Demystifying Determinism

[Kylie]

Dererministic systems are not predictable, except wherein they have statistical generalizations which messily but inaccurately describe forward systemic operation.

They are dictable. Note the lack of the "pre".

SOME Deterministic systems have correlation on some level between past and future that can be worked out at a smaller and faster scale than that of the effect itself, and of those we can again only messily and inaccurately do this from the inside.

As such, while we can generalize inaccurate probabilities based on the known failures of our model, we cannot really predict.

Our predictions, and the probabilities in them, are illusions!

And when our predictions are illusions which in them contain an image that conforms to the actual future, we call that "a will that is free". And when that image that conforms to the future is "the will to decide for oneself", we call that "free will".

Care to provide a source for this?

Because the arguments for a deterministic universe that I've seen in this thread seem to be saying that the state of the universe at any point in time is a direct and unavoidable consequence of a sum of its state at previous points in time. Thus, in principal (if not in practice), given complete knowledge of the state of the universe at a point in time and given sufficient capacity for calculation, the state of the universe at any future point can be determined with 100% accuracy.

 

[Kylie]

You've just claimed that people are choosing. You haven't shown that what they are doing actually is a choice.

Choosing is when a person reads a restaurant menu, selects a dinner based on their own goals and reasons, and conveys that chosen intention to the waiter as an "I will", as in "I will have the Chef Salad, please".

That is actually choosing and the "I will have the Chef Salad" is actually a choice.

From the Oxford English Dictionary: Choice "1.a. The act of choosing; preferential determination between things proposed; selection, election."

I believe I have in fact shown that what they are doing is actually a choice.

The basis of your claim is figurative thinking. If we know that someone definitely will choose the Fried Chicken, then it is AS IF they could do nothing else. But that is literally false, due to the meaning of "can do" being very different from the meaning of "will do".

I have pointed out countless times that if what they will order is inevitable, then it's not a choice. If it was set in stone long before they were born, how could their preferences play any part in it?

Then what's all this talk of the outcome being inevitable?

It's not just the outcome, the choice, that is inevitable. The choosing is also inevitable. And the fact that it will be you and no one else making that choice is also inevitable.

Inevitability is not what it's cracked up to be.

If it's inevitable, then it's not a choice! We're just actors reading a script we had no part in making, and we can't alter a single thing.

Waiter: "What will you have for dinner, sir?"
Customer: "I don't know. What are my possibilities?"
Waiter: "Because there is only one possibility, there is only one thing that you can order."
Customer: "Shucks. Okay then, what is that one thing that I can order?"
Waiter: "I have no clue!"

Why do you keep using that same silly example when I've already responded to it?

Your response was to give the Waiter omniscience so that he could tell the Customer what he would order.

The correct response is to simply stop confusing actuality with possibility and "will" with "can". The waiter no longer requires omniscience to predict the customer's order, but simply tells the customer the many possible dinners that the chef is prepared to cook for him. And then, the customer chooses for himself what he will order for dinner. That's what we humans evolved the notion of possibilities to handle.

You seem determined to miss my point.

 

[The AntiChris]

You haven't shown that what they are doing actually is a choice.

It's a 'choice' because that's the word the overwhelming majority of competent English speakers use to describe the human process of selection. That's how words get their meaning.

You (and DBT) are using a completely idiosyncratic and nonsensical version of 'choice'.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Could you move over a bit? That brick wall is looking mighty inviting to me at this point.

If it was determined that I would do X, I can NOT do something other than X.

Stop. Take a breath.

If it was determined that we would order the Chicken, then we will order the Chicken.
If it was determined that we would order the Steak, then we will order the Steak.

We are looking at two "possibilities".
In one case the probability of the Chicken is 100% and the probability of the Steak is 0%.
In the other the probability of the Steak is 100% and the probability of the Chicken is 0%.

How do we determine which of these two possibilities is correct?

It's simple. We ignore that question and instead concentrate upon deciding which dinner we think we will enjoy most. If we decide that we will enjoy the Chicken more, then we choose the Chicken. If we decide that we will enjoy the Steak more, then we choose the Steak.

Coincidentally, we now know which of the two possibilities had the 100% probability and which of the two possibilities had 0% probability.

We normally discover the inevitable choice by our own choosing.

The fact we do not know is irrelevant. Why you keep bringing it to what we know is beyond me.

Here, let's share this bottle of aspirin.

The fact that we do not know what is inevitable is the reason for our choosing. If we already knew what we would inevitably choose, then we wouldn't bother choosing, but would instead simply do what was inevitable. Less work for us if we knew in advance what we would inevitably do.

Assuming that it is a deterministic universe, we would have to wait and see.

That would certainly be the easiest, but we have this Waiter with a pad and pencil, impatiently tapping his foot and wondering why we aren't telling him what we want for dinner.

But, as I apparently have to remind you YET AGAIN, it's not a choice.

Either it will be a choice or the Waiter will ask us to leave the restaurant, so that someone else can have our table, someone who is willing to make a choice.

If the outcome is determined, then I do not have the freedom of making the choice myself.

Not only are you free to make the choice, but it is causally necessary from any prior point in time that you will actually be making that choice yourself.

Again, IT'S NOT A CHOICE. How you keep missing this obvious fact is beyond me.
The person ordering only THINKS they have made a choice.

The Waiter is asking us to leave. Now everyone in the restaurant is staring at us. Perhaps we should consider "thinking" that we have a choice next time.

And did I say that nothing causes my choice? No.

My point ... is that the idea of the universe's state at any point in time being an unavoidable consequence of some earlier state is not correct.

Then are you (perhaps) saying that nothing causes the state of the universe to change from one state to the next?

You keep using that word CAN when I've already explained that it can possibly apply to a situation where there's a WILL.

When we do not know the single thing that WILL happen, we imagine the multiple things that CAN happen, to prepare ourselves for what inevitably DOES happen.

When we do not know the single thing that we WILL choose, we consider the multiple things that we CAN choose, to decide/determine what we WILL choose.

We assume there is a single thing that WILL happen, but it is UNKNOWN to us. So we step out of the context of ACUALITY, and enter the context of POSSIBILITY, in which multiple things CAN happen and multiple things CAN be chosen.

That's the point of CAN. It is there to enable us to logically reason about things that may or may not happen. We need that ability to deal with our ignorance of what WILL happen and what we WILL choose to do.

You must do MORE than just assert that something is correct. You must DEMONSTRATE it. Simply saying people make choices is NOT a demonstration.

That's why I brought you to the restaurant, to see people actually making choices in physical reality. That's the demonstration.

Educated guesses are a far cry from KNOWING.

Correct. Determinism only asserts the theoretical possibility of knowing. And it is our "not knowing" what will happen that forces us to embrace the notion of possibility and probability, of things that can happen, even if they never do happen.

 

[pood]

So I could do something different to what he INFALLIBLY KNEW I would do?

Then he's not infallible, is he?

I didn’t say that.

But apparently you did not read my post on an omniscient predictor to find out what I DID say.

If your infallible being says, "Kylie will order the chicken, I know this infallibly," but then I order the steak, was the infallible being right or wrong?

I want a one-word answer please.

You don’t understand.

Once again, please read this.

Your wordplay is not convincing.

You are suggesting that God can know that I am going to do X, he is going to be 100% right, there's no way he can ever be wrong, and yet I can still do Y?

How can I possibly do Y if God knows ahead of time that I'm going to do X and not Y?

Either God got it wrong (which can't be the case), or I am not able to do Y because God knows I am going to do X instead and therefore Y is not one of the available options.

You seem to be asking me to accept P and Not P at the same time.

And you seem utterly incapable of actually answering my question, so I will ask it again. I will keep asking it until you provide an answer. It's a very simple question.

If your infallible being says, "Kylie will order the chicken, I know this infallibly," but then I order the steak, was the infallible being right or wrong?

I want a one-word answer please.

Jesus Christ. Talk about banging one’s head against the wall! I’m the one who should be doing it! (Can’t find head bang smilie. )

Honestly, did you actually read what I wrote? Because if you did, you obviously did not comprehend it.

 

[pood]

Kylie, how did you miss this in my post?

Now it is certainly true that if God knows in advance I will do x, then I will do x. God can’t be wrong.

You simply aren’t grasping the point. I don’t think you understand what’s at stake in this discussion. If I were you, I’d temper my rhetoric against others, because you are the one carrying a huge baggage-load of misunderstanding.

 

[pood]

Found it!

 

[pood]

More posting, alas.

Kylie wishes to prove that free will is incompatible with determinism, and as an example she posits an omniscient agent who knows in advance everything that I will do. Such an agent, while fictional, is a useful symbolic stand-in for determinism in a thought experiment.

She hopes to establish, I guess, that if this agent knows infallibly in advance that Kylie will eat chicken for dinner, then Kylie will eat chicken.

I agree! Kylie will eat chicken, in this scenario. No doubt about it.

But here is where things get slippery. Kylie, like all incompatibilists, now makes an illicit move. She purports to show in this scenario not JUST that Kylie WILL eat chicken, but that Kylie MUST eat chicken. And that is the point where the incompatibilist goes off the rails.

As I tried to show in the post that Kylie has clearly misunderstood, there is no reason to accept that Kylie “must eat chicken.” The erroneous argument condenses to this:

If an omniscient agent knows in advance that Kylie will eat chicken, then Kylie must (necessarily) eat chicken (no possible alternative, no free will for Kylie).

As I explained in the post in question, the above commits the modal fallacy, which I have invoked in different contexts. Since Kylie eating chicken is a contingent (could have been otherwise) matter, then her eating chicken can never be a necessary truth. Only necessary truths — e.g., that triangles have three sides — can never be otherwise. There is no (logically) possible world at which triangles have four sides, for example.

As I explained in my post using a different example, the corrected argument for Kylie and chicken goes like this:

Necessarily, (If an omniscient agent knows that Kylie will eat chicken, then Kylie will [but not must!] eat chicken).

The upshot that in the presence of an omniscient agent, Kylie is free to eat whatever she wants. That is, she has free will — she has live options!

What if Kylie chose to eat liver (ugh!) instead of chicken?

No problem!

Then we get:

Necessarily, (If an omniscient agent knows that Kylie will eat liver (ugh!), then Kylie will [but not must!] eat liver (ugh!)).

Kylie can eat what she wants! What she can’t do is evade detection of her choice, even before she makes it, by an omniscient agent. But the choice is clearly there. Kylie’s free choice supplies the truth grounds of what the omniscient agent knows in advance. If she chooses chicken, the OA foreknows chicken. If she chooses liver, the OA foreknows liver. That’s it!

Turning to determinism, this is the crux of the dispute between compatibilists and incompatibilists. The incompatibilist wants to say that given antecedent circumstances x, y, and z, then Kylie MUST eat chicken — no free will.

It’s the same illicit move as discussed above! The compatiblist says only (and correctly!) that given antecedent circumstances x, y, and z, Kylie will [but not must!] eat chicken. Kylie is free to eat what she wants. What if she chooses to eat liver (ugh!) instead? Then there would be DIFFERENT antecedent circumstances — a, b, and c, perhaps.

The difference between WILL and MUST makes all the difference in the world!

Please observe that (most) compatibilists agree with incompatibilists that under the exact same circumstances, Kylie will eat chicken. The compatiblist just points out that since Kylie does not HAVE TO eat chicken, determinism poses no problem to free will.

The compatibilist correctly cashes out “could have done otherwise” to mean, “would have done otherwise, if …” If what? If circumstances had been different! Which makes perfect sense. We think in these terms all the time!

Marvin goes to the restaurant and orders a salad for lunch. In so doing he remarks to his dining companion, “I had a huge breakfast, so I’m going to have a light lunch. But I can tell you the steak is really good here. If I had skipped breakfast, I would order the steak.”

Free will and determinism, in compatible action together.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

More posting, alas.

Kylie wishes to prove that free will is incompatible with determinism, and as an example she posits an omniscient agent who knows in advance everything that I will do. Such an agent, while fictional, is a useful symbolic stand-in for determinism in a thought experiment.

She hopes to establish, I guess, that if this agent knows infallibly in advance that Kylie will eat chicken for dinner, then Kylie will eat chicken.

I agree! Kylie will eat chicken, in this scenario. No doubt about it.

But here is where things get slippery. Kylie, like all incompatibilists, now makes an illicit move. She purports to show in this scenario not JUST that Kylie WILL eat chicken, but that Kylie MUST eat chicken. And that is the point where the incompatibilist goes off the rails.

As I tried to show in the post that Kylie has clearly misunderstood, there is no reason to accept that Kylie “must eat chicken.” The erroneous argument condenses to this:

If an omniscient agent knows in advance that Kylie will eat chicken, then Kylie must (necessarily) eat chicken (no possible alternative, no free will for Kylie).

As I explained in the post in question, the above commits the modal fallacy, which I have invoked in different contexts. Since Kylie eating chicken is a contingent (could have been otherwise) matter, then her eating chicken can never be a necessary truth. Only necessary truths — e.g., that triangles have three sides — can never be otherwise. There is no (logically) possible world at which triangles have four sides, for example.

As I explained in my post using a different example, the corrected argument for Kylie and chicken goes like this:

Necessarily, (If an omniscient agent knows that Kylie will eat chicken, then Kylie will [but not must!] eat chicken).

The upshot that in the presence of an omniscient agent, Kylie is free to eat whatever she wants. That is, she has free will — she has live options!

What if Kylie chose to eat liver (ugh!) instead of chicken?

No problem!

Then we get:

Necessarily, (If an omniscient agent knows that Kylie will eat liver (ugh!), then Kylie will [but not must!] eat liver (ugh!)).

Kylie can eat what she wants! What she can’t do is evade detection of her choice, even before she makes it, by an omniscient agent. But the choice is clearly there. Kylie’s free choice supplies the truth grounds of what the omniscient agent knows in advance. If she chooses chicken, the OA foreknows chicken. If she chooses liver, the OA foreknows liver. That’s it!

Turning to determinism, this is the crux of the dispute between compatibilists and incompatibilists. The incompatibilist wants to say that given antecedent circumstances x, y, and z, then Kylie MUST eat chicken — no free will.

It’s the same illicit move as discussed above! The compatiblist says only (and correctly!) that given antecedent circumstances x, y, and z, Kylie will [but not must!] eat chicken. Kylie is free to eat what she wants. What if she chooses to eat liver (ugh!) instead? Then there would be DIFFERENT antecedent circumstances — a, b, and c, perhaps.

The difference between WILL and MUST makes all the difference in the world!

Please observe that (most) compatibilists agree with incompatibilists that under the exact same circumstances, Kylie will eat chicken. The compatiblist just points out that since Kylie does not HAVE TO eat chicken, determinism poses no problem to free will.

The compatibilist correctly cashes out “could have done otherwise” to mean, “would have done otherwise, if …” If what? If circumstances had been different! Which makes perfect sense. We think in these terms all the time!

Marvin goes to the restaurant and orders a salad for lunch. In so doing he remarks to his dining companion, “I had a huge breakfast, so I’m going to have a light lunch. But I can tell you the steak is really good here. If I had skipped breakfast, I would order the steak.”

Free will and determinism, in compatible action together.

My take is a little different. I disarm "inevitability" and "necessity/must" by pointing out that what I "inevitably" "must" do is choose for myself what I will order for dinner, of my own free will (free of coercion and undue influence, but not free of causal necessity).

If that which I necessarily must do is what I was going to do anyway, then there is no problem. I am not being forced against my will to do something that I do not want to do, because what I must want I already want, and what I must choose, I have already chosen.

The "must" in universal causal necessity is a different kind of "must". An ordinary "must" is something that I must do even if I do not want to do it. This is a constraint upon my freedom to do what I want to do. But the "must" in universal causal necessity is normally what I was already going to do in the first place. It is a "must" with no teeth. Thus determinism can be defanged.

 

[bilby]

I have the most obedient dog in history. He has never once failed to do exactly what I command him to do.

There's one simple secret to training a dog so perfectly:

Only ever give him the command "Do as you please!".

He literally cannot possibly fail to obey.

 

[DBT]

Everyone acts 'for their own reasons.' Reasons that were determined before they were born, shaped and formed by the inevitable circumstances determining the state of the brain, the thoughts, the actions.....free will? Nah.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Everyone acts 'for their own reasons.' Reasons that were determined before they were born, shaped and formed by the inevitable circumstances determining the state of the brain, the thoughts, the actions.....free will? Nah.

No. Our reasons are not determined before we are born. The equipment necessary to form those reasons does not yet exist in the universe until after we are born. There will, of course, be a reliable chain of causes and effects that will lead to our birth. And a reliable chain of causes and effects that will lead to our minds having those reasons. But the reasoning itself, the most meaningful and relevant cause of our deliberate choices, will only happen just before the choice is made. And, according to determinism, that reasoning will happen exactly at that time and place, and not a moment sooner.

We should not be spreading confusion as to how determinism actually works. Otherwise one might claim that the Big Bang chose what we would have for dinner. It doesn't work that way.

If you wish, we may say that the Big Bang "started" the chain of events, but we cannot say that it "finishes" anything. It does not determine what we will have for dinner. Only we can do that.

 

[pood]

Otherwise one might claim that the Big Bang chose what we would have for dinner. It doesn't work that way.

At the risk of misremembering, I do believe that at one point DBT acknowledged his belief that the big bang killed JFK.

 

[bilby]

Everyone acts 'for their own reasons.' Reasons that were determined before they were born, shaped and formed by the inevitable circumstances determining the state of the brain, the thoughts, the actions.....free will? Nah.

No. Our reasons are not determined before we are born. The equipment necessary to form those reasons does not yet exist in the universe until after we are born. There will, of course, be a reliable chain of causes and effects that will lead to our birth. And a reliable chain of causes and effects that will lead to our minds having those reasons. But the reasoning itself, the most meaningful and relevant cause of our deliberate choices, will only happen just before the choice is made. And, according to determinism, that reasoning will happen exactly at that time and place, and not a moment sooner.

We should not be spreading confusion as to how determinism actually works. Otherwise one might claim that the Big Bang chose what we would have for dinner. It doesn't work that way.

If you wish, we may say that the Big Bang "started" the chain of events, but we cannot say that it "finishes" anything. It does not determine what we will have for dinner. Only we can do that.

We can say that the Big Bang created the Himalayas, and that wouldn't really be false as such, but it's not a very useful thing to note, and it would be insane to attempt to use this fact as a rebuttal of the claim that India crashing into Asia created the Himalayas.

Indeed, just as insane as trying to use determinism to rebut the existence of choosing - when we can see that choosing happens, and can easily infer that it is therefore a product of a deterministic universe.

 

[Jarhyn]

Everyone acts 'for their own reasons.' Reasons that were determined before they were born, shaped and formed by the inevitable circumstances determining the state of the brain, the thoughts, the actions.....free will? Nah.

No, they were determined  when I was born and  when I made decisions to pursue some paths I observed over others, and they happened when I stood in front of that dead tree whacking it, stabbing it, and blocking against it with a blunt sword until the sword broke. They were determined when I sat down and decided that yes, I was going to pursue software engineering; no I was not going to pursue the clarinet.

I have no problem with the decision being made a few seconds before I was aware that I made it, in any of those regards except being born because I didn't choose that, or rather different parts contributed differently and some parts chose and some parts didn't.

But those things were determined at all those moments exactly by process, and each of those processes involved many choices.

They didn't happen before that. They happened because of that.

 

[DBT]

Otherwise one might claim that the Big Bang chose what we would have for dinner. It doesn't work that way.

At the risk of misremembering, I do believe that at one point DBT acknowledged his belief that the big bang killed JFK.

You are misremembering. Very badly at that.

What you are thinking of is Marvin Edwards definition of determinism.

''All of these events, including my choices, were causally necessary from any prior point in time. And they all proceeded without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment.'' - Marvin Edwards.

 

[DBT]

Everyone acts 'for their own reasons.' Reasons that were determined before they were born, shaped and formed by the inevitable circumstances determining the state of the brain, the thoughts, the actions.....free will? Nah.

No, they were determined  when I was born and  when I made decisions to pursue some paths I observed over others, and they happened when I stood in front of that dead tree whacking it, stabbing it, and blocking against it with a blunt sword until the sword broke. They were determined when I sat down and decided that yes, I was going to pursue software engineering; no I was not going to pursue the clarinet.

I have no problem with the decision being made a few seconds before I was aware that I made it, in any of those regards except being born because I didn't choose that, or rather different parts contributed differently and some parts chose and some parts didn't.

But those things were determined at all those moments exactly by process, and each of those processes involved many choices.

They didn't happen before that. They happened because of that.

Time and events do not begin when you want them to begin. The world doesn't work in a way that suits your needs. Mental events are not exempt from the process of necessitation. Events that are necessitated/determined by antecedents, events that you are not aware of or have control over are not freely willed events, yet they determine how you think, what you think and do. A brain processes information unconsciously according to its properties, nature and makeup prior to conscious representation/awareness of that information.


Free will is simply not compatible with determinism.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Time and events do not begin when you want them to begin. The world doesn't work in a way that suits your needs.

Except when we plan a birthday party and everyone shows up on time. In this case the event actually began when we wanted it to begin and the world worked in a way that precisely suited our needs.

You cannot get away with leaving us out of the causal chain, DBT. After all, the world doesn't work in a way that suits your needs.

 

[Jarhyn]

Things were not decided "when time began" although this is admittedly a very ignorant way to think about it.

I think a better way to consider it is that things were not even decided  where time began or even as time always was.

Rather, things are decided by the course of events. But what course those events take is entirely a product of the continuing change of the parts of the system against each other, and there's exactly zero way to know exactly what that is without it actually happening.

As per the observation that things CAN be predetermined but rarely are (in the strict sense rather than the figurative one), it seems to me important to recognize that if someone wishes to wage the existence of strict predetermination, to say "there shall be 12 volcanoes" or "12345 shall be the seed of superdeterministic chaotic exposure of the system", then they would have a burden to prove that this is the case, which is, sadly, not a testable hypothesis in the first place.

As such an untestable and thus unnecessary hypothesis, it is in the same bucket as belief in God, as I see it. It may be useful as a temporary tool in building philosophical or mathematical understanding of systems, but belief in it is ill advised.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Things were not decided "when time began" although this is admittedly a very ignorant way to think about it.

I think a better way to consider it is that things were not even decided  where time began or even as time always was.

Rather, things are decided by the course of events. But what course those events take is entirely a product of the continuing change of the parts of the system against each other, and there's exactly zero way to know exactly what that is without it actually happening.

As per the observation that things CAN be predetermined but rarely are (in the strict sense rather than the figurative one), it seems to me important to recognize that if someone wishes to wage the existence of strict predetermination, to say "there shall be 12 volcanoes" or "12345 shall be the seed of superdeterministic chaotic exposure of the system", then they would have a burden to prove that this is the case, which is, sadly, not a testable hypothesis in the first place.

As such an untestable and thus unnecessary hypothesis, it is in the same bucket as belief in God, as I see it. It may be useful as a temporary tool in building philosophical or mathematical understanding of systems, but belief in it is ill advised.

You are certainly correct that nothing was "decided" at the time of the Big Bang. Decision making is a function that was not available to the universe prior to the evolution of the first intelligent species.

As to causal necessity, the test is whether any event can be demonstrated to be uncaused. And the evidence that we see, both in casual everyday life, as well as within scientific experiments, suggests that every event is caused by some prior state of affairs.

The notion of "predetermined" has a logical flaw. The root of "determined" is "termination". And a lot of events happen in between the Big Bang and our choosing what we will have for dinner. The meaningful and relevant determination of our choice is our own decision making. That is the final responsible cause of our deliberate actions.