Questions tagged [determinism]
The doctrine that every event has a cause. The main philosophical interest of determinism has been in assessing its implications for free will.
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Is it possible to restore the motivation lost by rejecting free will without introducing cognitive dissonance/logical fallacies?
I've read in a few places that people tend to get depressed and lose motivation in life after losing their belief in free will; that even if you "know" free will does not exist, you are ...
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Does god have freewill and if so did can 'it' choose to be god? [closed]
From my (admittedly not very comprehensive) understanding of determinism in a physical universe, it seems like the only free agent outside of our causal universe could be argued to be god (assuming a ...
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Is the current world more likely under determinism than indeterminism?
I suppose this may be an obvious quip, but according to Bayesian confirmation theory, evidence E confirms a theory A over theory B if it is more expected under theory A.
If determinism is true, and we ...
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Does indeterminacy imply contingency?
If there is true indeterminacy in the world, does this imply that each state of affairs is contingent? I am assuming that by contingent, we mean that things could have happened otherwise.
Conceptually,...
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Why are nonlocal deterministic theories considered less plausible than indeterminism?
As John Bell stated,
I cannot say that action at a distance is required in physics. But I can say that you cannot get away with no action at a distance.
Regardless of whichever interpretation of ...
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Could Laplace's Demon be the universe itself?
Laplace proposed that a being that could know the state of the universe at one particular point in time and knowing all the laws governing that universe would be able to determine the past and future ...
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Do acausal quantum events come in between two classical events?
You'll have to forgive my ignorance if the answer to this question has lots of examples of how and when this occurs.
My knowledge of determinism is that it is a picture of a chain of events that goes ...
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What meta-ethics is most commonly associated with 'hard determinism'?
Since moral responsibility seems to require free will, hard
determinism implies that people are not morally responsible for their
actions.
So what exactly does that imply about supposed moral ...
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If one accepts hard determinism then why attempt to persuade others based upon that belief?
I was reading an article recently that discussed the Justice Without Retribution Network. While I support their aims, it led me to question what it means to change the criminal justice system if you ...
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Arguments against Necessitarianism
I would like to know what the most successful arguments have been against necessitarianism, as I struggle to imagine how necessitarianism could be false.
I think about how any particular event ...
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Best arguments against compatibilism?
According to the 2020 PhilPapers survey, 59.2% of philosophers are compatibilists when it comes to the free will/determinism debate. Despite its popularity among professional philosophers, what are ...
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If we were to know everything about the universe right after the Big Bang, can we predict me eating toast today?
It is implied, per QM, that the behavior of subatomic particles cannot be precisely predicted. However, these indeterministic effects do have defined probabilities. By the law of large numbers, they ...
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How does indeterminism still lead to deterministic laws in the macro world?
Philosophers and many scientists seem to distinguish between the macro and micro world a lot. Things in the micro world seem to be indeterministic, atleast through the standard interpretation of QM.
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Is determinism equivalent to necessitarianism? If not, does one imply the other?
I am having a hard time understanding the difference between determinism and necessitarianism. What is the difference between them? Are they equivalent, or is one strictly stronger than the other, or ...
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Schopenhauer and the 'ability to make decisions' as a metric for free will
I've been having a less than productive discussion with someone about perspectives on free will. I feel confident in my position, but experience has taught me that my confidence is often in direct ...
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Fatalism vs Determinism vs Free-Will
To my understanding, physical causal Determinism means that if E is a physical event, then there is a physical event C such that C causes E. Fatalism means that if some event C happens, then any event ...
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If determinism is false, what is the “true” probability of each event?
In a deterministic universe where knowing every possible cause and initial condition leads you to figure out the effects with precision, each event ends up having a “real” probability of 0 or 1. ...
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Could the universe or any event within it have occurred otherwise, even if determinism was false?
Could any event have happened differently? Even if the universe was “inherently stochastic”, does this imply that events could have occurred differently? It seems to me that even inherent randomness ...
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Does a rock falling down a hill perform computation?
Imagine a rock in the shape of a chessboard with pieces in a certain configuration.
Throw the rock down a particular hill. The hill is shaped in such a way that, given the correct throw, the ...
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Is it possible for the universe to be deterministic at one level, but not at a higher level?
I know that it is certainly possible for the universe to be stochastic at one level, but deterministic at a higher level. For example, I have read that while quantum mechanics is a stochastic theory, ...
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How can we establish that causal relationships existed in the past?
From Hume's problem of induction, it is intuitive to me that, for example, "taking aspirin in the past has relieved my headaches" is insufficient to say with certainty that "taking an ...
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Does existence of omniscient God imply Determinism?
I have a question about an argument for why the world must be completely deterministic if there is an omniscient God and wanted to know about the validity of the argument.
If the premise is that God ...
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When and by whom was the Strawsonian Framework extended to forward looking responsibility?
As I understand it, theories concerning forward-looking responsibility existed before Strawsons 1962 "Freedom and Resentment".
The Categorization of it as backward-looking and the ...
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How to solve this paradox about determinism?
I am thinking about this problem :
suppose the world is deterministic and there exist an entity "D" able to predict the future based on the knowledge of the state of the world at a given ...
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Does determinism require Modal collapse?
The question is pretty much self-explanatory, I was just curious if there is any possible way to show that Modal collapse isn't caused by determinism.
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Does Hume undermine determinism? [closed]
The problem of induction (kind courtesy David Hume) states that causality isn't deductively justified.
Determinism, predicated on causality, isn't justified.
Ergo, free will is (at the very least) ...
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What is the definition of libertarian free will?
I've seen similar questions asked once or twice on here, but I wasn't able to find a satisfying defense of libertarian free will. The answers seemed to be kind of scattered. So, I wanted to make ...
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Determinism vs prediction
What is the difference between determinism and predictable. I have heard classical mechanics is both predictable and deterministic , chaos theory is deterministic but unpredictable , quantum mechanics ...
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Why would there be anything in determinsm? (hobbyist)
I am a total hobbyist, but this question bothers me for a long time.
My line of thought is, if there is a collection of rules for which any given event would result in a set outcome with no deviation ...
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The Mediocrity Principle, The Laws of Nature and Free Will
The Mediocrity Principle, though it had a very specific meaning when it was first stated, is now a more general principle the essence of which is not to assume "a phenomenon is special, ...
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Strawson on Free Will: What are the most persuasive challenges to his position?
There are arguments against free will and moral responsibility which rely on strict causal determinism and/or determinism modified by quantum randomness. Criticisms of these views raise doubt as to ...
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Is there any way existentialism can be compatible with the idea of free will being an illusion?
I just read another question from this website about free will, decided to ask my own rather than comment on another. I have no formal education in philosophy. I almost want to ask this question from ...
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Plato's Forms and Determinism
Plato holds that the being of an object is determined by its participation in the Form of which the notion it the quality that determines that being insofar as it is "beautiful", "large&...
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Do preceding events cause subsequent ones in a four-dimensionalist world?
I feel like this question has a good chance of having been asked here before, but the first ten-odd "similar questions" listed by the site when I composed the title didn't cover what I'm ...
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Does Newton's first law of motion contradicts causality?
First, English is not my mother tongue and hence maybe the expressions I will use are not very accurate.
Causality as I understand is when there is a change, then there is a preceding event "...
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How could I not think I have free will, yet still have it?
Not everyone thinks free will exists, and from personal experience I don't find freedom of will in my actions or emotions(I suppose I am assuming that's where it's located). It was once something I ...
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Proof for the Absence of Free Will (Revised)
Introduction
Approximately 1 year ago, I posted a 'proof' for the absence of free will.
The post drew a wide range of interesting and answers and comments. The most persuasive challenges related to ...
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Copernican Principle defended using Algorithmic Information Theory?
Imagine a chronologically-ordered list of all the n humans who will ever live. I am already assuming that time is linear rather than say a branching structure.
Can the Copernican Principle be defended ...
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Aren't talks about moral responsibility under hard determinism moot?
I see people extensively debate over whether deterministic beings should be held responsible for their actions if there was no moral agency or free will involved in it. But is that even a relevant ...
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Was Einstein’s dice analogy not exactly how he wanted quantum mechanics to be?
Eindtein famously stated that God doesn't play dice ("Gott würfelt nicht"). But wasn't that example of precisely how he thought quantum mechanics should be, i.e. a determined process ...
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Can retribution be justified without free will?
Without free will, our behaviour would be no different from any other natural phenomenon, Sam Harris and other determinists claim: https://i.stack.imgur.com/DSVFq.jpg
“Compare the response to ...
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causality vs determinism
Does causality implies determinism?
Causation is a necessary relation between cause and effect and I consider determinism as "state of the future will be uniquely fixed by the past's state "
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If dualism provides an escape from determinism, how does it work
There are confusing number of types of dualism, i am not sure which one to restrict the question to.
Reductionist physicalism has a dichotomy between determinism and random. Dualists like to claim ...
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Non-random indeterminism in physicalist reductionism?
In lectures on free will, often a dichotomy between determinism and random is alluded. This dichotomy always is not a true dichotomy, there are some known and even trivial examples of non-random ...
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Can there be determinism without predictability?
Suppose you have two intelligent agents interacting, with each one one's behavior based on their prediction of what the other will do. For example, suppose you have two mind readers playing rock, ...
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Is the debate on free will over? [closed]
I've never posted on here but I am interested in philosophy. I think a lot about free will / determinism / compatibilism. I always felt like I have some degree of free will. I know free will is ...
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Does determinism include any concept of knowledge?
Causal determinism means that every event is completely caused by prior events. Therefore no amount or kind of knowledge can have any effect whatsoever on the flow of events.
If a person's behaviour ...
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Free Will vs Destiny
Is living, believing having free will the destiny(predetermined truth)of our life?
Do we really have free will or we just believe to have free will?
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If everything is predetermined, why should I feel motivated to do anything?
I am a proponent of hard-determinism.
Now, the problem is, if free will doesn't exist, why should I feel motivated to do anything? The question "Why should I feel motivated to do anything" ...
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Wouldn't physicalistic determinism and non-compatiblistic free will both be possible at the same time?
Physicalistic determinism would require that the entire physicalistic universe would be determined. Non-compatiblistic concepts of free will generally hold that our conscious self awareness and free ...
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