Thoughts on Determinism

Does anyone else here feel that determinism, in its full intricacy, actually leaves room for more mystery rather than less? Or do you see it differently?

although I wouldn't use "predetermined"

Nietzsche, TSZ, The Vision (and the Enigma):“Look at this gateway! Dwarf!” I continued, “it hath two faces. Two roads come together here: these hath no one yet gone to the end of.

This long lane : it continueth for an eternity. And that long lane forward—that is another eternity.

They are antithetical to one another, these roads; they directly abut on one another:—and it is here, at this gateway, that they come together. The name of the gateway is inscribed above: ‘This Moment.’

But should one follow them further—and ever further and further on, thinkest thou, dwarf, that these roads would be eternally antithetical?”—

“Everything straight lieth,” murmured the dwarf, contemptuously. “All truth is crooked; time itself is a circle.”

“Thou spirit of gravity!” said I wrathfully, “do not take it too lightly! Or I shall let thee squat where thou squattest, Haltfoot,—and I carried thee HIGH!”

“Observe,” continued I, “This Moment! From the gateway, This Moment, there runneth a long eternal lane BACKWARDS: behind us lieth an eternity.

Must not whatever CAN run its course of all things, have already run along that lane? Must not whatever CAN happen of all things have already happened, resulted, and gone by?

And if everything have already existed, what thinkest thou, dwarf, of This Moment? Must not this gateway also—have already existed?

And are not all things closely bound together in such wise that This Moment draweth all coming things after it? CONSEQUENTLY—itself also?

closely bound together in such wise that This Moment draweth all coming things after it? CONSEQUENTLY—itself also?

For whatever CAN run its course of all things, also in this long lane OUTWARD—MUST it once more run!—

And this slow spider which creepeth in the moonlight, and this moonlight itself, and thou and I in this gateway whispering together, whispering of eternal things—must we not all have already existed?

—And must we not return and run in that other lane out before us, that long weird lane—must we not eternally return?”—

same as above:No longer shepherd, no longer man—a transfigured being, a light-surrounded being, that LAUGHED! Never on earth laughed a man as HE laughed!

Have you ever been in a maze? If yes then you realize that options are real when you reach a fork.

Could you realize between two situations in which you are presented with one ball or two balls?

Sorry, could you clarify? What does "realize between two situations" mean?

...so saying that situation (b) is an illusion, what hard determinists say is nonsensical!

The idea of determinism, for me, isn’t a simple domino effect; it’s more like a web of interconnected factors—each one influencing the other. Our choices, in this context, aren’t isolated events but are deeply embedded in this complex system. And while we may not fully understand it, I think determinism accounts for all of this complexity and interconnectedness.

I'm just not following -- why is situation (b) but not situation (a) an illusion?

The idea of determinism, for me, isn’t a simple domino effect; it’s more like a web of interconnected factors—each one influencing the other. Our choices, in this context, aren’t isolated events but are deeply embedded in this complex system. And while we may not fully understand it, I think determinism accounts for all of this complexity and interconnectedness.

Chesterton emphasizes the importance of mystery in life, and at first glance, it might seem like determinism would strip away that mystery.

It’s not randomness that creates mystery—it’s the overwhelming intricacy of a system that we can never fully predict or control.

Does anyone else here feel that determinism, in its full intricacy, actually leaves room for more mystery rather than less?

If I present you with one ball, there is only one option available whereas in another case, when you are presented with two balls there are two options.

man is but a "cloud of particles"

totalitarian "bigism" (e.g., the universe is just one universal process)

consciousness can be nothing more than an accidental and causally inefficacious representation of being

Don't confuse determinism with predictiability. Lack of predictability is the source of mystery, and it has been nicely proven that the world is not predictable, even in principle.

It feels intuitively to me that in some, many, most? cases unraveling cause is not possible even in theory. It's not just a case of being ignorant. Part of that feeling is a conviction that sufficiently complex systems, even those that are theoretically "caused," could not be unraveled with the fastest supercomputer operating for the life of the universe. There is a point, isn't there, where "completely outside the scope of human possibility" turns into "not possible even in theory." Seems to me there is.

There are always multiple options. Your examples don't bear that out well since there's one obvious correct answer, but correct answer might not be the reply you want.

Many spin determism as a bad thing, but never have I seen an example of determinism thwarting what you would otherwise have done.

I have argued in the past and I still think can be considered true that if something cannot be predicted, even in theory, it is meaningless to say it is determined.

It feels intuitively to me that in some, many, most? cases unraveling cause is not possible even in theory.

could not be unraveled with the fastest supercomputer operating for the life of the universe

There is a point, isn't there, where "completely outside the scope of human possibility" turns into "not possible even in theory." Seems to me there is.

We are on the same page if you agree that options are real.

What does "would otherwise have done" mean in a deterministic setting?

What does "would otherwise have done" mean in a deterministic setting?
— Patterner
In the context of my comment, it means that determinism does not remove the choice from being a function of your will. Had you willed otherwise, a different choice would have occurred.

It is your choice since it is a function of your mental processes.

The idea of determinism, for me, isn’t a simple domino effect; it’s more like a web of interconnected factors—each one influencing the other. Our choices, in this context, aren’t isolated events but are deeply embedded in this complex system. And while we may not fully understand it, I think determinism accounts for all of this complexity and interconnectedness.

In determinism, could you have willed otherwise?

What is will?

To me will is an ability of the mind. What do you mean by mental processes here?

In determinism, is it not the resolution of an uncountable number of factors which, although we cannot hope to track them all, resolve in the only possible way?

Just as, though we cannot calculate all the factors in an avalanche, due to their arrangement at the start, every rock lands in exactly the one and only place and position it does?

Same meaning as yours, different words. Both of our words leave 'mind/mental' fairly undefined, leaving open a natural or supernatural interpretation of it.

why is it meaningless? The word has a literal meaning. It might be untestable, but I don't think it's meaningless.

A deterministic world is not necessarily reverse deterministic. Classically, our physics seems to be, but it is weird watching entropy go the wrong way. A world like Conway's game of Life is hard deterministic, and yet history cannot be deduced since multiple prior states can result in the same subsequent state...

...Actually simulating our physics (even the most trivial closed classical system with say 3 particles) cannot be done without infinite precision variables, which puts it in the 'not possible even in theory' category.

although I wouldn't use "predetermined"
— wonderer1

I mean, maybe you should..

The causa sui is the best self-contradiction that has ever been conceived, a type of logical rape and abomination. But humanity's excessive pride has got itself profoundly and horribly entangled with precisely this piece of nonsense. The longing for “freedom of the will” in the superlative metaphysical sense (which, unfortunately, still rules in the heads of the half educated), the longing to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for your actions yourself and to relieve God, world, ancestors, chance, and society of the burden – all this means nothing less than being that very causa sui and, with a courage greater than Munchhausen's, pulling yourself by the hair from the swamp of nothingness up into existence. Suppose someone sees through the boorish naivete of this famous concept of “free will” and manages to get it out of his mind; I would then ask him to carry his “enlightenment” a step further and to rid his mind of the reversal of this misconceived concept of “free will”: I mean the “un-free will,” which is basically an abuse of cause and effect.

We should not erroneously objectify “cause” and “effect” like the natural scientists do (and whoever else thinks naturalistically these days –) in accordance with the dominant mechanistic stupidity which would have the cause push and shove until it “effects” something; we should use “cause” and “effect” only as pure concepts, which is to say as conventional fictions for the purpose of description and communication, not explanation. In the “in-itself ” there is nothing like “causal association,” “necessity,” or “psychological un-freedom.” There, the “effect” does not follow “from the cause,” there is no rule of “law.” We are the ones who invented causation, succession, for-each-other, relativity, compulsion, numbers, law, freedom, grounds, purpose; and if we project and inscribe this symbol world onto things as an “in-itself,” then this is the way we have always done things, namely mythologically. The “un-free will” is mythology; in real life it is only a matter of strong and weak wills. It is almost always a symptom of what is lacking in a thinker when he senses some compulsion, need, having-to-follow, pressure, unfreedom in every “causal connection” and “psychological necessity”. (Beyond Good and Evil)

…the eternal return and the Overman are at the crossing of two genealogies, of two unequal genetic lines. On the one hand they relate to Zarathustra as to the conditioning
principle which "posits" them in merely hypothetical manner. On the other hand, they relate to Dionysus as the unconditioned principle which is the basis of their apodictic and absolute character. Thus in Zarathustra's exposition it is always the entanglement of causes or the connection of moments, the synthetic relation of moments to each other, which determines the hypothesis of the return of the same moment. But, from Dionysus' perspective by contrast, it is the synthetic relation of the moment to itself, as past, present and to come, which absolutely determines its relations with all other moments. The return is not the passion of one moment pushed by others, but the activity of the moment which determined the others in being itself determined through what it affirms. Zarathustra's constellation is the constellation of the lion, but that of Dionysus is the constellation of being: the yes of the child-player is more profound than the holy no of the lion. The whole of Zarathustra is affirmative: even when he who knows how to say no, says no. But Zarathustra is not the whole of affirmation, nor what is most profound in it.

ll affirmation finds its condition in Zarathustra but its unconditioned principle in Dionysus. Zarathustra determines the eternal return, moreover he determines it to produce its effect, the Overman. But this determination is the same as the series of conditions which finds its final term in the lion, in the man who wants to be overcome, in the destroyer of all known values. Dionysus' determination is of another kind, identical to the absolute principle without which the conditions would themselves remain powerless. And this is Dionysus' supreme disguise — to subject his products to conditions which are themselves subject to him, condi-tions that these products themselves surpass. The lion becomes a child, the destruction of known values makes possible a creation of new values. But the creation of values, the yes of the child-player, would not be formed under these conditions if they were not, at the same time, subject to a deeper genealogy.

Nietzsche's Heaviest Burden/Greatest Weight:The Heaviest Burden.—What if a demon crept after thee into thy loneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to thee: "This life, as thou livest it at present, and hast lived it, thou must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh, and all the unspeakably small and great in thy life must come to thee again, and all in the same series and sequence—and similarly this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and similarly this moment, and I myself. The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned once more, and thou with it, thou speck of dust!"—Wouldst thou not throw thyself down and gnash thy teeth, and curse the demon that so spake? Or hast thou once experienced a tremendous moment in which thou wouldst answer him: "Thou art a God, and never did I hear anything so divine!" If that thought acquired power over thee as thou art, it would transform thee, and perhaps crush thee; the question with regard to all and everything: "Dost thou want this once more, and also for innumerable times?" would lie as the heaviest burden upon thy activity! Or, how wouldst thou have to become favourably inclined to thyself and to life, so as to long for nothing more ardently than for this last eternal sanctioning and sealing?—

Does anyone else here feel that determinism, in its full intricacy, actually leaves room for more mystery rather than less? Or do you see it differently?

Our world is indeed deterministic, in the sense that every effect has a cause. But some effects have multiple causes. As a physical metaphor, consider the Mississippi river, which has multiple tributaries. So, when it floods in New Orleans, which prior cause do you blame : the river from Tennessee to the gulf, or Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas, & Red? Or do you blame the hurricane that delivers above normal rain to the flood plain? Today, with professional weather observers and high-tech tools, we can track the blame even back beyond the hurricane, to local heat & humidity in the Atlantic ocean. So, like an Agatha Christie mystery, the determining cause is shrouded in complexity. It's "full intricacy". And don't forget the confounding side-effect/cause of individual Free Will. :smile:

Indeed, the presumption that physics is deterministic is almost certainly mistaken.

How would you convince one of them that they're mistaken?

What is free about Free Will in this scenario? From what is will free?

physics has come a long way since newton. Banno is most probably thinking about QM when he says that.

Whether or not the world is deterministic is a matter of metaphysics, not a matter of fact. I'm not sure I can convince anyone of that.

I'm not sure about that tbh.

So metaphysics is not about facts...

Oh, I see, that bit where some folk restrict facts to observations. So it's not a fact that 2+2=4, or that the bishop stays on her own colour in chess.

Whether or not the world is deterministic is a matter of metaphysics, not a matter of fact. I'm not sure I can convince anyone of that.

To say that something is - D - and at the same time isn't - non-D - is what I call strange. Or odd, or illogical, or wrong

For you, are conservation laws facts?

You can't prove that energy is conserved in every case, since not every case is available for you to check. Nor can you disprove it - if you came across a perpetual motion machine that seemed to be breaking the conservation law, you might hypothesis that it is somehow drawing energy frome elswhere in the universe...

SO, is conservation of energy a fact, or a bit of metaphysics?
an hour ago

But if you do not mean the U, what do you mean?

So metaphysics is not about facts...

If the world is deterministic, you may or may not convince someone of that. It just depends upon whether they were determined to be convinced.

Determinism is stupid. If you disagree, that's just the way it has to be.

Did you somehow misread me?

It's true, but never a fact

Nothing could be more strongly proven to be false, than the law of conservation of energy.

I know you've read my diatribes on metaphysics before

Probably. Still not sure if for you conservation rules count as facts, or if they are empirical.

They haven't stuck in my memory. So for you conservation of energy is not a fact, and not true?

The law of conservation of energy is not metaphysics. It’s physics. You should work on not being such a putz.

The law of conservation of energy is not metaphysics. It’s physics.

Conservation of energy is neither falsifiable nor provable

If that is right then conservation laws would be necessary for physics in much the same way that moving only on column or file is necessary for the rook in chess.

Nor can you disprove it - if you came across a perpetual motion machine that seemed to be breaking the conservation law, you might hypothesis that it is somehow drawing energy frome elswhere in the universe...

...that kind of idea would make ANYTHING unfalsifiable...

I take it as pretty clear that determinacy is not amongst the metaphysical doctrines that underpin physics.

But I think there are many here would disagree.

What do you say?

I think the move from the causal closure of the physical domain to the general thesis of determinism is invalid

The idea of "conservation of energy" is a foundational principle in physics, and it is not immune to falsification

If experimental evidence were to contradict the principle of energy conservation in a way that couldn’t be explained by other factors, it would force a revision of our current understanding.

Ok. I'd go perhaps a step further and suggest that even the physical domain is not causally closed, in that some physical events do not have an explicit cause - that an individual electron moving through a double slit goes to the right and not the left, by way of an example.

But further, I'd treat acts of volition as a seperate conversation, after the approach of Mary Midgley. Saying that our acts of volition are determined is confusing seperate ways of talking - like fish and bicycles.

So, one reason why I agree with T Clark that determinism is a metaphysical thesis...

Whether or not the world is deterministic is a matter of metaphysics, not a matter of fact.

Conservation of energy is neither falsifiable nor provable,

That you find such questions irritating is not a fault of mine, I'm just asking questions. No need to be rude.

I took this as implying that metaphysical statements are not factual, not issues of truth or falsehood. In contrast, I think it might be false that physics is deterministic.

So, one reason why I agree with T Clark that determinism is a metaphysical thesis is because its falsity, according to me, isn't contingent on such things as the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics. My stance would have been the same if some hidden variable interpretation had turned out to be empirically vindicated, or QM had never been developed (and our view of the physical world would still be broadly classical). I think the fallacious move from the causal closure of the physical (also assuming no bifurcations in phase space) to unqualified determinism depends on physicalist theses that are metaphysical in nature (and misguided to boot).

Ok. No one seems to have noticed this ground-breaking revelation.

Conservation of energy is neither falsifiable nor provable, and so not empirical, and yet still a part of physics.

Furthermore, we all know that it is obviously false, and that's why we know that perpetual motion machines are impossible. T

Energy and matter are equivalent.

You take pleasure in disrupting discussions and annoying people, generally without adding anything substantive to the discussion.

It'd be interesting to hear what others think of ?Metaphysician Undercover's approach.

Can you think of a different reason why perpetual motion machines would be impossible?

Whereas the conservation laws are metaphysical and true and helpful, determinism is metaphysical and potentially false and not helpful.

No I can't.

Deleuze, Anti-Oedipus, Pg 1:It is at work everywhere, functioning smoothly at times, at other times in fits and starts. It breathes, it heats, it eats. It shits and fucks. What a mistake to have ever said the id. Everywhere it is machines—real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other machines, with all the necessary couplings and connections. An organ-machine is plugged into an energy-source-machine: the one produces a flow that the other interrupts.

How do you feel about ramen noodles?

Can you think of a different reason why perpetual motion machines would be impossible

What about friction, heat loss, things like that? When a machine loses energy, it doesn't just lose it into the void, it gets transferred to other things in its immediate environment.

The concept of energy doesn't dictate that energy is really lost, if you want to relate entropy to energy, entropy is more about patterns of distribution of energy.

Can you think of a different reason why perpetual motion machines would be impossible?

What about friction, heat loss, things like that? When a machine loses energy, it doesn't just lose it into the void, it gets transferred to other things in its immediate environment.

The concept of energy doesn't dictate that energy is really lost, if you want to relate entropy to energy, entropy is more about patterns of distribution of energy.

ALL that I'm getting at is it seems odd to make a very obvious law that says details the definition of limitless is to be without limits.

What I think might be useful is to attend to the fact that waste heat only is 'lost' (unable to do more work) relationally or contextually.

Sure. True but irrelevant. Choose whatever conservation principle you want. The issue is that there are parts of science that are logically unfalsifiable - they embed one quantification in another so that accepting a basic statement does not show them to be false.

The issue is that there are parts of science that are logically unfalsifiable

Whereas the conservation laws are metaphysical and true and helpful, determinism is metaphysical and potentially false and not helpful.

Saying "things have cases" is not the same as saying that physics is deterministic.

Otherwise it just looks like the medieval prejudice that every event has a cause - a classic bit of bad metaphysics that is almost certainly wrong.

I pointed out that it has already been falsified. How is that irrelevant?

The issue is that there are parts of science that are logically unfalsifiable

As I understand it, conservation of matter and energy has been established as a valid principle in physics. That doesn't necessarily mean it's correct, but we are justified in using it unless it is falsified in the future. It's not metaphysics, it's science. Determinism is metaphysics and can be useful.

How is saying that all events have causes not describing determinism?

Of course this is he same as the amount of energy being constant while the amount of energy available for work decreases over time.

What about friction, heat loss, things like that? When a machine loses energy, it doesn't just lose it into the void, it gets transferred to other things in its immediate environment.

which allows it to swallow up energy without that energy having an effect on the void.

Perhaps it does have an effect on the void. Space expands and light loses energy as it travels through expanding space. Maybe space expands proportionally to the energy lost to it

Deciding something is false is different to it's being logically falsifiable.

For Popper, basic statements ("protocol sentences") are unfalsifiable.

Britannica:protocol sentence, in the philosophy of Logical Positivism, a statement that describes immediate experience or perception and as such is held to be the ultimate ground for knowledge... It is thought to be irrefutable and therefore the ultimate justification for other more complex statements, particularly for statements of science.

there are bits of science that have a logical structure that bars them from falsification by a basic statement, and so count as metaphysics.

"All events have causes" is a different proposition to "events have causes", since the second allows for uncaused events. So saying "things have cases" is not the same as saying that physics is deterministic.

However, the conception is deficient because it does not account for the true expansion of space. Then some energy must be said to get swallowed up by space

I'm not sure about that. The potential energy between two objects *increases* with space. A ball 2m above the surface of the earth is said to have more potential energy than a ball 1m up. So perhaps it all adds up.

Popper draws a clear distinction between the logic of falsifiability and its applied methodology. The logic of his theory is utterly simple: a universal statement is falsified by a single genuine counter-instance. Methodologically, however, the situation is complex: decisions about whether to accept an apparently falsifying observation as an actual falsification can be problematic, as observational bias and measurement error, for example, can yield results which are only apparently incompatible with the theory under scrutiny.

don't think so, because a ball at 2m will stay at 2m, as time passes, unless forced to change.

, this change is not included in the concept of energy. Therefore such a change in distance would not change the object's potential energy.