Sorry, I don't understand.

Didn't you point out such a thing as problematic? — Heiko

No, I didn't.

Of course it cannot be proven — Heiko

The important point to realize is that neither determinism nor indeterminist can ever be proven true or false, as they are statements about the ultimate nature of reality. So we don't need to worry about it. It's a bit like the sex of angels.

I sincerely hope you don't ever work with the vulnerable or ostracised. — Isaac

Is this sort of passive aggressiveness par for the course around here?

FYI, I do work with all sorts of people, including people poorer than you can ever imagine.

Actually, Atawulf did originally try to erase the Roman Empire, but later found the task to hard for him to achieve. — Tristan L

No, just because he understood that he needed the structures, the laws, the culture of the empire to rule it. A certain social capital is necessary to manage a big empire, and the Goths just didn't have it.

It just seems that you (or maybe just Olivier) are itching to have this discussion - so why not have a dedicated topic for it? That would invite wider participation. — SophistiCat

In retrospect, I think you are right that determinism is neither here nor there in the issue of moral responsibility and free will. It's largely a distraction, one that I was proposing to get rid of. The discussion was on Strawson's position "where everything is caused externally, deprecating personal responsibility".

Once one assumes determinism, as Strawson surely does here, then there is no thing which is uncaused. As such 'responsible' becomes a word without a referrent. That, to me, seems silly. Rather, we'd work out what it is we still mean by 'responsible' despite determinism. — Isaac

To which I answered: we can also get rid of (strict) determinism. IOW, it's a non-necessary hypothesis and occam's razor applies.

That would in my view make it easier to think through the issue of moral responsibility. One can ask questions such as "should she have reacted differently, or taken the issue more seriously?" And these questions now have a clear meaning, because we assume that she could indeed have acted differently, unencumbered anymore by the gratuitous, useless idea that she's some determined meat machine that could NEVER have acted any differently...

This said, the circumstances need to be taken into account. If I am very hungry, I will steal food, because there IS a determinism of hunger. There IS a meat machine there that wants to eat, and will do anything for it when really hungry.

If the question is whether ideas are real, is the difference between ordinary experience, poetic trope, and technical definition really the decider? — Gary M Washburn

In good cartesian fashion, if ideas are not real, I wonder what is real... Objects around us? We only know of them through our ideas of them.

Sorry about that. I think we covered a lot of ground but it's related to free will in a vague way...

Yours is a pre-kantian argument about the true essence and nature of things. It may be good metaphysics for demons and for risk-adverse folks, but it not good enough for me.

At best, your essentialist argument forces you to look for patterns in the noise, and that's a good thing. Nobody should ever stop at apparent randomness. Of course it's a good thing to try and understand further a stochastic phenomenon and to do that, postulating some hidden order as a working hypothesis is a prerequisite. But a working hypothesis is quite different from some absolute cosmic ontological a priori statement...

The fact remains that people were trying to reconstruct the Western empire long after it was gone, that there was quite some nostalgia for it during the centuries that came after its fall. Another fact that was raised here is that none of the Goths who raided Rome wanted the end of the empire. They wanted to boss the empire, or sometimes to get gold out of it it, but not to destroy it. Because they envied it, its riches, its sciences, etc. And that should tell us something about the fascination, the pregnancy that this empire has had on people's minds even beyond its borders and beyond its time.

What part of

Maybe that's what it is ontologically. Or maybe not, but ontology is for metaphysicians.

did you fail to understand?

I'm trying to stick to simple ideas because you are easily confused. Just saying that stochastic phenomena look like a duck.

The article is beyond my pay grade. You keep misunderstanding extremely simple points. Let me rephrase one more time:

When I see a phenomenon that displays a behavior resembling randomness (eg the Galton box and its results plotted against a Gauss curve), I say it looks like randomness, and I'm going to treat it as such. Maybe that's what it is ontologically. Or maybe not, but ontology is for metaphysicians. As far as science is concerned, the theories and tools that can successful model such a phenomenon are probabilistic. If one wants to study such stochastic phenomena, even for the purpose of finding some determinism in them, one will have to use probabilities, which are the best way to think of such phenomena that we have found so far.

When you see a stochastic pattern, you immediately conclude that no randomness could possibly be at play, because you don't like the idea.

So if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you conclude that it cannot be a duck because ducks don't exist. Hence it must be an elephant.

I'm not really insisting that, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. I'm just saying that this is the conclusion I will draw, personally, because I see no good reason to assume it's an elephant instead. You on the other hand, when you see that it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you conclude that it ought to be an elephant... That is your call, not mine. That sounds pretty odd to me from an empirical epistemologic perspective but you are entitled to your opinion...

I read less and less, but always hard copies. I like the physical thing in my hand. I like to ‘harm’ it, too. To fold pages, to let rain or coffee spoil a few pages, etc, because it becomes like a living being a bit.

I find notes in the margin impractical as I rarely read the same book twice.

Once, in a remote location with some time on our hand, a friend and I started reading the same book. It was a thick compendium of crime novellas by Léo Malet - cheap, funny ‘pulp fiction’ with anarchist undertones. I was somewhere in the middle of the book, perhaps at the 6th or 7th crime story, when he started reading it too. He had finished his own book. One week later we had to part, i was going off to another place and he had to stay. Both of us wanted the book pretty badly. Like a bookish St Martin, I took a knife and cut the binder in two so that my friend could go on reading his novellas, and I could finish mine.

Point being you can't read 'stochastic' and infer 'non-deterministic'. — Kenosha Kid

I can do so very easily. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.... Why would I not infer that it's a duck?

And they are also used for all sorts of calculations about random events.

determinism forwards and backwards in time. — Kenosha Kid

Double whammy. It wasn't enough one way?

This argues that nature is fundamentally stochastic. — Kenosha Kid

Stochastic
Having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analysed statistically but may not be predicted precisely.

Well, that's what I'm saying. Nature behaves as if there was some randomness in there...

Yes, the use of probabilities in thermodynamics, biology, chemistry and many other sciences could be down to measurement errors, chaotic systems, accuracy at scale, informational constraints etc. Or it could be down to randomness. It certainly looks closer to the latter.

Faced with someone suffering from a particular type of brain damage, it's a rare case when the resultant behavioural change will be a complete surprise. You seem to be taking a tiny amount of uncertainty and pretending it means we've no idea what causes what. — Isaac

You seem to take a tiny amount of certainty and make it absolute.

.

. An inability to carry out some calculation is not the same as randomness — Isaac

In the case of the neuroscientist predicting what he will think tomorrow, the impossibility is purely logical: if he can predict his future thoughts, he will think them today and not tomorrow. So if his prediction is correct, it becomes incorrect as a result of being correct.

so far everything that we have been able to know has turned out to behave deterministically — Pfhorrest

I think this is demonstrably not true, but if you can prove that the lottery is behaving deterministically, you could earn millions...

Determinism is not dependent on being able to rewind the universe. — Kenosha Kid

But it's dependent on knowing the laws of the universe, which is equally esoteric.

you don't know my position — Kenosha Kid

Now I'm curious, do expound.

There is a version of QM called Bohmian mechanics in which particles do have exact position and momentum simultaneously. It is not well liked for other reasons. — Kenosha Kid

It's non local, in particular. Which means you can never isolate any sub-set of events from the rest of the universe in any calculation. This is the Eye Of God hypothesis: One Logos Tying The Whole World In One Very Long And Convoluted, Yet Eternally Predetermined Sentence Which Will Never End Contrary To This One.

The use of probabilities could be down to measurement errors, chaotic systems, accuracy at scale, informational constraints, ...etc. Why would you see it as evidence of those fields not being fundamentally deterministic? — Isaac

I'm saying the techniques they use are fit for apprehending a reality that is not fully determined. These sciences don't assume full determination. On the contrary they assume some randomness, measure it, calculate it, etc. Rare are the scientific papers written in those sciences without some statistical annex. Now you can say that this is just a technique and that it says nothing about the underlying reality, but if we are to use empiricism to understand reality, we should not placate on probabilistic sciences some esoteric deterministic metaphysics. We should instead take what these sciences say seriously, and what they say is that reality appears quite messy even at macro levels.

Maybe there's a QM specialist on this site who could clear that up?

To my knowledge, they all do — Isaac

And yet neither thermodynamics, nor chemistry nor biology are deterministic in nature. They all use probabilities to make predictions. Something does not compute here.

Many people believe that mental life is reduceable to biology, biology reduceable to biochemistry, biochemistry reduceable to chemistry, and chemistry reduceable to physics. As a matter of fact, none of these "jumps" from one level of organization to the next has been actually understood, let alone 'reduced' by science. Each of these levels seems to follow its own set of rules, that one cannot derive (yet) from the rules applying at the lower level. Far more coherence between the sciences is assumed than proven.

If you know of any neuroscientist who consider cell-level interactions to be non-deterministic, I'd be interested in some citations. How would they even go about conducting research? What would they research? — Isaac

Whatever his opinion on the matter, no neuroscientist will ever be able to predict what he will think tomorrow. If he did, he would think it today and no tomorrow.

Magically rewinding the universe is not. — Kenosha Kid

Exactly, and hence determinism is a rather esoteric idea.

you don't like the idea of predetermination so say the universe is random. Fine. But the universe isn't obliged to cater for your taste. — Kenosha Kid

And likewise, you don't like the idea of randomness and you try to erase it from your POV, when I see it everywhere around me. To each his own metaphysics...

What is not compelling to me is the story that, if the universe was to magically rewind at the time of the Big Bang and unfold again, every single thing will happen exactly the same as it did the first time around, like when you play the same movie over again, including Tim's bumblebee flying on exactly the same trajectory through his garden, on the exact same day and time, and pollinating the exact same flowers...

And QM is not a gap. Randomness is systemic in it, and it applies supposedly to the entire universe.

To know whether a ball will roll downhill or uphill, — Kenosha Kid

Indeterminism says that some things are predetermined to a degree, but not necessarily everything and not necessarily to a perfect degree. We can make predictions and observations within a non-deterministic framework. QM scientists and biologists and sociologists and scores of other disciplines do it all the time.

Modesty aside, my English is good enough to understand what you are trying to say. And to the degree that my own words are imprecise, if you care for a more detailed and elaborate exposition of the indeterminist thesis, the Open Universe is your book. It could teach a lot in terms of adopting a human perspective on science, as opposed to God's view, which you tend to adopt a bit too easily.

You could start with the following principles:

1. In no situation can we possibly know all relevant information about a case, and even if by miracle we did know everything relevant about a case, we couldn't be sure of it.
2. We can never measure anything exactly, there's always a margin of error.
3. We can never be sure that any of our scientific theories is true.

So all we got are uncertain theories and unprecise measurements about an incomplete list of variables. Let that sink in for a second.

Now, determinism states that IF we knew with exactitude all there is to know about a state of affairs at time t; and IF we knew all the laws of nature; and IF we had infinite computation capacity; THEN we could predict exactly the state of affairs at time t + x.

The first two conditions will never be met. The third one would require infinite energy and time so it will never happen... None of these conditions will ever apply in our human lives. So much so that determinists appeal to various demons in their demonstrations, like the Laplace's demon.

Ergo determinism is perhaps a usable theory for demons, but it says nothing relevant to the human condition and the possibility of human knowledge.

Abderhaman, Martin, David
What if the sky was empty?

So many processions, so many bowed heads
So many hoods, so much wished fear
So many demagogues from temples to synagogues
So many joined hands and hurried prayers

So many angelus
That resonate
What if, on top of it
There is no one?

Abderhaman, Martin, David
What if the sky was empty?

There is so much torpor
Analgesic music
So many painkillers in these pretty hymns
There are so many questions and so many mysteries
So many compassion, and so many revolvers

So many angelus
That resonate
What if, on top of it
There is no one?

Arour hachem, Inch Allah
Are Krishhna, Hallelujah

Abderhaman, Martin, David
What if the sky was empty?

What if all the tracer bullets
All the handguns
All the ignorant women
All the orphaned children
What if all these lives that capsize
Those wet eyes
What if it was just for the old joy
Of the kill?

And the angelus
Resonates
What if, on top of it
There is no one?

No, I'm French.

complicated and dubious one — Kenosha Kid

It's not complicated to abandon an hypothesis, especially when it makes no pragmatic difference whatsoever.

you'd either have to say there is no certainty about nothing or consider metaphysics. — Heiko

I do consider metaphysics, I don't discard them. Every body got some metaphysics or another. Mine is that the universe is open, evolutive, not predetermined, and thus that time is not redundant, and that we can be free.

In this sense Popper was outdated by theories that do not care about truth but about usefulness or buisiness values. — Heiko

That may well be the case. But people who do not care about truth don't usually succeed very long. Everything is that trivial in the end: it's about probabilities, always. There is no full certainty about much. All we know in biology is based on stats for instance. And yet it works. We're learning useful stuff.

You just proved that determinism is a metaphysical theory, because there is no conceivable experiment with a conceivable outcome that could prove it false. Even if balls spake in Shakespearean verses, we would still be looking for what could possibly cause that, rather than just conclude "oh well, the universe is acting funny tonight".

I expect you to understand it at some point, but perhaps not today.

I'll take that as a no.

So... Did you find that magical experiment yet?

You are a bit slow realizing the problem... Omniscience is required to test determinism. One has to know the true laws of nature in order to know if they are determinist of not. There's no other way. Otherwise you're only testing an hypothethis, which you can reject if the experience fails, without rejecting determinism. Another determinist hypothesis may still work. Maybe you just tested the wrong theory.

That is why you are incapable of thinking of an experiment disproving determinism. It's not your fault; it cannot be done.

What is your fault, really, is your hubris, your way of thinking as if you were God, to assume you can know all relevant information about a certain situation, for instance. This is ridiculous, sorry to say, and not worth my time. How the heck would you know that you know all relevant information, pray tell? You have an all-relevant-information meter hidden somewhere that we should know about?

Probabilistic theories are in practice discarded when their odds of being wrong is repeatedly calculated at more than 10%. Some place the bar at 5%. It's subjective. To simplify it means that in a casino, a player who beats the odds repeatedly by more than 10% should be looked at very closely, cause something is askew in his stats.

Through gritted teeth... all relevant information — Kenosha Kid

You are not God, are you?