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.
278
questions
1
vote
1
answer
67
views
Is precognition incompatible with God? [closed]
Precognition is usually associated as a supernatural quality.
If precognition is true, then everything that follows from an event is determined by that event.
If everything is determined, do we have ...
- 1,119
0
votes
2
answers
159
views
What will be the moral and social consequences of knowing that the universe is deterministic? [duplicate]
A deterministic universe in theory where observing every interaction between particles in the universe would allow you to predict the future. A deterministic universe will be the one without any free ...
- 1
9
votes
6
answers
2k
views
Doesn't our awareness of qualia imply the brain is non-deterministic?
Even if we had a full description of how the brain physically works to transform inputs into outputs, this would not be satisfying enough and we would claim it doesn't explain why there's qualia ...
- 225
0
votes
3
answers
166
views
Causality, compatibilism and the recognition of determinism
What I seem to know so far:
So in a deterministic universe, pretty much everything is laid out and this means there is no free-will if this was a deterministic universe, you and I would not have the ...
- 1,813
1
vote
1
answer
243
views
Benjamin Libet Free Will Experiment
I'm unable to understand this GIF of Benjamin Libet's free will experiment.
Please look at the bottom left of the diagram and you'll see the numbers 1 followed by 2 and then by 3.
What I think is ...
- 5,123
8
votes
6
answers
2k
views
Are there different types of randomness?
The philosophy of probability is a subject on which many books and papers have been written, so the subject is obviously of interest to philosophers. There are many ways in which the subject of ...
- 353
0
votes
2
answers
173
views
Is life possible in a deterministic system?
A recent closed question asked 'What is life in a deterministic system?'.
The question seems to assume that life can exist in a deterministic system, but one answer and commenter in particular ...
- 4,450
0
votes
6
answers
255
views
What is Life in a Deterministic Universe? [closed]
In a deterministic universe, where every event is a result of preceding causes, the distinctions we make between living and non-living entities might be an illusion. Our perceptions—colors, sounds, ...
2
votes
5
answers
260
views
Is Everything in Time Subject to Cause and Effect?
Is the universe wholly deterministic, with every event in time being a result of a specific cause, or might some events occur independently of prior causes? I’m seeking to understand if cause and ...
4
votes
4
answers
904
views
Mechanistic view of the universe
I was chatgpting and found Encouragement of the Mechanistic View The mechanistic view in physics is driven by several key principles:
Determinism: The idea that the future behavior of a system can be ...
- 1,856
4
votes
7
answers
508
views
The Evolution of Free Will: Is Kevin Mitchell's argument robust?
In his lecture at the Royal Institution, Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin, asserts that humans have free will; that a human can be the 'locus of causal power'....
- 4,450
4
votes
1
answer
51
views
Defending Pereboom's deliberation-compatibilism from Widerker's objections, conceptualizing "agents" as Turing machines
I am trying to overcome David Widerker's objection to Derk Pereboom's account of rational deliberation. I include both Pereboom's account and Widerker's objection as a reminder/introduction at the end ...
- 141
1
vote
3
answers
235
views
How is determinism reconciled with errors?
If laws and initial conditions are enough to determine everything, how is this reconciled with the idea that quantities have limited precision (real numbers) and hence there will always be errors?
...
user74135
2
votes
1
answer
68
views
The Ancient Greeks: "running away from fate brings you directly into it". Can it be explained in secular terms? [closed]
Jews were not in agreement on the "predestiny":
There is some disagreement among scholars regarding the views on
predestination of first-century AD Judaism, out of which Christianity
came. ...
2
votes
1
answer
137
views
Can we take responsibility without having moral responsibility for some things?
Taking responsibility is distinguished from being morally responsible
in that, if one takes responsibility for a particular outcome it does
not follow that one is morally responsible for that outcome. ...
- 2,782
8
votes
9
answers
3k
views
Who Bears the Burden of Proof Regarding Free Will: Advocates or Skeptics
Debates on free will often raise the question of evidence: who will have the best evidence? However, before discussing evidence, I would like to know who bears this responsibility in philosophical and ...
- 172
2
votes
3
answers
89
views
Is this a good analogy for superdeterminism?
I am having a hard time wrapping my head around Superdeterminism. I know that it says that it violates statistical independence of measurement settings and particle behavior. But what exactly does ...
4
votes
5
answers
395
views
Can you be a determinist while thinking laws are just descriptions?
Suppose that you think laws are descriptive and not prescriptive. In other words, you think that laws merely describe what happens and not that events in the world directly follow or are prescribed by ...
0
votes
1
answer
108
views
If reality is definite, does it imply determinism?
Suppose that the universe is definite and that every single thing in the universe comes down to atoms moving around in particular ways with defined properties at every single moment.
Now, does it ...
1
vote
2
answers
62
views
Are sample spaces and counter factuals mind independent?
I was thinking about the notion of sample spaces and was wondering whether they can be “objectively” analyzed for their fruitfulness.
For example, in the case of dice rolls, it seems obvious and ...
2
votes
2
answers
552
views
The ethics of “pulling out”
This might seem trivial, but it’s earnestly been on my mind, so I do want to use it as an opportunity for philosophical learning.
Abortion is to me a very complex philosophical topic. I’ll only focus ...
- 3,154
4
votes
8
answers
292
views
Does determinism nullify the science of economics?
The science of economics is based on the assumption that people can make choices. But, for someone like me who believes that the universe is deterministic, this assumption is false, or at least I ...
- 8,092
5
votes
6
answers
1k
views
Does the want to seek determinism in physics come from a fallacy that it explains more?
Many physicists even in the modern day tend to be bothered by the indeterminism within quantum mechanics. When they see the probabilistic patterns that lie at the heart of the world, they seek a ...
1
vote
6
answers
211
views
Can an action be both determined and free?
The classical argument against free will, is that, in a deterministic universe, since everything is determined, so are human actions, and thus no human action is free. But this relies on the hidden ...
- 8,092
1
vote
2
answers
146
views
Deterministic simulation and Pascal's mugging
So the canonical description of Pascal's mugging involves simulation, and torment, of a large number of self-aware beings. What makes it even worse is that it involves a Turing machine doing the ...
- 115
2
votes
5
answers
347
views
What is wrong with the following case against determinism?
I am thinking of determinism in the following way: if we knew all the laws of nature and the complete state of the universe at a given time, we could predict everything that would happen in the future....
- 123
3
votes
1
answer
96
views
Free will as ignorance of future decisions [closed]
I find the following definition of free will appealing:
An entity that has free will...
always pays an exploration-exploitation tradeoff
is capable of higher order thought (i.e. it has an internal ...
- 131
2
votes
4
answers
128
views
Are there certain plausible assumptions, such as block or physical determinism, that lead us to conclude that everything we do is equally rational?
It seems that with certain assumptions about reality, everything we can do is equally rational.
Max Tegmark's theory of the multiverse, often referred to as the "mathematical universe hypothesis&...
0
votes
3
answers
193
views
Can we be only certain that we have free will if there is no God?
I deduce there could be these permutations of the universe.
Temporally, it is either bounded or unbounded.
If it is bounded, then it is possible God could exist to have created the universe. If God ...
- 1,119
7
votes
4
answers
3k
views
Dennett vs Sapolsky on free will: A clash over different claims?
On a recent Youtube episode of Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal Daniel Dennett, author and Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University in Massachusetts, discusses his views of Robert ...
- 4,450
4
votes
8
answers
2k
views
'Free will' as a 'confused concept': Is Ned Block correct?
A recent episode of Robert Kuhn's web series Closer to Truth puts the question of free will to Ned Block, Professor of Psychology and Philosophy at the University of New York.
Block states 'free will' ...
- 4,450
0
votes
5
answers
206
views
Are chance and determinism incompatible?
In an “objectively” chancy world such as the one proposed by some interpretations of quantum mechanics, we can only probabilistically but not fully determine measurements.
So, A and B may have a 50% ...
user62907
-1
votes
1
answer
85
views
If mathematics is invented for a deterministic reason, then do we discover that prior reason through our inventiveness? [closed]
Consider that mathematics is invented in some predetermined way. Would it then still be possible to claim that it is really invented and not discovered? Is there a point, modulo determinism, where the ...
1
vote
1
answer
79
views
What problems are there to a fictionalist response to determinism?
The general strategy of the fictionalist is to weaken what we mean by
“responsibility” so that in some weakened sense, “responsibility” can
exist even though determinism is both true and incompatible ...
user69457
2
votes
7
answers
467
views
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 ...
- 23
0
votes
2
answers
119
views
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 ...
user62907
1
vote
2
answers
126
views
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,...
user62907
1
vote
4
answers
241
views
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 ...
user62907
3
votes
2
answers
990
views
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 ...
- 1,119
1
vote
3
answers
129
views
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 ...
- 1,119
1
vote
1
answer
56
views
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 ...
user67675
2
votes
6
answers
221
views
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 ...
- 129
3
votes
5
answers
552
views
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 ...
- 189
3
votes
5
answers
1k
views
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 ...
- 764
0
votes
3
answers
199
views
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 ...
user62907
2
votes
3
answers
320
views
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.
...
user62907
0
votes
0
answers
200
views
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 ...
- 8,092
5
votes
3
answers
852
views
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 ...
- 4,450
1
vote
3
answers
1k
views
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 ...
- 1,655
0
votes
6
answers
290
views
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. ...
user62907