Determinism

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I'd like to bring up a thread about determinism. Is the universe, including the life within it, determined?

To those who haven't read about this subject before, I will try to explain the basic problem here:

Philosophers have long discussed the matter of free choice. One thesis [determinism] says that there is no such thing as an independent choice. Whatever a human does, that exact action is determined by a huge number of factors, but it is indeed determined. Simple examples of factors that affect your choice are; your genes, your upbringing, your past experiences. Our choices can be compared to a set of dominos. What causes the final brick to fall is the fact that other bricks have fallen before it.

Many people find determinism intolerable, and try to find different ways of proving it wrong. One atttempt made by quantum physicians is that there are incredibly small particles in the universe which can move at random, independent of other particles. I can't discuss this in depth, as I have only read very little about these particles.

Others have the opinion that God gives the freedom of choice. This argument may be considered illogical by some.

Note the strict difference between determinism and fate. There is nothing 'magical' about determinism. It has nothing to do with the signs of the stars, or a 'divine plan' of some sort. It is pure logic. While the discussion of fate is also interesting, this is about determinism.


I have an unordinary point of view on this subject. I think that determinism is true, but also that we have a free choice. I will do my best to explain this.

Logically, determinism must be true. The simple laws of cause and effect state, that all events in the universe are the result of previous events. When I am standing in the store, and choosing between vanilla and chocolate icecream, the outcome can only be one. My previous experiences, combined with the current state of the fluids in my brain, lead to an inevitable result. If we could turn back time (including my memory), I would make the exact same choice every single time.

Now, let me try to define 'free choice'.

As I see it, free choice is the event when a conscious being weighs the pros and cons, and then picks whichever alternative seems the wisest. Note that the choice is in no way independent. This is what makes 'determinism' compatible with 'free choice' in my opinion. Free choice does not require independence. In fact, there is no logical way that anything in the universe can happen without being caused by something. This includes choice. There is no way anyone can make a choice, independent of the rest of the world. We are part of the world. We affect it, and are in turn affected by it. There is no escaping that. But does that make choice less free? In my opinion, no.

As you can see, this way we can have a free choice despite determinism. However, we cannot have an independent free choice.

Now I want to discuss another aspect of it all. Many have fantasized about calculating history and future with a uber-computer. If determinism is true, then this should be possible. If you know the location of all particles, and in which direction they are going, then you would be able to calculate all that has happened, and all that will ever happen.

Naturally, this is practically impossible to us. But if we assume that we had this uber-computer, how would our choice be affected by it? Since we could read the future we would be affected by this, and our actions would be altered. Thus, the computer would fail at its job. What do you think?


Hmm, this was way more long-winded than I intended. I hope someone can be arsed to read it. If it's too much, feel free to post your opinions and views anyway. Hope I haven't made the discussion boring before it has even started. Heh, forgive a fellow aspie for babbling.

YAY! A new hot topic that hasn't been flamed to death.

Free Choice Has to be totally free to choose, to be really independent of choice. Our choices are Free Will for We choose not the other way around. For We must remember that We can always change Our Choice that We choose anytime We want to do that.

For to believe in Determinism would be like believing in Predestination. For no matter what choice You choose it was to happen just that way in the end. But Humans do not work like that at all I believe. No matter if You turned back or went forward in time would You make the exact same decision (choice) every time I say for You might see it in a different way than You saw it then either way backward or forward in time. For We must remember this when We make a choice, We do not consider truly the world around us at that moment in time; nor does the world consider Our decision at that moment in time either. We must remember Events can be change in a moment of time.

the uber-computer would, of course, have already realised you'd try to deviate from your predetermined path, so would have told you to do the opposite of what you ought to have done. a bit like you do with naughty children

you might try and be clever and follow some of what it says, but it's no good, the computer already knows what you will follow and what you won't the uber-computer pwnz you!

Fascinating, and quite reasonably put. As I said befroe, it's beneficial to believe in free will or the ability to choose whether or not it exists, but this seems a fair compromise in beliefs.

Anton said:

What you are referring to is the Heisenberg Indeterminacy Principle. It can't be said that this was an attempt to prove indeterminacy, but an observation about the behaviour of quantum particles and its consequences.

Scientific determinism poses the case that if you have perfect knowledge of a physical system (that system could be the entire universe) and perfect knowledge of the laws of nature, then you must be able to determine the outcome of that system at any point in the future. The HIP simply says that you cannot, according to quantum mechanics, have perfect knowledge of any system where quantum mechanical principles apply. This is because subatomic particles such as electrons orbiting an atom, cannot be measured to have a position and momentum at the same time.

This is a physical limitation and nothing to do with how hi or low-tech your lab equipment might be. If you use long wave radiation you can measure the momentum of the electron, but not its position. If you use short wave radiation you can find its position but you will knock it off its orbit and not be able to measure its momentum. You simply cannot do both at once.

Sounds fairly straight forward, but this means that you cannot know all there is to know about that atom, and therefore cannot predict how it will evolve in the future, except in a statistical sense (ie, there are only so many outcomes, so one can measure the percentage chances of each outcome).

This does not argue against determinism in principal, but in practise it says it cannot be done.

See: Karl Popper, Open Universe: an argument for indeterminism. I read this book some time ago and I am scanning it now. I will try to find some good arguments against the principal of determinism, because I'm sure they are in there. The problem is you have to follow his chain of reasoning through all of his 'it can't happen in practise' arguments to get to them.

Heh, maybe.. but don't you think that the fact that the uber-computer is in this world, it would fail? I mean, it affects, and is affected, by the world. No matter how much it twists, wouldn't it "affect itself", so to speak?

IgorStop - Thanks for clarifying that a bit. But even if a 100% scientific determinism isn't possible, I must say that some form of determinism is still likely. Ie, that things are, to a certain degree, predetermined.

I'd be glad if you post some of the arguments you find in that book. It's very interesting.

Exaxtly. Determinism isn't the most helpful of philosophies. There should be some method of teaching human understanding the enlightenment and realisation of when you are on the receiving end of a determined sequence of events, because even if you can't change things you can deal with them better when they hit you.

Free will is usually considered to be totally independant which is why it can prove determinism false.

I believe that determinism is true, and if we had infinite computational capacity, and omnisentience it would be obvious that is true. However the degree to which determinism can be observed to be true is limited by those two things, and given our technology(and theoretical limit to which we can know either) it is very hard to see reality prove it.

And i believe that my choices are part of a determined series of events, and my belief in free will(if any) contributes to my choices, but not randomly.

I think that people dislike this idea because it makes them feel powerless. But I don't really have a problem with this because I already had the ability to make choices before i knew(believed) it was pre-determined, so apparently I can make decisions without being consciously aware of their reasons.

And anyway, if i'm powerless over my will, then i shouldn't worry about whether or not a decision i'm going to make is pre-determined, because it is foolish to worry about something you can't change, and incase i do have power over my will then it would be foolish to not try, and it would be foolish to not assume it is the second because it is impossible to prove the prior.

I see the world and everyone in it as being truely powerless to make free choices, but it doesn't matter because people are gonna do whatever they want, and knowing that theoretically they are powerless over their will can't change that.

Even if it is true, it wouldn't matter because we couldn't test for it, or make any predictions based on it.

You would need the ability to map the location of every subatomic particle of every atom of the entire universe in real time to understand how everything interacts. Since such exact computations are neither practically, nor physically possible (quantum physics is much different than the physics of large objects, at such a low level you can't know everything about an atom, you can only estimate) the entire idea of determinism will remain a philosophical exercise.

So either it's true and we'll never know, or it's false and we'll never know and either way we still end up where we started.

Have you ever felt paranoia over the determinst idea that, whatever you try, the results of your actions are the determinations of something beyond you?

Ok, I have completely re-read Karl Popper's book (mentioned above, in my previous post, and thanks for bringing this up Anton, and inspiring me to do that). I had hoped that I would be able to find a succinct reply that would dismiss everyones belief in some kind of absolute, or 'scientific' determinism. However, the arguments are generally long and involved, and beyond my power to paraphrase in a pithy and concise manner. Instead I will just say what I believe, and add a quote.

"We live in a world of emergent evolution; of problems whose solutions, if they are solved, beget new and deeper problems. Thus we live in a world of emergent novelty which, as a rule, is not completely reducible to any of the preceeding stages." Popper.

Although science is fundamentaly deterministic, reductive, and always will be, this does not mean that the universe, or nature, that stuff 'out there,' is determined in the same way. The idea that the universe is completely predictable in reality (though not in practise, as everyone is prepared to admit) contains many inconsistencies and absurdities. It is ultimately a sterile philosophy which says that the future itself is redundant, devoid of innovation and creativity, and that our belief in freedom of action is an illusion.

I strongly dissagree. All I can say is, do some reading for yourselves. You will see the universe, and life, in a better light. A good place to start is The Fabric of Reality, by David Deutsch ISBN: 0140146903 Deutsch is a self professed 'Popperian.'

Of course this is my own belief system and you are free to believe what you like (oh, no you don't believe that, your beliefs are predetermined, and so are mine- damn).

Wrongplanet Thread: Why Christianity is so Persistant

Without the premise of a God a proof is darn near impossible, but nonetheless I think you'll find I agree with you.

Igorstop - Fascinating. That thing about not being "reducible to any of the preceeding stages" was most interesting. This would mean that the "uber-computer" would fail since it cannot compute all factors, since the number of factors are, in effect, endless.

That's circular reasoning.

The world is unpredictable and governed by emergence and not determinism, therefore the world is unpredictable and governed by emergence and not determinism?

Determinism takes nothing away from free will, just because your actions were decided before hand does not make your actions any less your own.

If you are hungry and I offer you food and you take and eat it, my actions determined your's (not entirely, but for the sake of argument), if it were not for me giving you said food you would not have eaten it, yet it was still your choice to eat it.

I don't think "predetermined" is the word I would use, as that implies foresight and evokes "Intelligent Design". I'd rather state the idea as "a flow of inevitability is evident when looking at long periods of time."

We attach a lot of significance to events only because they are recent, and therefore think that a change of circumstances would have a significant impact on civilization. For example, what if the wind had been blowing a different way at Kittyhawk? It's easy to think of Orville and Wilbur as having changed the course of history and may even be able to imagine a world without airplanes, but in reality there were a lot of people making independent discoveries for more than 500 years so human flight was inevitable in the long run. Orville's actions weren't predetermined, but the presence of free will wouldn't have changed the outcome significantly because even if he didn't do it, someone else would have, eventually.

Virtually any "significant" historical event loses that sense of importance over time. More significant events take longer to fade from memory, but eventually everything becomes a matter of purely academic interest.