Hard Determinism: Is it Necessarily True?

[mubashirmansoor]

Yes... both determinism and freewill have strong reasons behind the scene and the problem is we can't select the right ones from the false ones... Maybe the whole discussion is just useless...

I've come to some little different conclusions concerning what we like the universe to be, ie; predetermined or not WE choose what sounds good to us and then find some reasons to support it. If this is true the people (like me) who choose hard determinism are the ones who are not somehow satisfied with their acts and decisions in the past, and in order to reduce the burden and get a relief they choose its all predetermined as a result I DID NOTHING.

The ones choosing freewill are much satisfied with there past and there isn't much that makes them go mad about the past of their life, as a result they say WE DID EVERYTHING.

_____________

In this way (if true), the discussion on freewill or determinism is totally psychological and far away from logic and even philosophy at least with our present science.

I'll be glad to know your comments on this :)

 

[navneet1990]

i kinda disagree with that
true maybe that our actions or the state of our system maybe predetermined. but the flow of energy from initial point to final maybe different and it is this choice that we call free will. the freedom to choose the path.
whatever is happening has happened,is happening and will continue to happen but in a different form. this difference in the course of actions is what constitues the free will.

 

[mubashirmansoor]

i kinda disagree with that
true maybe that our actions or the state of our system maybe predetermined. but the flow of energy from initial point to final maybe different and it is this choice that we call free will. the freedom to choose the path.
whatever is happening has happened,is happening and will continue to happen but in a different form. this difference in the course of actions is what constitues the free will.

So are you disagreeing with this discussion being psychological instead of logical ? which I mentioned in post number 51.

Thanks for the reply :)

 

[nickwalker12]

This is a great topic, I've joined just to write here. I'm a believer in Hard Determinism, and the two arguments that go against it seem to be;

• Randomness
• Free Will being an Axiom

Firstly, Randomness: I think that the illusion of randomness stems from the human inability to comprehend such extraordinary events and complexities of nature. An example is the fact that no human instrument can calculate when a single atom will decay. Or the example of how we cannot know the position and velocity of an electron (if I'm not mistaken). We either know one, or the other.

As out of whack mentioned:
"Knowing and predicting are quite different from determinism. Regardless of the existence or non-existence of determinism, you still cannot know everything and you still cannot predict everything. The universe (all there is) is too big, complex and inter-related for any part of itself to be able to do that."

But just because we do not understand it, does that mean its random? Random in itself is flawed. How does nature create randomness?
For example; You have a letter, A, and at a random point in time that letter will change from A to B. Its completely random. There are two problems with this.
Firstly, the fact that it will happen makes it not random at all. We know for sure that it will change, just not when.
Secondly, what cause makes it change? For something to change, it needs to be changed. You can't type a letter on a keyboard without pushing down a key. You can't stand up without something (or things) controlling your muscles. Everything needs a cause to have an effect, and the only way something can be truly random is if its cause is random. But then how far back does this have to go?

We live in a world that has rules. A computer physics simulation has laws, as does the world. Just because we cannot understand them, does not make them random.

The illusion of Randomness exists only because the human mind cannot, or does not, comprehend what’s happening. Its impossible to program randomness, in a computer and in a world. Determinism is simply cause and effect.

Your a nice person because you've grown up with good moral teachings, because you've naturally (nature is deterministic) picked up the traits of a nice person. Every thought you have, has been determined.

Which brings me to the next point, The Axiom of Free-Will; Sure you could say free will exists, as a human does what he wants. He has the freedom, the liberty, to do what he likes. However, this is confused with freedom of mind. Your mind is not free, it’s the opposite. Everything you do is done for a specific reason. A cough, a laugh, a hand shake, a bite of food etc. Its impossible to do something simply to do it. You might attempt that, but ultimately your doing it to prove a point, which means your not simply doing something to do it. Everything you do, you do for a reason (or multiple reasons), however small or simple. More importantly, that reason is always fixed, it cannot be controlled at the specific time of the decision. I eat peanut butter because I like it, fixed. I’m about to leave for work because I want to get to work on time for my new job, fixed. I didn’t choose to want to make a good impression, I just do. Its me.

Freedom of mind implies that your mind has no influences. Your mind is random, which its not. Everything, literally everything you will ever do/have done, is done for a reason. Randomness doesn’t fit into this.

When I hit a key on a piano, there is a chain reaction that causes sound. This can only happen if the properties of the piano are fixed. If one part of the piano suddenly lost a few laws of physics, it may go through the other objects, make light instead of sound etc. I struggle to see how people can honestly believe anything other than a deterministic world. You tell me how randomness works, how an atom suddenly decays (atom decay follows a pattern, just like the “randomness” of a flip of a coin. The more coins you flip, the clearer the correlation).

Cheers.

EDIT: The other argument is that of changing the future. What your actually doing is acting out the deterministic world. For example, think of events as a train track, with multiple routes. A train follows one path out of infinitely many. Why? Because its determined to do so. If you change your mind, determinism has already factored that in. If determinism was a being, he'd tell you that he knew you would change your mind, because something made you change your mind, that had already been factored in. You cannot change a deterministic world, as whatever happens, has already been determined. Laws of physics (even ones that humans cannot understand) means determinism. Full stop.

 

[Boy@n]

If nature is all there is, then perhaps yes, present and future are dependable on past events, thus all being determined.

But why wouldn't it be possible that Mind emerges out of Nature and goes beyond it in its freedom of choosing?

(To not mention possibility of soul, as non-physical substance, binding with physical substance as brains and body, where soul might be of different realm than known physical Universe, thus soul being unnatural, or supernatural - that is, not being governed by natural laws.)

Do a sily (thought) experiment: take a blank paper, draw several dots on it, and now chose one. Is your choice determined by your past life and experiences, or it's independent of them and spontaneous in that particular moment?

I strongly believe it's spontaneous, moreoever, I think a human being has a very efficient method of choosing without effort even if there are several options of same value. For a computer making a good algorithm for "free" chosing is very difficult, since there have to be exact rules on how computers "simulates" chosing and produce randomness -- it's very hard (if not impossible) for a computer to generate random numbers of very high quality (to generate high quality random numbers for security applications computers are not used but analog devices).

I'd go as far as to say that I think "initial sparkles" which then ignite thoughts, images, words, are perhaps based on quantum fluctuations -- if you silence your mind, if you force yourself to not think of any image or word, or anything at all, you'll note that mind is still full of activity, and that it's very hard to hold it from generating a complete thought. Of course though, that past life experiences influence on which "sparkles" in mind we then focus and build more thoughts upon them. Which then determinates our choices and actions.

So, I'd say "sparkles", or say, initial bare thoughts, are spontanteous, what we focus on is less so, and more dependent on our character, or say, who we are in that moment. And who we are changes, in lesser or higher degree, and that's based on both: our free-will and our learned experiences.

 

[nickwalker12]

But why wouldn't it be possible that Mind emerges out of Nature and goes beyond it in its freedom of choosing?

Two problems:

• How?: To say mind and body are separate is to believe in some strange supernatural part of space that houses each individuals thoughts. I think humans are naturally self centred, and thus must explain their own very existence with elaborate claims. Personally, I think that everything your thinking right now, its all just brain activity.
• Why?: Why is the mind separate to the body? Is it a realm that gives you free will? Thus, how do you make decisions if your not using any earthly influences. What I mean is, is that in, for example, a decision to eat one food over another, the fact that I like peanut butter is not supernatural, its physical, its better on my taste buds. Why go to the supernatural to answer that question, when earthly answers are more than satisfactory, they're beneficial because I'd stay alive if I ate.

Do a silly (thought) experiment: take a blank paper, draw several dots on it, and now chose one. Is your choice determined by your past life and experiences, or it's independent of them and spontaneous in that particular moment?...


...I think a human being has a very efficient method of choosing without effort even if there are several options of same value. For a computer making a good algorithm for "free" choosing is very difficult, since there have to be exact rules on how computers "simulates" choosing and produce randomness.

And to reply to your example. Its easy as long as the decision is not important. Imagine if you had some sick psychopathic killer holding you at gun point, and he says that out of the 13 dots, if you pick any of the wrong 12, he will shoot. It makes the decision a lot harder, despite the fact that its purely chance. Everything a computer does, needs a purpose. If you asked a computer to pick a dot, it would use a "random" generator to decide, unless you programmed it to have a certain bias to certain dot positioning...

I strongly believe it's spontaneous...

I fully disagree with you there. Of course you have some spur of the moment replies, but the well thought out ones take time. And, in the case of stubbornness (Theists *cough cough*) some people will have an answer before you even ask the question.

If someone asked you: Are you male or female? Your answer would surely be on the spot. However, if someone asked you: What is 249*19? you'd take a varied amount of time to work out the answer.

And then the holey deterministic answer, its not at all spontaneous. Take an example of a split in the road. You either go down path A or path B. When asked if the decision is spontaneous a determinist would surely say no, for that man has known since he started his journey which direction to go in, otherwise he would be lost! More specifically, he would have known his answer as soon as he looked at his map to plan out the journey!

If one set of influences are greater than the other (for example: 'A road is the right path' is a greater influence than 'B road looks interesting') you'd have your answer before you were even asked the question. However, the closer the influences balance out (just think of each influence as a mathematical value), I.e. equal 0 the harder the decision. For example: Peanut butter is equally as good as marmite, which to eat? I can't decide.

You get the idea. If you don’t, just think: Marmite has a 20 "influence". Peanut butter also has a 20 "influence". The difference is 0. Peanut butter, however, is 10 better than chocolate spread, which has 10 "influence".

A nice thing to call the numbers are "motons". Moton = motivational factor.


What I would agree with you on, however, is the sparking of influences. When your asked a question, all the influences you can think off (Marmite, peanut butter etc.) "spark" to mind, unless you were already thinking about them. This is how you can persuade people. You can change the moton value of an influence, or add a new influence in altogether. Eg;
"But this is not so bad..." making the moton less.
"Have you ever considered this?" a new motonic value.

Its an odd way to describe decision making, but i think it works. It surely fits in with "weighing up the options.