What is Determinism?
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- Опубліковано 2 лис 2021
- This video lecture discusses very briefly the meaning of determinism. It specifically addresses the question, “What is Determinism?”.
Transcript of this video lecture is available at: philonotes.com/2022/11/what-i...
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For me, what this does is it shows that everything in the universe is one connected (for a lack of better words) “organism”.
Fortunately, determinism doesn't actually change anything. Assume we live in a universe of perfectly reliable cause and effect. Everything that happens, and everything that we choose to do, was causally necessary from any prior point in the past. Everything was always going to happen just exactly as it does happen.
This means that my choice was always going to be exactly as it was. It also means that it was always going to be me that would be making that choice. And it means that each thought that I had while considering one option, and then another option, and so forth, was always going to happen exactly like that. And then I would choose the option that best fit my own goals and my own reasons.
That fits the common understanding of a voluntary choice. And it also fits our common understanding of deterministic causation. So, where is the difference?
I think it changes your perception of life, because once you have the knowledge that you don't have free will, you tend to look at life like it's a movie and that can either lead you to peace and acceptance or towards an existential crisis.
@@pete209 If you find free will threatening then pretending it isn't real would feel good. If you feel good about free will, then pretending you don't have any would make you feel bad. The spiritual benefit or cost is really up to you. Sometimes being in control is very satisfying and exhilerating. Other times it may be terrifying. But I believe, like most things, it is what you make of it. You get to choose how you will feel about things. And you've chosen to feel good about losing control. Perhaps free will presents you with an existential crisis. While for others, determinism presents them with an existential crisis.
The nice thing about a movie is that you can choose whether to watch a romantic comedy or a slasher film. It's a way of exercising your emotions in a safe environment.
Technically, though, there are no specific feelings that one can derive from free will or determinism themselves. Free will is when a person decides for themselves what they will do. Determinism suggests that their decision is theoretically predictable. Both are correct.
Because it changes how we treat people. Why would we punish criminals in a deterministic world? After all nobody is guilty of anything, whether you become a good or bad person depends of luck, same with becoming rich or poor, it's not up to anyone, we just act the way we've been "programmed" to act. Spreading the idea that a good life is privilege can help sympathize with those who are unlucky and became criminals.
@@b_delta9725 Praise and blame, reward and punishment, are deterministic methods of behavior modification. So, we cannot say that determinism actually changes these at all. Now, we can pursue better, more humane, and more effective means of rehabilitation. Counseling, drug treatment, cognitive behavior therapy, education, skills training, and other programs have proven more effective than punishment when trying to change someone's behavior. And that is the basis for rejecting punishment and embracing rehabilitation.
We can't rely upon luck to change things. And rehabiliation cannot work at all without the notion of free will and the offender's choice to learn new behaviors.
Determinism does not eliminate an individual's ordinary freedom and control. And that freedom and control are necessary for rehabiliation.
If we tell the offender that his prior behavior was always just a matter of luck, and beyond his control, then we would also be implying the same about his future behavior. And, if the offender believes he has no freedom or control, then how can he ever change?
So, freedom and control are not changed by the fact of universal causal necessity (determinism). Our freedom and control are not replaced by determinism, but are incorporated as essential parts of the overall scheme of causation.
@@b_delta9725If the world is deterministic then it doesn't change how people treat other people as that "change" was determined also
The distinction between Determinism, Fatalism and Predetermine must be Compared, isn’t it ?
It's more the realization that humans and the universe have a structure. That structure, as complex as it is, follows from its past. Which is simply true based on what we know of humans and the universe.
wow thats an interesting idea.
what if the universe had multiple options(or multiverse ) then everything would be complex.
As far as I can tell, the only empirical basis for determinism is the fact that you can do the same experiment over and over and always get the same results. This leads many people to conclude that there is only one way for the universe to unfold, but what is really being demonstrated is that we live in a universe that features reliable causation. Any other idea that comes with the concept of determinism is basically mysticism.
How so? Humans have a structure to their personality and history from what I can see. That's not mysticism, but simply true.
@@Ryanthebrobdingnagian I'm talking about science and the branch of determinists who say that free will is physically impossible because the interaction of particles can only happen one way given set conditions. This leads them to believe in predeterminism and other mystical ideas.
Obviously people have personalities and history, but if you are using these facts to negate some concept of free will, that is philosophy or ethics, not science.
@@caricue Can you explain what you mean by free will? It's not about "negating". It's more about how the concept itself doesn't make much sense the way some people define free will.
@@Ryanthebrobdingnagian If you observe a natural phenomenon, you give it a name and a description. If you want to think about this thing you can devise a concept. In order for a concept to be useful, it needs a good definition. Free will, in the sense of the way people make choices and decisions, has been observed forever, so the name free will was given to this human action.
Any concept of free will has to be based on this everyday observation, but if your concept isn't possible, then this doesn't change the original observation. Determinists try to say that the observation of free will is an illusion, but I have concluded that the very word determinism is what Dan Dennett calls an intuition pump. The term determinism hijacks your human level understanding of causation in such a way that any sort of nonsense makes sense. I've had determinists say that the chocolate cake at the table caused you to eat the cake. An inanimate object of such awesome power over human fate is certainly the product of mystical thinking.
@@caricue Choices are fine. Computers with their programing make choices all the time. Does a computer have free will?
If determinism (in its macro sense affecting the universe from beginning til now ) is true, where (what, who) is the first cause? If you reject infinite regress, there must be a first cause which is uncaused. Now if the first cause can pop up out of nowhere unexplained, so can concurrent events. Causes can appear out of no where unexplained , giving respective effects . If this is true, then determinism is false.
The first cause is the big bang. And no, causes don’t just come from nowhere, every cause in the universe and its history (except the Big Bang) is also and effect of another cause. You might not immediately know the cause, but that doesn’t mean that cause doesn’t exist. And libertarian free will just goes against the undisputed fact that every effect in the universe has a base cause, thereby declaring free will to be little more than maybe an illusion, fostered by really intelligent/social minds.
Another ISM . Oh joy
1:55 law debunked by uncertainty principle
We just haven't figured out how to predict those outcomes so it appears to be random. Doesn't mean it is universally random. Way more likely that we just don't understand the causation yet. Not debunked.
Determinism is debunked. Let's take for example a simple mechanism, the double pendulum. It's movement is chaotical, very strongly dependant on initial condition. The physical world is modeled by mathematics, but the map is not the territory, mathematical laws are not a perfect "copy" of the physical world. The model of double pendulum is a set of ordinary differential equation, with mass and length of each pendulum segments as variables. Since we cannot measure the mass and length with infinite precision, and there are always physical interactions on the real pendulum that are not taken into account by the model (e.g. variation of gravitation due to moon and solar tides, temperature, pressure, cosmic rays, etc), the model of double pendulum will not behave as the real pendulum.Our concepts about real world are simplified for our understanding. Relationship between physical phenomena are modeled by mathematics if there is a clear relationship. Like F=m*a. Where we didn't find the relationship we're saying it's random. Like when this or that particular atom will decay.
So what if we can't measure the mass and length with infinite precision? We don't have to be able to in order for it to work
Our incapability of measuring things with infinite precision does not mean that those things don't happen in the first place.
In theory, if you could know and calculate *every single particle* in the system, then you would, inevitably, know how it behaves.
In fact, if you could know every single particle at the start of the universe and every single fluctuation, every single measurement and every single temperature difference, etc., you could know everything about the universe, how it was, how it is, how it will be.
You could even know how humans behave, after all, we are made of such particles.
@davisdf3064 Yeah, I don’t see how you can debunk determinism.
Determinism is just an atheistic philosophy
It works best with a theistic perspective. Especially if the God or God's in question are all knowing
What's wrong with atheism?
If you believe in an all-powerful, all knowing, God then you inadvertently also are a determinist by default. How can such a thing as free will exist when our respective lives are laid out at God's feet from beginning to end?
@@gjhartist3685exactly. Determinism and lack of free will reminds me of Christianity and how in the bible it says God has already planned everything that's going to happen.
Determinism is dead.
How?
@@mayday1457 I just determined it.
Why are we actually arguing about this. This is nonsense. Philosophers have too much time on their hands. We're talking about genetics and behaviour. It's interesting - but determines absolutely nothing. We don't need to know one way or the other to make decisions, in fact, decision don't care where they come from. This is all so stupid.
My exams brought me here too bro 😂😭
@@play_b0i792 _"My exams brought me here too bro 😂😭"_
Now _that's_ funny! I like that. 😂