatever reason, were capable of hitting another ball with its momentum before itself was given any. IE a moving ball went back in time and smacked another moving ball which then went into the future and smacked another ball which then etc etc. Even supposing there was a very precise and deterministic reason why the ball went where it did in time, this situation would be very difficult to understand despite being deterministic. It makes my brain hurt just trying to imagine it.

[Sacri Sankt]

determinism is a psychological ploy, a way for someone to hold onto a sense of order in a universe which is founded on chaos. the knowledge of the chaotic foundations of reality make the futility and meaninglessness of our existance clear. for a philosopher, someone seeking the 'grand truth', the knowledge that there is none leads to determinism as a self-defence mechanism.

[Kriminal99]

that claim seems to be in contradiction with just about everything.

 

For instance, why did you press the keys on your keyboard? Without determinism they are just as likely to initiate a self destruct mechanism as they are to make letters appear on your screen.

 

Tell me how exactly the following statement could ever be false:

 

If you rewound the universe 5 minutes, and absolutely nothing was changed from the first time the universe existed 5 minutes ago, then everything would play out exactly the same.

 

If you think determinsm means anything else, you have misunderstood what people who defend it are talking about when they mention the concept.

 

Some scientists claim the above statement might be false because a quantum particle might just decide to do something different one time. However this is the supreme example of the argument from ignorance. If you don't know why a quantum particle does what it does, you don't know. That precludes you from stating that it has no reason for doing it. No hidden variable theories are just examples of ignorance of human reasoning- the many many assumptions inherent to these theories, both recognized and unrecognized, show where the true hidden variables would exist.

[ughaibu]

One could equally contend that if the universe was rewound five minutes it would produce a different sequence of events. I see no reason to accept either contention.

[Kriminal99]

You left out that nothing has changed from the first time.

 

To argue that it is "just as likely to be true as it is untrue" goes against absolutely everything.

 

You could not exist in such a world since no living being could evolve in an enviornment where nothing was consistent. Where things fell up half the time and down the other, where sometimes putting your hand in water would cause you to spontaneously combust and others not etc. You could not think to formulate a response if your body could not depend on the physics of the world remaning constant so that your thoughts could be realized. etc etc

 

Once you allow for the contention that most things are determined in such a manner, then you only have left that perhpas some small things could be different.

 

Which leaves the question why would such things that would not cause the universe to fall apart be chosen to be non deterministic and not others? Is some magical being specifically choosing only small things (which in turn cause great changes throughout the system) to be determined who knows how (since our concept of random is actually deterministic, we can't call it "random" rather we simply have no idea what non deterministic would even mean)

 

Perhaps people choose these things (ie free will)? Based on what? What they feel like doing? And do people choose what they feel? No. In fact what people feel is a function of what happens to them. What could cause someone to choose? Oh I forgot. You can't ask that question since if there was an answer for it then people's actions would then become determined. So there would be no reason. Except I for one know there is a reason for everything I do.

 

This is hardly something one can say "could just as easily be true as untrue"

[ughaibu]

For your claim to begin to be convincing "most things are determined" is inadequate.

[Sacri Sankt]

Tell me how exactly the following statement could ever be false:

 

If you rewound the universe 5 minutes, and absolutely nothing was changed from the first time the universe existed 5 minutes ago, then everything would play out exactly the same.

 

i point you towards qm, which indicates that this belief of yours is false. since the universe is founded on chaotic, random events, rewinding the universe would give a different result every time.

 

If you think determinsm means anything else, you have misunderstood what people who defend it are talking about when they mention the concept.

 

i understand the theories of la place and his associates. i just think theyre completely wrong.

 

Some scientists claim the above statement might be false because a quantum particle might just decide to do something different one time. However this is the supreme example of the argument from ignorance. If you don't know why a quantum particle does what it does, you don't know. That precludes you from stating that it has no reason for doing it. No hidden variable theories are just examples of ignorance of human reasoning- the many many assumptions inherent to these theories, both recognized and unrecognized, show where the true hidden variables would exist.

 

im afraid this passage shows your own complete ignorance of quantum mechanics. the behaviour of a particle in the future cant be predicted, not even in theory. its not a matter of building a bigger microscope, there is a theoretical limit on how well you can understand something. a limit imposed by the nature of reality itself. like many philosphers, i think you would benefit tremendously from studying scientific theories for a while, it would stop you building intellectual models on profoundly flawed premises.