Determinism must be true
My view is that determinism must be true.
At the most basic level, things happen because they are caused by other things.
If you roll a pair of dice, the result is not random, but determined by the laws of physics. If you knew all relevant information (e.g. force of throw, distance of throw, angle of throw, nature of surface, etc.), you could figure out what the result would be.
Take that simple example and apply it to everything. The fact is that you couldn't have all the information to determine what could happen, for example, with human behaviour. But hypothetically if you did, then you would be able to predict it with ease.
How different are we from ants, really? Ants are just less complex. How different are ants from dice? Think about it.
Free will must be an illusion. You only do things because something in your brain told you to. If you understood all the chemistry and physics behind the operation of your brain, you would be able to see why you do things.
Ultimately, the free will vs. determinism debate is useless and probably harmful. If you believe in determinism, people become depressed and feel hopeless because they view themselves as prisoners. From a practical standpoint that isn't a useful way to live a life.
If you believe in determinism, people will ask what happens of criminals who commit atrocious crimes. Well, that is still determined. Should they bear the blame though? Absolutely - because otherwise civilisation would not work.
But putting aside morality, etc. -- if you think about this question on the most fundamental cause/effect level, it is undeniable to me that determinism simply MUSt be true. What exactly is truly random? Events in the universe only occur as a result of the operation of physical laws.
At the most basic level, things happen because they are caused by other things.
If you roll a pair of dice, the result is not random, but determined by the laws of physics. If you knew all relevant information (e.g. force of throw, distance of throw, angle of throw, nature of surface, etc.), you could figure out what the result would be.
Take that simple example and apply it to everything. The fact is that you couldn't have all the information to determine what could happen, for example, with human behaviour. But hypothetically if you did, then you would be able to predict it with ease.
How different are we from ants, really? Ants are just less complex. How different are ants from dice? Think about it.
Free will must be an illusion. You only do things because something in your brain told you to. If you understood all the chemistry and physics behind the operation of your brain, you would be able to see why you do things.
Ultimately, the free will vs. determinism debate is useless and probably harmful. If you believe in determinism, people become depressed and feel hopeless because they view themselves as prisoners. From a practical standpoint that isn't a useful way to live a life.
If you believe in determinism, people will ask what happens of criminals who commit atrocious crimes. Well, that is still determined. Should they bear the blame though? Absolutely - because otherwise civilisation would not work.
But putting aside morality, etc. -- if you think about this question on the most fundamental cause/effect level, it is undeniable to me that determinism simply MUSt be true. What exactly is truly random? Events in the universe only occur as a result of the operation of physical laws.
Comments (122)
Determinism is more than just casual. It claims everything is already determined.
People make Choices in direction of action based upon experiences (memory). There is a choice (do U move left or right) but outcomes are always undermined because choices are being made everywhere v and there are constraints.
That is a metaphysical claim that can at least be doubted with current evidence. At what is currently thought as the "most basic level", quantum mechanics, there are events which appear to not have a cause. Some reading on quantum mechanics and causation should at least be able to shake the foundation of faith in the stated quote.
Since the discovery of quantum entanglement, you can't have determinism and causality; they are incompatible unless you make a radical change to our conception of the Reality.
Also, results like the Free Will Theorems of Kochen and Conway prove you can't have determinism and causality.
Quoting RepThatMerch22
This isn't even true of computers, so I have no idea why you think it is true of brains.
when you said:
Quoting RepThatMerch22
You have not really argued for this, but merely asserted that determinism must be true, with its associated consequences.
The question of determinism, as you seem to understand, is whether we would be able to accurately predict what would happen in the future given we know everything that is currently present.
All of this being said, however, I do agree with you that determinism, or something very close to it, is likely true. Most of our scientific advances are that of universal law-like tendencies. Science itself has been successful in part because it assumes things do have causes, or explanations, for why they are the way they are. So although empirical evidence can never fully prove that determinism is true, neither can it fully prove that indeterminism is true (as it is with most metaphysical debates). Given the success science has had operating under a deterministic perspective, it seems reasonable to assume that the world operates deterministically, or at the very least under tendencies that do not radically differ whenever.
The problem with your OP is that you assert that determinism must be true. How are you getting necessity out of empirical observation?
No one has proven anything, it is a perfectly legitimately contested theorem
http://m.oxfordscholarship.com/mobile/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199577439.001.0001/acprof-9780199577439-chapter-14
It requires a belief in set axioms, which some authors believe beg the question.
Using experiments like this to justify a belief you choose to hold is fine, and if that belief really can no longer be justified then of course we must discard it, but presenting contested results as if they answered the question once and for all doesn't help anyone.
For a start, the incompatibility of determinism and causality is an empirical fact, unless we radically alter our conception of the Reality.
Secondly, it is proved by the Free Will Theorems precisely that determinism and causality are incompatible with reality.
Now, you claim that:
Quoting Pseudonym
Really? Literally nothing has ever been proven?
For your information, Kochen is a rather famous mathematical logician, and Conway one of the most famous living mathematicians. They know what they are doing, and know what they have proved. What I claim they have proved, is less than they claim, because I am taking into account the Superdeterministic loophole.
How about I just don't?
Quoting RepThatMerch22
We aren't.
Quoting RepThatMerch22
Uh, a lot. One is a living being with a free will, one is an object with neither a consciousness nor an ability of any sorts to cause anything or react to anything.
You're missing the point of what I'm saying entirely. The simple fact is that some equally intelligent people have come to an alternative conclusion, as the paper I cited shows, meaning that nothing has been proven, it has only been theorised.
This implies fatalism which is not true. Nothing is 'already' determined in the sense it is know. Things are determined by antecedent conditions. That does not imply anything 'already'.
Unless you believe in God.
Don't be silly! And by the way Bohmianism is refuted by the Free Will Theorem, and Bell, and Kochen-Specker, and experiment.
And, because you weren't paying attention, allow me to elaborate. I did not claim that the Reality is deterministic, or indeterministic. I did not claim it is causal or acausal.
Or you accept the consequences of General Relativity.
If science operated under determinism it v would not be operating. Science has always operated on tendencies it habits that repeat approximately, that is good enough For All Practical Purposes, and in recognizing such, technologists build in necessary fail-safe provisions. Complete failure happens all the time.
On top of this, current technology is for the most part based on probabilistic tendencies (quantum mechanics), and even the most current security technology is being based upon quantum action at a distance. Determinism never had and never will be party of practical science applications.
How so?
No. All choices are determined too. There is no way the brain is outside reality.
The point I was making is that despite determinism the future is unknown and yet to unfold.
If it were not for determinism there would be no science at all, only magic.
Oh well, if I'd known that the Oxford University journal was silly I wouldn't have been citing it all these years
How about this one, specifically stating a model consistent with both causality and local determinism.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/504/1/012015/pdf&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwjTy6rS4N_YAhUCI8AKHVbxC2YQFggjMAY&usg=AOvVaw3_v7Q0Jr37DuqRGIeAsw9d
Let me if this one's silly too, maybe by process of elimination well end up with a set of respected journals we can actually trust.
BTW, his analysis of migrating butterflies was a bit silly.
Now you are jumping the shark. You don't even read the papers you cite, let alone comprehend them. If you did you wouldn't cite them!
Allow me to repeat: I have not claimed that QM is deterministic or indeterministic. Can you understand that?
Nothing he said implies otherwise, however you have claimed that the universe is not both determinisric and causal.
Why do you assume it does? It was merely meant to be an example of what might be true.
According to determinism.
Well, you claimed, based on no argument, that fatalism isn't true. In which case General Relativity is not going to work for you, you are going to need a new theory. GR is fatalistic.
Quantum mechanics is also compatible with fatalism, which is called Superdeterminism in that field.
1) Magic could be deterministic.
2) Scientific method requires neither determinism nor causality, they are results of it.
How so? Afaik it's just deterministic.
Yes. we can start a chain of causality if a particle can do it. We know it internally.
Determinism is a fact of the universe it does not have an opinion. It's true whether you believe it or not.
There's no such thing as magic.
You did not even begin to answer my question.
And you seem to be confusing Relativity with QM.
I shall not hold my breath. LOL
Does science talk about discovering true facts or arriving at the most broadly based unfalsified beliefs?
You are adopting an absolutist position on determinism as a known metaphysical fact. And it is no longer even a reasonable metaphysical belief, given quantum indeterminacy and the measurement issue in general.
That sounds like [B]fatalism[/B], which is not the same thing as determinism.
A difference in taste, that is all. Both render life meaningless. Luckily, despite academic indoctrination, most people simply ignore it though since if it lingers with the mantra, "it is the fault of dna".
Determinism says that B is an effect of A; nothing more, nothing less. A could have never happened and we would not have B. Something else could have happened, and some other effect could have resulted.
Fatalism, on the other hand, says that nothing different could have happened. Everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen is set in stone.
Quantum entanglement doesn't rule out every possibility or knowledge gap that a determinist can posit might be the case (see; non-local hidden quantum variables for instance (or specifically, don't ;) ).
Material/empirical science relies on the presumption that things are consistently causal in such a way that knowing enough about the rules and current state of a system allows us to make reliable predictions about future states, and for almost everything this assumption has been most fruitful. Quantum physics however is currently stuck on the fact that certain qualities or arrangements of systems of fundamental particles cannot be known, measured, or observed, and so this gives rise to a definite limit on our ability to make accurate or comprehensive predictions at quantum scales, but it doesn't prove that some events are "undetermined" in the hard sense.
While there are as many flavors of Determinism as there are flavors of Christianity (for exactly the same reasons), it is so-named name because it is meant to describe a deterministic existence. Pretty dismal and I hope most people understand it is a completely fabricated myth.
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/determinism.html
"Determinism is the philosophical idea that every event or state of affairs, including every human decision and action, is the inevitable and necessary consequence of antecedent states of affairs."
You're the one who mentioned it, so that doesn't answer my point.
So you believe.
Thank you for re-asserting my intention. I sometimes wonder if I'm typing in a different language from the extent to which my comments get misinterpreted. It's reassuring that at least some people, on some occasions, understand them.
Quantum phenomena are predictably unpredictable; like the fall of a dice. But observation of the dice is not enough to be able to predict the outcome with each throw. But when you know what all the causative factors are you can make a dice throwing machine that helps you score more predictably.
None of this invalidates determinism in any way. It just means we do not yet have all the information necessary to predict 'stochastic' events.
Apparently you don't get it because I do not believe in magic.
That's a strawman, indeterminism in no way implies those kinds of events happening.
Hmm. To say that events are predictably unpredictable, as a wavefunction does, is merely to say they are constrained rather than determined. You can be certain of your uncertainty. And if that uncertainty is irreducible, then absolute determinism is a dead duck.
But relative determinism, or a degree of constraint, is still a useful thing to have. Just because absolute determinism fails, not all is lost.
The question "is the behaviour of this particle [I]essentially[/I] determined or random?" is meaningless.
One can at best ask "can experimental outcomes on a collection of particles in similar circumstances to these test particles be [I]used-to-determine[/I] how these test particles are likely to behave in terms of population averages"?
If the answer is yes, then what we have is a statement which says that the behaviour of some particles are useful-in-determining how other particles will behave. What we don't have are universal statements of determinism which are meaningless.
It makes no sense at all from any perspective. There is not one statement about Determinism that can withstand any scrutiny.
What is missing from our culture is the sense of being and our active involvement in change. We are all involved. Nothing is determined by "something else". Our minds are creating it via our chosen actions.
The fact of determinism is knowledge. Knowledge is contingent on evidence; in this case inductive evidence. When you come up with some inductive information that contradicts determinism I'll be happy to assess it.
Until then I know determinism works. I have no need of belief.
I'm sorry to have to inform you but it does imply that.
Every day to go and expect your car to start you are relying on determinism. And if he fails to start then you rely on determinism to find a solution, such as you forgot to put petrol in it; or you need to change a spark plug.
Sci find is just not part of my particular way of practicing philosophy. I prefer to look at patterns and c patterns that others bring to my attention. For example, the minds of people making choices of all sorts for different reasons are patterns that I've observed. I have never observed anyone going back in time, not even in my dreams, so it is difficult to make anything if it, other than it is another excellent example of the creative potential of Mind. Yes, that it is!
You only have that evience about non-conscious objects. You can't apply those conclusions to include people.
Quoting charleton
Indeterminism does not imply that causality never exists or isn't appliable to some things or situations.
You're arguing against rejection of causality in that comment. For example a view that events have causes that determine the probabilities of their outcomes can to an extent be interpreted to be causalitistic.
Furthermore, that comment, even if it was valid, would not answer my comment. An identical course of people's actions in an individual situation does not imply they share a view that leads to those actions. But even if that did, it would not be support of any sort for your absurd claim that indeterminism would lead to the Sun transforming into a melon.
So when a radioactive atom decays, are you saying that was determined by a cause? Something suddenly made its decay more probable, nay inescapable, in that moment rather than - as inductively confirmed in the study of these things - that the decay probability does not vary with time? The chance was constant, therefore the determinism was - measurably - zero?
Philosophically no. As I said, I look for patterns. Similarities within differences and differences within similarities. And from this, I build new patterns which explain more and give me a new understanding. For me, new observations by myself or others are golden.
Yes, in this case I can have a high expectation that time travel in real duration is not possible.
I use my creative thought to conceive of new patterns that fit all observed patterns. I've never witnessed anyone who has ever come back in time nor have I ever traveled through time, not has anyone ever told be that they have observed such phenomenon.
In philosophy I attempt to understand life/nature. When writing fiction, I'll use a different aspect of my creative mind. The two are different - with similarities.
The fundamental problem with both modern philosophy and science is that creative fiction is replacing direct observation. It is the way it is being taught. Writing friction requires limited experience. It can be taught in a course, both science and philosophy. Developing observational practice takes much time and experience. It requires patience.
S: "For every event A, the state of A is determinable by a particular function of the states of all prior events {B,C,D,...} "
If S is true then it is vacuous and says nothing:
Proof:
1) Causal determination implies that the causal theory of reference is true.
2) The causal theory of reference implies that signification of future events is the signification of past events in disguise.
3) Therefore if S is true, its meaning is fully determined by past events and refers only to past events.
4) Therefore if S is true, S is equivalent to asserting that the past is describable by a function.
4) The past is identical with itself, and hence constitutes such a function of description.
5) Therefore if S is true, S says nothing.
The meaningless of Determinism can be felt. One must quietly ponder all the Determinism is suggesting including the meaningless of pondering about it. It is a cute game - pretending we are robots. I use to play it as a child. But how many people really believe it? I suspect few, and those who do are walking down a path of meaningless, where ever it may leave them.
A healthy life is one that embraces life. There is enough there to discover to last many lifetimes.
Not sure how you've derived this, so you might need to expand. There are many critics of the causal theory of reference who are determinists, John Searle for example.
Quoting sime
You've way overstated the causal theory here, it's only semantic, if you want to extend it to all of the 'meaning' of a statement you'll have to explain how you've made that jump.
Finally your conclusion at 5 doesn't follow at all by necessity from your previous premise, at least not without further exposition.
Unless a determinist asserts retro-causality (which would seem to nullify his position), I don't see how it is possible to both accept what the determinist says and to understand his sentences as being future-referring. Hence if he is correct, I can only understand him as describing the past which is essentially to say nothing of predictive value.
Where precisely does this argument go wrong?
Yes, I see how you arrived at your statements with regards to reference, given a causal reference theory, what I'm saying is that you do not have to adopt a causal reference theory at all. If your references are merely descriptivist, or even mediated, but in some non-causal way, then a sentence can refer to a determined future by reference to the predictions of the users, which are a current state.
But how can descriptivism be irreducible to the causal theory of reference if causal determinism is true? I don't see what non-causal semantic options are available to the causal determinist. Either his utterances reduce to their causes, or they do not.
All I can fathom is that for the causal determinist, predicting the future is synonymous with responding automatically to the past, hence the determinist has no reason to believe that his future-contingent beliefs amount to anything except for disguised summaries of his past experience.
The situation seems analogous to the determinist going for a walk backwards so that he only sees where he has walked and saying in response to his observations "this is determined" "now this is determined", which is to say nothing meaningful, and with the determinist having no idea what he is about to walk into.
One's utterances can reduce to their causes without being vacuous. Even under causal reference, if we presume that the 'baptism' and affirmations of meaning have determined a state of the subject's brain then his utterances refer to that state, either by descriptive (preferably) or even causal reference, at a stretch.
So I'm struggling to see why you think such statements are vacuous.
Does not follow. The function is only determined by the past, but its value (=what it refers to) is the future.
If everything is an effect of an antecedent cause then that includes determinism. Therefore, with respect to determinism it is correct only to say that something is determined.
"Determinism is determined" is the only correct statement.
Still waiting to hear what determined/caused determinism.
This is utter nonsense. It's nonsense for the simple fact that it is false. But more ridiculous in that your use of this claim is offered in some sort of mystcal claim that because a person is conscious they can exist outside the realms of cause and effect.
I bet you believe in the myth of positive thinking, where you just have to dream up something in order to have it.
Well DUH.
If you want something you have to DO SOMETHING to cause a thing to happen.
Predictable; caused. Deterministic. What is your problem?
It's not anymore nonsensical than claiming consciousness is bound by those rules with no evidence. There's 0 evidence of either claim.
Quoting charleton
What is any of this based on? If you want to keep your comments brief, so be it, but don't fill them with ad hominems or unrelated and unbased claims.
I don't think any determinist claims to have 'solved' the puzzle of the ultimate cause, but that doesn't make determinism wrong. No metaphysics solve this puzzle. If the world had a creator, then who made God and gave him the properties he had? Maybe God created the universe, made it entirely deterministic and then immediately ceased to exist. Maybe time did not exist until matter so there was no 'before' determinism and so nothing determined determinism because there was no such thing as cause and effect before it.
We cannot solve these problems within our own frame of reference, but that's common to all metaphysics, I don't see how determinism is any different.
It's called induction. And despite its failings, as taken humans from primitive animals to technological experts, masters of the world.
I have the entire history of civilisation on my side as evidence. What do you have Depak Chopra and his gay band of mystics.
Induction requires existing perceptions to induct from. All the humans you know have the power to dream up anything to have it, therefor I have as well?
Quoting charleton
Ah yes, the ancient Egyptian writings of BlueBanana conjuring things by the power of his will. Am I time traveler or immortal?
Neither, just a bit confused by the sound of it.
Go ahead and clarify then.
You made the claim I believe in "the myth of positive thinking". I asked for proof. You quoted that question and said you "have the entire history of civilisation" as your proof. My obviously sarcastic and rhetoric question was a clear implication the history of mankind cannot be used to draw conclusions about my personal thoughts. Then you denied this by calling me confused, and I asked you to clarify your reasoning for this claim.
And immortality is that area
Quoting BlueBanana
I can even go ahead and admit my confusion about my mortality if that makes you happy but I'd be delighted if this discussion could advance somewhere, so would you care to explain how the history of human civilization is evidence of my beliefs?
Probably by gods.
I don't know. Maybe they got a degree in programming and decided everything has to be programmed. Gods are like people, they like to imagine things.
During our nurturing years and then on until our mid teens. Age prejudice, for instance, is often not entirely established until then, or even slightly later.. Much of our broader thinking tends to being programmed, leaving us only with the detail. The media is at the center of this, where the world of best and most desiring to be read stories is thought to be the real world. The real world can in reality only be known first hand..I`m not offering you proof but then neither do you likely require it, for your instinct for that which is correct when honestly applied is often far more than just adequate. Better than endless get you nowhere counter arguments any day..
I do n`t view life as an evolving mind, what does that even mean? The way in which I view life alters as my mind evolves though, but not necessarily in totality fundamentally. I do n`t quite agree that there are lots of sources for prejudice, there are lots of reasons for prejudice. Prejudice is caused by a gap in thinking, hence defined as ignorance. "Sources" suggests too much to information, and prejudice is at odds with information, it does n`t want to hear it. I do n`t agree that there has to be a god in this, and if there were he`d of granted us free will, we are determined because it is the only way in which we can possibly hope to function.. I`m more than happy with myself the way I am. I do n`t mean to put it quite that way, of course there may be God, but I do n`t think you can find the answer here.
It means the Mind is constantly learning. Maybe some people stop learning and stop evolving?
Quoting celebritydiscodave
There is never a gap in thinking. Thinking is continuous, except when we are in a state of unconscious. I think you mean to say is that the reason for prejudice is when someone doesn't agree with a non-prejudiced point of view, whatever that may be.
Quoting celebritydiscodave
Well, I guess the gods determined some people to be prejudiced. And that's the way it is.
Prejudice is not on paper, it is in the real animate world, between people. When one entertains biases for every member of a given generation, this whether they be younger or older,, biases which do not on every last occasion apply, this is an example of prejudice, age prejudice come reverse age prejudice. Thinking that you know more than can be known about a person on account of how long he or she has been alive; but obviously, your thinking would be required to be negative.
There is no "with". The Mind is evolving. Quoting celebritydiscodave
The two are inseparable.
I'm always OK when it is Determined that conversation has ended. You don't think you made the decision, do you?
Could you please provide any reference for quantum entanglement of everything?
I did before asking question. People just say different things. In fact, this is a hypothesis that cannot be tested because of the existence of the horizon which limits our observable universe.
Did you decide to write this or was it the Laws of Nature that decided to exhibit humor. Like Greek Gods, the Laws of Nature mimic everything that humans do! Coincidental?
You are trying to draw a false distinction.
FYI Greek Gods, like entanglement are constructs.
But notice when you refer to physics, there are the underlying terms of your perceptual/cognitive system that are always already there making the perception possible. One way to put it is that even to conceive of causality, it requires the, if you firmly hold to this ide in all things (as we must because we cannot conceive of an exception; causality is apodictic) causal matrixes of mind (not to put too fine a point on it) to do this, which is blatant circular reasoning. You could conclude that certainly the principle of causality is compromised since it cannot be conceived apart from it own application. But then, this applies to all claims about anything whatsoever. The conclusion is clear: no foundational terms like this can have meaning beyond their intuitive evidence, and this evidence is always compromised, undone, really.
Then the only course of action available is to examine the conditions of its undoing, knowing full we that this too is subject to the same objections. But at least the focus has reached a a more fundamental level, for now we are giving analysis to the very basis of this very strong knowledge claim, the principle of causality. Then all eyes turn to one place: language. Before quantum physics can be what it is, we have look at what it means know at all.
All problems in philosophy end this way. This is why science will never be philosophy.
I'm reminded of the time when I started a thread on die roll and coin flip randomness. As you said, true, each roll/flip is completely determined (if you have knowledge of the initial conditions of the die/coin, you can predict the exact outcome of the die/coin).
Amazingly, if you roll a die/flip a coin a large number of times the frequency of the outcomes begins to approximate the frequency of randomness i.e. the experimental probability approaches the theoretical probability; note that the theoretical probability assumes true randomness. In other words a deterministic system can produce true randomness. Isn't that fascinating?
If all I said is correct, and randomness has something to do with free will, compatibilism must be true.
How you wanna do that? Can you know the outcome before the dice show their outcome? We could get rich love!
Look at a behavior that’s just occurred, and let’s make it an atomistic thing like pulling a trigger. Here are the four neurons in your motor cortex that told your muscles to flex. You ask, Why did those four neurons just do that? To show free will, show me that those neurons would have done exactly the same thing regardless of what all the other neurons around them were doing. But that’s not enough. Show me that those four neurons would have done the exact same thing if you weren’t exhausted, or stressed, or euphoric, or blissful, or if your hormone levels had been different, or if the trauma that happened a year ago had never happened, or if you hadn’t found God 30 years ago, or if you had been raised in another culture, or if you had completely different genes.
If you could change all of those variables and those four neurons would still have done that exact same thing at that moment, you’ve just proven those four neurons have free will. But you can’t. Everything is embedded in what came before.
So maybe you're fated to die at the age of 27. You could live your life normally and die in an accident. But maybe you find out you're going to die at 27, and you want to avoid fate, so you do everything you can not to be vulnerable to accidents, which pretty much means never leaving your house, never getting a job. So your whole adult life, you never leave, you stay safe, and meanwhile your parents are growing to resent you because you're just mooching off them for free. One day, when you're 27, your pissed off dad decides to kill you himself.
Fatalism actually can involve libertarian freedom in the in-between moments, as long as you arrive at the correct destination. Determinism, on the other hand, doesn't have any spiritual forces deciding some specific end, instead every moment must follow causally from the last - there's no libertarian freedom in the in-between moments.
The notion of truth and falsity are inapplicable in a completely deterministic context. The fact that you are able to offer a statement about the truth or falsity of something means that your capacity for making a statement must, at bare minimum, not be subject to determinism.
Boltzmann once wrote in his preparatory notes to a series of lecture hes gave at Cambridge regarding a topic that was considered by many scientists to be nonsense – the existence of atoms – that:
“It’s easy to go to atoms from representations, but it is hard to go from appearances to atoms.”
The problem, Boltzmann contends is that we have to somehow “...choose the most suitable expression” despite “...want[ing] to define things which cannot be defined”. Because of this, Boltzmann claims that “...it is not merely accidental if one should despair about how to explain nature and spirit”, we are simply – as Wittgenstein would say – running up against the walls of language.
Why do I mention this segment from Boltzmann? Because, he recognized that, in some sense, we are forced to use certain expressions to picture reality, yet at the end of the day, these are simply words we’ve created, and we are really just picking the best expression. If I set up a dichotomy between “free” and “determined”, and ask “which should I apply to myself?”, I’ve in some sense created the problem. Is “free” vs “determined” a meaningful way to set up the problem? Especially if I am inclined to disavow the very possibility of anything in the entire universe as being “free”? What then is the meaning of the expression? Clearly, there are “degrees of freedom” since we never truly encounter anything which I can contend is “truly free”, yet I can meaningfully delineate between those things which have some degree of freedom and those which have none. So, “freedom” is not an absolute term, but a relative term – something is more or less free than something else. Using your manner of speaking, we might say something is more or less “predictable” such that some things are fundamentally unpredictable despite being determined, and some are.
My point, is that this whole debate is really a tangle of words. We invent the expression and then apply it, and then are confused by the application – asking, at what point does this break down? Clearly, I am more free than a rock, or an ant, and this has meaning that we all agree to. But, when we ask, “well, are we ‘trulyyyyy’ free???” We are just caught in the illusion of our words, thinking they mean more than their application.
Can't why I say something still be true or false, I'm just determined to say what I say? I realize this was a month ago so I understand if you don't recall what you were thinking about this topic.
Like your making a false statement is deterministically produced? But do you mean this in the sense that you are mistaken, so your statement is a reflection of inaccurate or incomplete knowledge? Because in that sense, probably every factual statement is materially incomplete in some way. So falsity is just a degree of truth. Or if you meant that your intention to deceive is deterministically produced? That would be a straight up self-contradiction, as soon as you introduce the concept of intention you introduce a break in the claim of universal determinism. Otherwise you're just begging the question when you assume (prove) there is no intentionality. In which case, the universe (determinism) doesn't deceive, it just produces incomplete truths. Free conscious intentionality is the only conceptually consistent basis for "falsity" in any meaningfully strong sense. Seems to me.