Did you happen to observe my recent demonstration, here on the forums, of how predictable people can be?
— wonderer1
No. I'll take a look if you provide a link. I'm skeptical that the level of prediction you are talking about is as rigorous as what would be required to claim strict determinism. I don't doubt that events in the past have effects in the present and future. That's different. — T Clark
Perhaps it depends on your preferences. Few long term determinists, that I have observed, fail to recognize the monkeymindedness of retribution. I think humans recognizing their nature is a good thing.
Of course that's fallacious in all sorts of way. Not least, it's an appeal to consequences. — wonderer1
Morally, I think it's misleading because it is used to justify a willingness not to hold people responsible for their actions. — T Clark
Do you mean that determinists still blame others for their actions erroneously? Assuming it is, I would say that perhaps they can't help doing that, even if there might not be any rational warrant for it. — Janus
I don't understand what you are saying in your last sentence. — Janus
What I was trying to convey in saying, "Of course that's fallacious in all sorts of way. Not least, it's an appeal to consequences.", is that I don't expect people to see what I said prior as a rational argument. Just reinforcing that this is a matter of subjective preference on my part. — wonderer1
Anyway, what I'm referring to can be found on this page starting with my post which is about the tenth one down on that page. — wonderer1
I know what you mean, but such thinking is perhaps lacking in subtlety. Society has little choice but to hold people responsible for their actions, so there is pragmatic, even if not purely rational, warrant for that. To hold people responsible is not necessarily to blame them, though, but would necessarily entail restraining them by whatever means required, in order to stop them committing further crimes, or in the case of lesser infractions, shunning them or shaming them, in the hope of discouraging them and others from committing undesirable acts. The point there of restraint and even punishment, if necessary, would be to act as an example to others, hopefully persuading them not to commit similar socially unacceptable acts. Whatever works. — Janus
All that being said, I think that's a whole different thing than what I typically call determinism. — T Clark
The first paper that you cited makes an important point about predictability right in the abstract, by drawing a distinction between external predictability and embedded predictability: — SophistiCat
The Paradox is roughly this: information or knowledge of the initial conditions and laws of nature should allow a true prediction of the action of some person or subsystem with those initial conditions and that is governed by those laws of nature. Such a prediction must be true. However, if the person or subsystem in question acts in a way that falsifies the prediction, then the prediction is not true. In brief, the prediction must be true, however it is not true when the prediction is falsified by the action of the person or subsystem considered. — NotAristotle
Issue 1: What do you make of this thought experiment? Does it disprove determinism? — NotAristotle
The distinction does save the logical coherence of determinism in the short term, but at what price? Does it rise above the level of an ad hoc response to the paradox of predictability? Is the determinist doing more than merely defending their theory by saying, "Oh, well in that case we stipulate that our observer is not part of the universe"? — Leontiskos
↪andrewk rightly makes the claim that the demon must be "causally isolated from [our universe]." But is it really coherent to envisage a being who is outside of the causal universe in this manner? — Leontiskos
↪T Clark suggests that determinism without in-principle predictability is a meaningless idea. Whether or not that is right, such a form of determinism is a great deal more meaningless and toothless than the sort of determinism which brings along with it the intuitive consequence of in-principle predictability. — Leontiskos
T Clark throws around accusations of meaninglessness rather freely — SophistiCat
The Paradox is roughly this: information or knowledge of the initial conditions and laws of nature should allow a true prediction of the action of some person or subsystem with those initial conditions and that is governed by those laws of nature. Such a prediction must be true. However, if the person or subsystem in question acts in a way that falsifies the prediction, then the prediction is not true. In brief, the prediction must be true, however it is not true when the prediction is falsified by the action of the person or subsystem considered. — NotAristotle
No, as it would require an infinite recurrence. — Jabberwock
'Pick an option opposite to what you would have picked' is unrealizable both for humans and for determinate machines — Jabberwock
I think these are different issues. For a libertarian, the difference between a human and a computer lies precisely in the fact that humans do possess infinite recursion. We can reflect and bend back on our own thought in a way that is not limited. The second quote here isn't as interesting, and I doubt it is even true, though this depends on definitions. A computer could be programmed to switch its output to "output = !output" as a response to an input command. But strictly speaking, counterfactuals do not exist for computers. — Leontiskos
...so determinists do not need ad hoc assumptions to defend against the paradox of predictability, as long as they are willing to concede that some types of predictability are not realizable in principle in a deterministic universe. — SophistiCat
Though I am not a committed determinist myself... — SophistiCat
At the same time, I am not convinced that there is one true theory to rule them all at the bottom of creation. Which in turn makes it meaningless to ask whether the world is really deterministic or indeterministic. — SophistiCat
I originally said that the minimal definition of determinism that does not commit to predictability of any sort is the more conventional one. That can be debated, but I would maintain that it is close to what is usually meant by determinism in the sciences, which are concerned with specific laws and theories, rather than final and absolute truths about the world. In such contexts distinguishing deterministic and indeterministic systems is meaningful and useful. — SophistiCat
I think it is worth making explicit your stakes if you are going to argue for a particular demarcation. Why is unrestricted in-principle predictability important to you? — SophistiCat
Echoing my elaboration post, what justification is required to claim that a system is deterministic? Exhaustive predictability is the strongest form of justification, is it not? At least when it comes to systems which are not man-made (artificial)? And at the very least, everything in the system must at least plausibly be in-principle predictable. It's not at all clear to me that the thesis of determinism can be separated from a claim of in-principle predictability, and if this is correct then where in-principle predictability is incoherent, determinism fails. — Leontiskos
I would want to say that no intellect which understands determinism could be deterministic. If such an intellect claims that it itself is deterministic, then either it does not understand what determinism means (and is therefore equivocating), or else it does understand what determinism means and is drawing a non-sequitur. To understand what determinism means is at the same time to place oneself outside of the deterministic paradigm. As I said in my follow-up, the theorizer can never be accounted for by his theory (at least in the way the determinist supposes he could be). — Leontiskos
My guess is that this rests on my conviction that true knowledge—which is different than Plato's "true opinion"—cannot be necessitated. — Leontiskos
But determinism is a "final and absolute truth about the world," and even the minimal definition, provided in your very first post, is committed to in-principle predictability. — Leontiskos
Predictability is the most straightforward and intuitive path towards inductive (or abductive, if you prefer) inference of determinism. But induction (abduction) is not exhaustive by its very nature. — SophistiCat
On the other hand, if you are looking at a formal model, you may be able conclude whether or not it is deterministic without demonstrating predictability, simply by analyzing its structure. — SophistiCat
Yeah, I didn't get that bit. I don't need to know everything in order to know (or have an opinion about) something. — SophistiCat
Well, I don't share that conviction, and neither would any determinist, obviously. — SophistiCat
But determinism is a "final and absolute truth about the world,"... — Leontiskos
No, it's really not. — SophistiCat
...I would maintain that it is close to what is usually meant by determinism in the sciences, which are concerned with specific laws and theories, rather than final and absolute truths about the world. — SophistiCat
Causal determinism is, roughly speaking, the idea that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature. — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy | Causal Determinism
Yes, but this is the man-made (artificial) case that I excluded. The determinist's claim is not a claim which limits itself to artificial realities. There is no formal model to justify the determinist's claim, which is a claim about all of reality. — Leontiskos
Okay, fair enough. Since our approach to the act of understanding may be different, I may be begging the question here. I would want to say that an intellect which understands something transcends that thing through its act of understanding. So if I understand a Roomba vacuum in its entirety then I have, at least in some way, transcended it. I have contained it in a way that it has not contained me. A concrete example of this would be the case where I am able to predict its movements whereas it is not able to predict my movements.
From there I want to say that 1) to assert that something is deterministic is to imply exhaustive (in-principle) comprehension or standing-over or encompassment; 2) to assert that all existing things are deterministic entails asserting that I myself am deterministic; 3) to assert that I am deterministic involves applying (1) to myself; but 4) I cannot pretend to comprehend or stand over or encompass myself, for it is impossible for something to stand over itself or encompass itself.
The weak premise here is surely (1). Someone will say, "I am not claiming exhaustive comprehension, but only a probabilistic opinion." To be naively concise, my point is not that the act itself is an act of comprehensive understanding, but rather that the supposition or hunch or opinion contains within itself a failure to recognize the boundary of (4). "I have a hunch that I myself am fully explainable in terms of deterministic principles," involves the idea that a theory which came from minds itself fully explains minds. But that can't be. Just as a mind cannot comprehend itself, neither can a theory produced by a mind comprehensively explain minds. Whatever else we want to say determinism is, it is surely also a theory.
So feel free to have a go at (1), but do give me some insight into your own views in the process. — Leontiskos
This is a different argument. I don't want to stretch this post too long, but I want to say something about it. Would you be willing to grant that it appears that the act of understanding is neither necessitated nor inevitable? Or does it simply appear to you that an act which is accepted to be necessitated, like two billiard balls colliding, and an act of understanding, like Pythagoras' act of understanding the Pythagorean theorem, equally possess the quality of "necessitated"? It seems that we usually take necessitation to preclude knowledge, e.g., "He's just parroting the definition of the Pythagorean theorem to pass the quiz. He doesn't really understand it." (Although this example doesn't utilize strict causal necessitation, it does utilize instrumental or consequence necessitation, i.e. <It is necessary to recite this theorem in order to pass the quiz, therefore I will recite the theorem>.) — Leontiskos
A scientist who calls an arbitrary system deterministic—such as a Roomba vacuum—is not thereby a determinist. Determinism is a philosophical theory about the entirety of existence, not some subset of it — Leontiskos
So apparently determinism is an absolute truth about the world and not a limited truth about certain parts of the world. — Leontiskos
Sorry for the late response. I've been traveling and otherwise preoccupied. — SophistiCat
On the contrary, I wouldn't even know how to understand determinism other than in the context of a model (formal or informal, complete or partial). Even if we take your favored criterion of predictability, what would you make predictions from if not from a model? It's models all the way down when we talk about determinism or indeterminism. — SophistiCat
On the other hand, if you are looking at a formal model, you may be able conclude whether or not it is deterministic without demonstrating predictability, simply by analyzing its structure. — SophistiCat
The weak premise here is indeed (1), but not for the reason you give. As I already explained, "exhaustive (in-principle) comprehension" is not how I understand determinism, and I don't think this tracks with the general usage either. — SophistiCat
I suspect that your real concern here is not with necessitation in the sense of causal determination, but with sourcehood: being an autonomous and responsible agent, the true "owner" and originator of thought and action. — SophistiCat
but I will only say that the contrary position - that the world is indeterministic - may not be of much help to you — SophistiCat
True, which is why I think that to be a determinist or indeterminist in the above sense you need to hold to a kind of totalizing reductionist view in which there is (in principle) one true theory that describes the world in its totality. That theory can then be either deterministic or indeterministic. If you don't hold to that view, then I don't see what the terms determinism and indeterminism could even mean to you. — SophistiCat
I agree with Leontiskos. All humans have a free will and belief in that truth is what is at stake in the determinism debate.I am an advocate of human freedom — Leontiskos
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