bounds of the specific definitions of "determinism" used in the OP which, as I said, are:

* A system is deterministic just in case the state of the system at one time fixes the state of the system at all future times. A system is indeterministic just in case it is not deterministic.

* Causal determinism is, roughly speaking, the idea that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature.

* Determinism is the understanding that all events, including moral choices, are completely determined by previously existing causes. — T Clark

How did I step outside? Btw: causal detetminism does not require that anyone have any knowledge of causation. It's not about knowledge. It is related to a conviction that all causes are knowable. This is naturalism.

Here's what you wrote:

It's just folk wisdom that the mead you're drinking isn't going to turn into petroleum on its way down your throat without a knowable explanation.

How is our confidence in that justified? Opinions vary, but I don't think anyone believes it's dependent on somebody knowing something. — frank

I don't see how our confidence that mead won't spontaneously turn into petroleum has anything to do with determinism as we are discussing it.

I was addressing fdrake's question. Do you want me to explain my response?

I was addressing fdrake's question. Do you want me to explain my response? — frank

I went back and checked to make sure I understood what you were responding to. I think I did. Yes, a bit more detail would be helpful.

drake was asking about the knowledge that vouchsafes causal determinism.

I don't think there is any. The assumption that all causes are knowable has historically been a part if the methodology of science.

At this point, it's also common sense. Doesn't mean it's true, but that's the foundation of causal determinism.

I don't think there is any [knowledge that vouchsafes causal determinism]. The assumption that all causes are knowable has historically been a part if the methodology of science. — frank

I agree with both statements.

At this point, it's also common sense. Doesn't mean it's true, but that's the foundation of causal determinism. — frank

Causal determinism is the concept that is being examined in this thread. Do you think science will fall apart without it? I don't.

you think science will fall apart without it? — T Clark

Science (which means knowledge), will fall apart when societies withdraw support. That could happen for a number of reasons.

Science (which means knowledge), will fall apart when societies withdraw support. That could happen for a number of reasons. — frank

That's not what I meant. I was trying to say that I don't think science needs determinism as defined in the OP conceptually in order continue successfully.

That's not what I meant. I was trying to say that I don't think science needs determinism as defined in the OP conceptually in order continue successfully. — T Clark

Quantum Mechanics' probabilistic outputs are used to build many great devices that work.

Quantum Mechanics' probabilistic outputs are used to build many great devices that work. — PoeticUniverse

True, but I don't see how it's relevant to the discussion.

True, but I don't see how it's relevant to the discussion. — T Clark

I was trying to say that I don't think science needs determinism as defined in the OP conceptually in order continue successfully. — T Clark

That's not what I meant. I was trying to say that I don't think science needs determinism as defined in the OP conceptually in order continue successfully. — T Clark

Dont know. Some say science as we know it was born in the age of mechanism. As we graduate from that age, there is fear that letting go of a naturalistic anchor will open the door to rampant superstition and trance dancing.

Science could probably use some help from the part of philosophy that isn't just a cheerleader for a mechanistic perspective.

Two problems with this. 1) I'm talking about physical determinism, you're talking about logical determinism. Not the same thing at all. — T Clark

Only if you're a dualist. For a monist there is no difference. It's all causal.

2) I've made it clear that I'm talking about complex systems. I used an example, billiard balls, where a case can be made for predictability and determinism. You don't have to go much up the ladder of complexity before direct empirical predictability is lost and we are left to deal with probabilities. I'm using the words "direct" and "empirical" to mean predictability made possible by actually tracking the positions of particles and calculating future conditions. I'm not sure if those are the right words to use. — T Clark

Yeah, this went over my head. Can you give an example? It seems to me that our predictions are either confirmed or rejected empirically.

Good point. I've tried to make the case that, in all but the simplest systems, empirical predictability is not humanly possible. If I flip a coin 1,000 times, there are 2^1,000 possible combinations of results, each with equal probability. That''s about 1 x 10^300. Web says there are about 1 x 10^80 atoms in the visible universe. That's what I mean by "outside the scope of human possibility." — T Clark

Again, your confusing probabilities with reality. Probabilities only exist in the human mind as imaginings.

Well randomness doesn't have to be like the popular notion of it. — fdrake

If we take "random" to refer to processes which are not causally determined, then, under that definition at least, there can be no randomness in a deterministic system.

Just to be clear, you are referring to metaphysical and epistemological truths, is that correct? If so, then yes, it's a matter of preference or consensus. If we're going to try to work something out together, we have to come to an agreement on these issues, which provide the underlying rules of the game. Otherwise, we'll just spin our wheels, as so often happens on the forum — T Clark

I agree. The "wheel-spinning" seems to be generated by the unacknowledged incompatibility of people's basic assumptions or definitions. If we can agree on basic premises and definitions, then there might be a decent chance that consensus can be achieved.

Possibilities only arise as a result of our ignorance. If we knew the outcome, their is only one "possibility".

I guess what I'm gesturing towards is why should we care about the perspective of God on a system when God's external to it? — fdrake

It is incorrect to say that God is ‘external’ to the Universe. God is understood as transcendent-yet-immanent - beyond and also within.

Not so. That is contradicted by the wave equation which is precisely a distribution of probabilities. There is not an objectively-existing particle lurking undiscovered.

There is not an objectively-existing particle lurking undiscovered. — Wayfarer

That there are definitely no undiscovered particles seems to be a wholly unwarranted assumption.

Dont know. Some say science as we know it was born in the age of mechanism. As we graduate from that age, there is fear that letting go of a naturalistic anchor will open the door to rampant superstition and trance dancing.

Science could probably use some help from the part of philosophy that isn't just a cheerleader for a mechanistic perspective. — frank

Whether or not we are leaving "the age of mechanism" I don't think there's any reason to throw out the scientific baby with the bathwater. Or is it the baby with the scientific bathwater?

Can you give an example? — Harry Hindu

• "Empirical" predictability - billiard balls.
• Probabilistic predictability - coin flips

Probabilities only exist in the human mind as imaginings. — Harry Hindu

Only in the sense everything only exists in the human mind as imaginings.

If we take "random" to refer to processes which are not causally determined, then, under that definition at least, there can be no randomness in a deterministic system. — Janus

Random - Of or characterizing a process of selection in which each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen.

I don't see why that implies a lack of causation.

The "wheel-spinning" seems to be generated by the unacknowledged incompatibility of people's basic assumptions or definitions. If we can agree on basic premises and definitions, then there might be a decent chance that consensus can be achieved. — Janus

Agreed.

I guess what I'm gesturing towards is why should we care about the perspective of God on a system when God's external to it?
— fdrake

It is incorrect to say that God is ‘external’ to the Universe. God is understood as transcendent-yet-immanent - beyond and also within. — Wayfarer

Seems to me that science has always claimed to see the world from a God's eye view, from the outside, whether or not it was expected a God was there to view it.

There is not an objectively-existing particle lurking undiscovered.
— Wayfarer

That there are definitely no undiscovered particles seems to be a wholly unwarranted assumption. — Janus

It is part of the Copenhagen interpretation. Remember ‘wave-particle duality’? that you see one or the other depending on your experimental set up, but you can’t say what you’re measuring apart from the observation you actually make. So it undermines the idea of there being an objective reality behind the observation. To many (including Einstein) that is shocking, but as Bohr said, if you don’t find it shocking then you’re probably not understanding it.

Seems to me that science has always claimed to see the world from a God's eye view, from the outside, whether or not it was expected a God was there to view it. — T Clark

Not ‘always’, not by a long stretch. It is very much characteristic of modern science, post Galileo-Newton-Descartes.

Karen Armstong’s 2009 ‘Case for God’ was written as a response to the new atheism fad, but from an unusual perspective, namely that of cultural history and comparative religion, rather than regular apologetics. The aspect that is directly relevant to this particular point is the way that she said the early moderns brought God into the picture of emerging modern science, as a kind of guarantor and under-writer of natural law; 'God's handiwork' as Newton would say. However this proved to be a double-edged sword, because as the scope of the natural science expanded (or exploded!), the requirement for a being to 'set the wheels in motion', as the deist God was thought to have done, became less and less; this is the origin of the 'God of the gaps' argument. But the problem, according to Armstrong, was with the entire conception of 'God' as a kind of celestial super-engineer in the first place. It was an anthropomorphic projection that was in some ways an inevitable outgrowth of monotheism and it was that which leads directly to the kind of caricature of religion that is the subject of criticism by modern atheism. There's been an un-noticed perspectival shift behind it which is very hard to see.

the idea of God as Supreme Being means that he is simply like us, writ large, but just bigger and better, the end product of the series; whereas this divine personality that we meet in the Bible was, for centuries, regarded simply as a symbol of a greater transcendence that lay beyond.

Some theologians (such as Paul Tillich) have called this the God beyond God. And this God isn't just a being like you or me, or the microphone in front of me, or even the atom, an unseen being that we can find in our laboratories. What we mean by God is, some theologians have said, is being itself that is in everything that is around us and cannot be tied down to one single instance of being. — Karen Armstrong

How is determinism different from predictability. — T Clark

To answer that question, I think it's useful to consider a simple system and how it would be represented.

Consider a light switch that is connected to a light bulb. The state of the bulb (lit or unlit) is determined by the state of the switch (on or off). With that specification, the state of the bulb is also predictable. That is, if we know the state of the switch then we can predict the state of the bulb with certainty.

In this scenario, the term "determined" relates to just the system itself whereas the term "predictable" relates to an agent's knowledge of the system.

Some observations:

1. The claim of determinism for the system depends on particular assumptions. For example, there must be power present, the circuit must not be broken or subject to interference, the bulb won't store power, etc. That is, we're considering the system in a formal (or idealized) sense.

2. The example system is a closed system - the output (bulb state) is fully specified by the input (switch state).

3. We could introduce a randomizing component into the circuit such that the bulb is randomly lit when the switch is turned on. If the randomizing element is an input to the system, then the system is both non-deterministic and unpredictable. If the randomizing element is internal to the system but its mechanics unknown, then the system would be deterministic but unpredictable.

4. At a more detailed level of representation, the system may have non-deterministic components. For example, there are molecular quantum events that do not affect the predictability of the high-level operation. Thus the system can be non-deterministic yet predictable.

It is part of the Copenhagen interpretation. Remember ‘wave-particle duality’? that you see one or the other depending on your experimental set up, but you can’t say what you’re measuring apart from the observation you actually make. So it undermines the idea of there being an objective reality behind the observation. To many (including Einstein) that is shocking, but as Bohr said, if you don’t find it shocking then you’re probably not understanding it. — Wayfarer

OK, firstly I thought you were referring to an existing particle of a different kind than any currently known, and were claiming that there were no such particles to be discovered.

I see now that you mean something else; that before the particle is observed it has no existence. I am familiar with the "Copenhagen" idea that the particle has no definite position prior to being measured (observed), but not with the claim that is has no existence.

Can you cite an authoritative text that contains such a claim?

Random - Of or characterizing a process of selection in which each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen.

I don't see why that implies a lack of causation. — T Clark

The way I understand it the concept of determinism is the idea that all events have physical causes which determine them 100 percent. QM of course denies this, and claims that there is a genuinely random (in the sense of not 100 percent causally determined) element in physical events. The idea of indeterminism is that at "bottom" physical events are truly random (uncaused) but that due to their large-scale probabilistic nature they average out to produce macroscopic events which seem to us to be 100 percent causally determined, I am very much open to being corrected on this, since my understanding is by no means anything approaching expert level.

the particle has no definite position prior to being measured (observed), but not with the claim that is has no existence. — Janus

Have a look at Paul Davies’ introduction to Heisenberg’s Physics and Philosophy:

Thus an electron or an atom cannot be regarded as a little thing in the same
sense that a billiard ball is a thing. One cannot meaningfully talk about what an electron is doing between observations because it is the observations alone that create the reality of the electron. Thus a measurement of an electron's position creates an electron-with-a-position; a measurement of its momentum creates an electron-with-a-momentum. But neither entity can be considered already to be in existence prior to the measurement being made.

(Xii)

Not ‘always’, not by a long stretch. It is very much characteristic of modern science, post Galileo-Newton-Descartes. — Wayfarer

An interesting discussion of Armstrong's work, but definitely outside limits of my experience. Maybe science hasn't always claimed to see the world from a God's eye view, but that's certainly the way I learned it. It seems to me that belief in objective reality existing beyond what we perceive requires that there be a God watching from the outside.

Be that as it may, I don't see how it changes the substance of my argument one way or the other.

But neither entity can be considered already to be in existence prior to the measurement being made.

I read "neither entity" as referring to position and momentum, not to the electron itself. After all it is already an electron we are talking about, and not a photon, gluon, proton, neutron, boson or neutrino.

To answer that question, I think it's useful to consider a simple system and how it would be represented. — Andrew M

In the OP and subsequent posts, I laid out specific meanings for "determinism" and "predictability" and the kinds of situations to which I think they apply. You seem to be using different definitions than I did.