why is it meaningless? The word has a literal meaning. It might be untestable, but I don't think it's meaningless. — flannel jesus

In normal usage, "meaningless" means without significance. Synonyms include empty, pointless, and senseless. As Shakespeare said - Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

A deterministic world is not necessarily reverse deterministic. Classically, our physics seems to be, but it is weird watching entropy go the wrong way. A world like Conway's game of Life is hard deterministic, and yet history cannot be deduced since multiple prior states can result in the same subsequent state...

...Actually simulating our physics (even the most trivial closed classical system with say 3 particles) cannot be done without infinite precision variables, which puts it in the 'not possible even in theory' category. — noAxioms

Good points, and important, but when I start getting into computation theory and chaos theory, I usually say something stupid. I'm not even sure what I'm saying here isn't stupid.

I'm a compatibilist, so I'm actually... half way towards agreeing with you - there's no significant difference, in my opinion, between the claim that this universe is deterministic, and the claim that this world is indeterministic. I still think there would be a real difference, it's just a minor one and one that we can't test for.

However, people who believe in libertarian free will DO believe there's a very significant difference. How would you convince one of them that they're mistaken? Given that you think the difference is pointless.

although I wouldn't use "predetermined"
— wonderer1

I mean, maybe you should.. — DifferentiatingEgg

I read Nietzsche as critiquing both freedom of the will
and the determinism of cause and effect.

The causa sui is the best self-contradiction that has ever been conceived, a type of logical rape and abomination. But humanity's excessive pride has got itself profoundly and horribly entangled with precisely this piece of nonsense. The longing for “freedom of the will” in the superlative metaphysical sense (which, unfortunately, still rules in the heads of the half educated), the longing to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for your actions yourself and to relieve God, world, ancestors, chance, and society of the burden – all this means nothing less than being that very causa sui and, with a courage greater than Munchhausen's, pulling yourself by the hair from the swamp of nothingness up into existence. Suppose someone sees through the boorish naivete of this famous concept of “free will” and manages to get it out of his mind; I would then ask him to carry his “enlightenment” a step further and to rid his mind of the reversal of this misconceived concept of “free will”: I mean the “un-free will,” which is basically an abuse of cause and effect.

We should not erroneously objectify “cause” and “effect” like the natural scientists do (and whoever else thinks naturalistically these days –) in accordance with the dominant mechanistic stupidity which would have the cause push and shove until it “effects” something; we should use “cause” and “effect” only as pure concepts, which is to say as conventional fictions for the purpose of description and communication, not explanation. In the “in-itself ” there is nothing like “causal association,” “necessity,” or “psychological un-freedom.” There, the “effect” does not follow “from the cause,” there is no rule of “law.” We are the ones who invented causation, succession, for-each-other, relativity, compulsion, numbers, law, freedom, grounds, purpose; and if we project and inscribe this symbol world onto things as an “in-itself,” then this is the way we have always done things, namely mythologically. The “un-free will” is mythology; in real life it is only a matter of strong and weak wills. It is almost always a symptom of what is lacking in a thinker when he senses some compulsion, need, having-to-follow, pressure, unfreedom in every “causal connection” and “psychological necessity”. (Beyond Good and Evil)

I follow Deleuze’s reading of the Eternal Return as non-deterministic and unconditioned.

…the eternal return and the Overman are at the crossing of two genealogies, of two unequal genetic lines. On the one hand they relate to Zarathustra as to the conditioning
principle which "posits" them in merely hypothetical manner. On the other hand, they relate to Dionysus as the unconditioned principle which is the basis of their apodictic and absolute character. Thus in Zarathustra's exposition it is always the entanglement of causes or the connection of moments, the synthetic relation of moments to each other, which determines the hypothesis of the return of the same moment. But, from Dionysus' perspective by contrast, it is the synthetic relation of the moment to itself, as past, present and to come, which absolutely determines its relations with all other moments. The return is not the passion of one moment pushed by others, but the activity of the moment which determined the others in being itself determined through what it affirms. Zarathustra's constellation is the constellation of the lion, but that of Dionysus is the constellation of being: the yes of the child-player is more profound than the holy no of the lion. The whole of Zarathustra is affirmative: even when he who knows how to say no, says no. But Zarathustra is not the whole of affirmation, nor what is most profound in it.

ll affirmation finds its condition in Zarathustra but its unconditioned principle in Dionysus. Zarathustra determines the eternal return, moreover he determines it to produce its effect, the Overman. But this determination is the same as the series of conditions which finds its final term in the lion, in the man who wants to be overcome, in the destroyer of all known values. Dionysus' determination is of another kind, identical to the absolute principle without which the conditions would themselves remain powerless. And this is Dionysus' supreme disguise — to subject his products to conditions which are themselves subject to him, condi-tions that these products themselves surpass. The lion becomes a child, the destruction of known values makes possible a creation of new values. But the creation of values, the yes of the child-player, would not be formed under these conditions if they were not, at the same time, subject to a deeper genealogy.

I mean, read Nietzsche's Heaviest Burden from Gay Science and Vision from the Vision and the Enigma. Clearly deterministic. 341 GS, to live your life exactly as it were over and over again ad infinitum...

The Heaviest Burden.—What if a demon crept after thee into thy loneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to thee: "This life, as thou livest it at present, and hast lived it, thou must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh, and all the unspeakably small and great in thy life must come to thee again, and all in the same series and sequence—and similarly this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and similarly this moment, and I myself. The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned once more, and thou with it, thou speck of dust!"—Wouldst thou not throw thyself down and gnash thy teeth, and curse the demon that so spake? Or hast thou once experienced a tremendous moment in which thou wouldst answer him: "Thou art a God, and never did I hear anything so divine!" If that thought acquired power over thee as thou art, it would transform thee, and perhaps crush thee; the question with regard to all and everything: "Dost thou want this once more, and also for innumerable times?" would lie as the heaviest burden upon thy activity! Or, how wouldst thou have to become favourably inclined to thyself and to life, so as to long for nothing more ardently than for this last eternal sanctioning and sealing?— — Nietzsche's Heaviest Burden/Greatest Weight

The main question here is... if you were to gnash your teeth... then what must you begin doing in the gateway of this moment such that the idea becomes truly beautiful to you?

What Nietzsche is detailing there, in what you bring up, is more or less that a systematic approach isn't a guarantee of a specific outcome. What makes me who I am doesn't mean it will make you the same as me if you lived my life. That's why Nietzsche stresses for you to find your own path vs attempt to follow in the footsteps of others.

Does anyone else here feel that determinism, in its full intricacy, actually leaves room for more mystery rather than less? Or do you see it differently? — Matripsa

Our world is indeed deterministic, in the sense that every effect has a cause. But some effects have multiple causes. As a physical metaphor, consider the Mississippi river, which has multiple tributaries. So, when it floods in New Orleans, which prior cause do you blame : the river from Tennessee to the gulf, or Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas, & Red? Or do you blame the hurricane that delivers above normal rain to the flood plain? Today, with professional weather observers and high-tech tools, we can track the blame even back beyond the hurricane, to local heat & humidity in the Atlantic ocean. So, like an Agatha Christie mystery, the determining cause is shrouded in complexity. It's "full intricacy". And don't forget the confounding side-effect/cause of individual Free Will. :smile:

Part of the problem here is that it remains very unclear what "determinism" might mean. Indeed, the presumption that physics is deterministic is almost certainly mistaken.

Further, you do not know what you will do next.

Our world is indeed deterministic, in the sense that every effect has a cause. But some effects have multiple causes. As a physical metaphor, consider the Mississippi river, which has multiple tributaries. So, when it floods in New Orleans, which prior cause do you blame : the river from Tennessee to the gulf, or Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas, & Red? Or do you blame the hurricane that delivers above normal rain to the flood plain? Today, with professional weather observers and high-tech tools, we can track the blame even back beyond the hurricane, to local heat & humidity in the Atlantic ocean. So, like an Agatha Christie mystery, the determining cause is shrouded in complexity. It's "full intricacy". And don't forget the confounding side-effect/cause of individual Free Will. :smile: — Gnomon

What is free about Free Will in this scenario? From what is will free?

Indeed, the presumption that physics is deterministic is almost certainly mistaken. — Banno

If Newton's first law of motion is a feature of physics, then physics certainly is deterministic. So are you suggesting that modern physics, by working with the concept of energy rather than the concept of moving objects, has found a loophole enabling the violation of Newton's first law?

physics has come a long way since newton. Banno is most probably thinking about QM when he says that.

How would you convince one of them that they're mistaken? — flannel jesus

Here's one of the songs I sing - over and over. Whether or not the world is deterministic is a matter of metaphysics, not a matter of fact. I'm not sure I can convince anyone of that.

What is free about Free Will in this scenario? From what is will free? — Patterner

All animals have WillPower : the ability to make voluntary movements of the body. In addition, human WillPower includes the ability to choose between imaginary scenarios, and to restrain internal impulses. Social freedom of Will is the ability to choose to disobey unfair laws. It does not include freedom from natural laws, such as gravity.

However, humans have learned how to temporarily evade gravity with wings & parachutes. When someone jumps out of an airplane, he wants (wills) to descend slowly enough to avoid injury. This is freedom from sudden cessation of motion. :grin:


Whitehead on FreeWill :
In Whitehead's view, God does not coerce or force events, but rather influences the universe through persuasion, offering possibilities and influencing the exercise of universal free will.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+on+free+will
Note --- Apparently Whitehead thinks God is not a dictator, but merely an influencer. I assume such influence is on Social Media (human interactions ; metaphysics) not necessarily on Physics. :joke:

physics has come a long way since newton. Banno is most probably thinking about QM when he says that. — flannel jesus

So that's the reason for my question. Do you think that QM physics has found a loop hole to avoid Newton's deterministic first law of motion? If the mass of a body (object) is reducible to energy by the famous equation E=MC2, and the "energy" of that equation may be represented as a field of potential energy, then the actual temporal continuity of a body (object), may be replaced with, and represented as the body's potential. This appears to be a way in which the deterministic necessity of Newton's first law of motion can be avoided.

Instead of "a body must continue moving as it has in the past, unless acted upon by a force", we now appear to have "a body's motion is the result of its potential to be moved". A resting body then is simply a sort of 'force field' in a state of equilibrium with other force fields in its environment, the 'force field' representing both the potential to be moved and the potential to move others. Since this is a representation of the potential for bodily movement, no specific bodily movement is actually required for that representation, therefore the necessity of bodily movement described by Newton may be removed from the representation.

I'm not sure about that tbh. I know that quantum mechanics maintains certain conservations, like momentum and angular velocity things like that. But I'm not sure about the first law, Google seems to think they there are quantum situations where it can be broken or at least fudged.

Whether or not the world is deterministic is a matter of metaphysics, not a matter of fact. I'm not sure I can convince anyone of that. — T Clark

For what it's worth, I do agree.

, :grin:

So metaphysics is not about facts...

I'm not sure about that tbh. — flannel jesus

Good, 'cause he doesn't understand physics.

For alternate views, see
Physics without determinism: Alternative interpretations of classical physics

Has physics ever been deterministic?

Causality and Determination

Causality, Determination and such stuff.

So metaphysics is not about facts... — Banno

It is about facts but it isn't an empirical science. It is rather a reflection on what empirical sciences can (or can't) intelligibly be about.

Oh, I see, that bit where some folk restrict facts to observations. So it's not a fact that 2+2=4, or that the bishop stays on her own colour in chess.

For you, are conservation laws facts?

You can't prove that energy is conserved in every case, since not every case is available for you to check. Nor can you disprove it - if you came across a perpetual motion machine that seemed to be breaking the conservation law, you might hypothesis that it is somehow drawing energy frome elswhere in the universe...

SO, is conservation of energy a fact, or a bit of metaphysics?

Oh, I see, that bit where some folk restrict facts to observations. So it's not a fact that 2+2=4, or that the bishop stays on her own colour in chess. — Banno

Did you somehow misread me? I concurred with you that metaphysics is about facts (although it's not only about facts, of course). So, indeed, it's also about such fact as that 2+2=4 or that bishops stay on their own colors in chess. But neither one of those two facts are under the purview of an empirical science. You can't do an experiment that would disprove the proposition that 2+2=4. And the fact that bishops stay on their own colors in chess is a constitutive rule of the game, a rule that has an opposite direction of fit to the laws that ordinary empirical facts normally abide by. (When a bishop is seen to move on a different color, a rule of chess isn't thereby falsified. A novice player may rather be revealed to have made a mistake.) Metaphysics is the philosophical investigations of what it is that make those different kinds of facts the sorts of facts that they are, empirical or otherwise.

Whether or not the world is deterministic is a matter of metaphysics, not a matter of fact. I'm not sure I can convince anyone of that. — T Clark

If the world is deterministic, you may or may not convince someone of that. It just depends upon whether they were determined to be convinced.

Determinism is stupid. If you disagree, that's just the way it has to be.

So metaphysics is not about facts... — Banno

Oh, I see, that bit where some folk restrict facts to observations. So it's not a fact that 2+2=4, or that the bishop stays on her own colour in chess. — Banno

Surprised to see you so confused, Banno. 2+2=4 is both a proposition (i.e., true or false) and absolute presupposition. It's true, but never a fact, except for people who do not distinguish between truth and facts. As to bishops, it seems that's a truth too; that bishops stay on their own colour is certainly not a fact - assuming by "fact" you mean necessarily so.

Another thing about facts: they're always historical. That something is a fact means that the something happened - and the happening adequately attested.

Determinism is stupid. If you disagree, that's just the way it has to be. — Hanover

:up: :yum:

no significant difference, in my opinion, between the claim that this universe is deterministic, and the claim that this world is indeterministic. — flannel jesus

This figures in another thread. I'll ask here: In terms of descriptions of the world, are deterministic (D) and indeterministic (non-D) together exhaustive of all possibilities?

To say there is no significant difference between D and non-D is to say that in every significant way they are the same thing - that seems to me a strange conclusion.

why? What's strange about it?

To say that something is - D - and at the same time isn't - non-D - is what I call strange. Or odd, or illogical, or wrong, or suspicious. But on its face bad form, unless you or someone habilitates the idea.

To say that something is - D - and at the same time isn't - non-D - is what I call strange. Or odd, or illogical, or wrong — tim wood

Nothing strange illogical or wrong about something being D and not non-D at all. Double-negation leaves you with a positive. If it is "isn't non d", as you say, then it's D. Not not D means D - the nots cancel out.

For you, are conservation laws facts?

You can't prove that energy is conserved in every case, since not every case is available for you to check. Nor can you disprove it - if you came across a perpetual motion machine that seemed to be breaking the conservation law, you might hypothesis that it is somehow drawing energy frome elswhere in the universe...

SO, is conservation of energy a fact, or a bit of metaphysics?
an hour ago — Banno

Energy is never conserved. That is why we cannot have a perpetual motion machine, and why there is a need for the second law of thermodynamics. Simply put, the law of conservation of energy is false, because energy is always lost. "Conservation of energy" is a useful principle, but it is disproven with every action at every moment of passing time. Nothing could be more strongly proven to be false, than the law of conservation of energy.

Sweet Jesus! You actually cannot read! Or you're just having your own private joke. But you're wasting my time.

I can't read? Isn't non-D. Maybe you can't write clearly.

Isn't non-D. Maybe you can't write clearly. — flannel jesus

You misquote.

What exactly is your purpose on this topic? It appears to me you're interested in fencing, but not any constructive discussion.

why don't you just clarify your question? I clearly interpreted something wrong, how hard is it for you to just say what you meant?