but that doesn't mean you would have made a different decision at the time you made it. You would make a different decision now, but the moment of decision is past. — Harry Hindu

Yes, that's determinism.

To make the case for reasoning being indeterministic we have to assume that there is some neural influence that doesn't behave deterministically, some flakiness - some element of eccentricity and unreliability, like a misfiring neuron.

Then you probably have to accept that this flakiness is sourced from some as yet unknown extra-universal source (exists outside of our universe itself), or that maybe our universe itself is not a singular entity as we perceive it but is a collection of universes and that the flakiness is completely independent of the universe of the stimulus that stimulates it. We don't know. It just comes down to whatever sits right with you. There is no proof or even legitimate evidence for either determinism or indeterminism really.

Still all very inconclsive.

We know we have survival instincts that trigger reflex built into our physiology, but it's a bit of a stretch to conclude that we lack free will from these experiments.

Here is a more recent experiment.

There appears to be an initial reflex, but will itself can be driven from another part of the brain.

Some key excerpts:

There is an observed rapid rise in electrical signals that build up just before the brain executes these actions. This has led to the notion that the presupplementary motor area harbors some kind of readiness potential, a useful function in generating movement.

The lower reptilian part of the brain is warming up the ape part of the brain to respond?

These results suggest the presence of 2 specific aspects of conscious intention (however one defines it). One might be the conscious correlation of preparatory motor commands in the presupplemental cortex region, as is clearly observed in laboratory studies of animals. The other might involve sensory prediction of the consequences of those commands, under the domain of the association cortex region. A portion of conscious intent seems to be a specific class of experiences housed within the parietal lobe.

The parietal lobe integrates sensory information among various modalities.

You can trigger a convulsion in someone by electrocuting them, doesn't say much about their free will though. I'd be careful to avoid conclusions of the existence of there being no free will in the earlier experiments.

Also, be mindful of the fact that the brain is electrical also. Effects that appear to violate cause so as to suggest we in some way lack free will, are potentially just our misinterpretation and false classification of relativistic effects at play in the brain. It may well be more accurately a relativistic impulse to a local spacetime change in our environment for all we know. This may be how we experience premonitions. We can technically sense the "future" (a change in local entropy) to a degree, due to the invariant speed of light and relativistic rules which our brains too must also adhere too. Time is ultimately illusory.

However, how does one classify Marx in terms of being just a philosopher apart from 'communism' if at all possible. What are your thoughts? — Shawn

Had a quick brainstorm on it. I would suspect he was monist, and plantonist, in terms of his philosophical perspective. I'm just speculating.

But, I believe math separates science and philosophy. — Don Wade

I think politics does that. Most of our great Math comes from a time of union between between Philosophy and Science.

“Every good mathematician is at least half a philosopher, and every good philosopher is at least half a mathematician.”
― Gottlob Frege

But in these times, we have an abundance of people well versed in one but not the other.

There is something there that is mysterious and which's nature is shown in relativity. — Gregory

I would argue that the mysteriousness is sourced in a lack of time though.
Light travels at invariant speed because it does not experience time as such.

Relativity only really applies to time as long as there is mass though.
If there is nothing relative to something else, there is no relativity.
If there is no mass around, there are no spacetime effects to perceive.

Free will by its very virtue is a phenomenon of a living agent. It's tied to the notion of choice. This element of choice is the one that creates indeterministic outcomes when the agent interacts with his/her environment for survival. I do not think we can speak of free will in case of non-living things. However, we can certainly speak of indeterminism in case of both living and non-living things. — hume

I agree with that. What I was getting at is that despite how complex we assume ourselves to be, if we live in a deterministic universe, it could be argued that our complex behavior is deterministic, it was an inevitable consequence of prior deterministic manifestations. As wonderful as it is, it could be just inevitable.

I tend to agree that for true free will to exist, our intent to do something needs to be indeterministic.

A quote from Psychiatric Times

"The second source arises in the presupplementary motor area, which is stimulated when laboratory animals make the same movements mentioned above, but they do not originate from responses to an external source. The movement instead arises spontaneously; a thought is internally generated through intentional actions. There is an observed rapid rise in electrical signals that build up just before the brain executes these actions. This has led to the notion that the presupplementary motor area harbors some kind of readiness potential, a useful function in generating movement"

It appears that the intent may well be its own system. Maybe it's a key to our to the universe's entropy or maybe we are sufficiently complex to generate our own. I tend to see it as the former, we have a dependency on the universe for our randomness, and that the universe has that randomness.

The research article seems to suggest we commit to an action separately of the action itself, almost like the dice is rolled separate to the action to be undertaken.

Of course I agree that free will has no context for a stone. Although a stone in molten active state could be a conduit to spread the randomness around for the universe so that we can draw on a source of randomness to experience free will. Or if the rain falls in an indeterministic manner on the slope of a stone to add to the overall background randomness of the environment we perceive and draw randomness from.

The brain uses electrochemical formation as inputs that define these properties. Each item, of our "focus", has these specific propties that have developed from habit over time.

When we "think" of different objects/items our brain visualizes a new set of properties that defines each new object. However, the brain can only focus on one set of properties at any specific time. We can easily change the focus, but our brain can still only focus on one set at a time. That creates the difficulty of trying to visualize a duality — Don Wade

I would still argue that it's more an issue of evolution of the Sciences, and that some apparent workings of the universe (the Josephson effect comes to mind) aren't necessarily intuitive in the way we evolved at the macroscopic level, and hence the language won't be. This is why the language of Math is so important, as it removes this ambiguity. But then you have the issue of teaching something that can be all the more daunting because a new language was needed to define it. You can lose sight of the whole by getting lost in the minutiae.

In reality there is no wave-particle duality. It's just "waves" (which is actually another abstraction because they are not really waves but at the very fundamental level the phenomenon manifests itself as wave and wave properties). — hume

Maybe spectral waves is what they should be called to avoid ambiguity with tangible waves.

Within human beings, some humans will actually move to come under the sun to bask under it and other will find shade to avoid it. That's a free will behavior that you don't see in objects like rock who always have same consistent behavior all the times to the rays of the sun. — hume

Plants will reorient themselves to align with the sun. However there is also argument that plants have indeterministic processes, through proton tunneling in DNA mutations.

So in my view when we talk about free will, we are restricted to the contextual level where that free will is relevant and not at all levels. — hume

I think you are more concerned with the consciousness level, than say the free will of a beetle to move around.

I was more concerned with the conditions to make free will possible, which I was arguing is just fundamentally indeterminism. Maybe this is where we misunderstood each other.

I'm not convinced the universe is indeterministic in a physical sense, my mind can't settle on it like it flips on me when I get close to a settled perspective.

I think henceforth, I will remove any notion of the purely physical from my relationship with the universe on any perceived indeterministic level or spiritual level. It has polarized my mid in that I innately seem to want the universe to be deterministic because that makes sense to me, but that throws up issues with free will. The good news is there is probably no way to prove determinism in the universe and I needn't worry so much.

It may be that we have free will only if we want it and what makes us free may be beyond any notion of determinism or indeterminism. If there is a physical aspect to free will, it may even be beyond this universe as we understand it physically.

Do you still think number of fatalities from Covid is 'minimal' compared to the Spanish Flu.? — Joshs

Do you still think number of fatalities from Covid is 'minimal' compared to the Spanish Flu.? — Joshs

I think they were minimal by comparison. The vast majority of mortalities from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 are from people with comorbidities, and the elderly, so the numbers are almost entirely unknown.

Invasive treatment from respirators is highly dangerous and would have compounded the fatalities.

Obesity and other factors come into play, which is far worse of a problem nowadays, further putting the numbers into disrepute. Respiratory illnesses are compounded by a poor diet with a lack of fresh raw vegetables to oxygenate the blood. Immune systems are generally weaker than in the 1920's due to unhealthy lifestyles.

Psychological effects of prolonged isolation, lack of care, lack of access to cancer treatments, increased suicides etc. further muddies the waters for true numbers.

Although there is the claim that technology nowadays would improve the situation, this does not appear to be the case. It was clear early on that zinc supplementation would have greatly reduced deaths, but because of modern day political interest from shareholder run bio tech companies, simple mitigation strategies like this were not implemented. A good diet was not promoted by health organizations.

Since the Spanish flu hit young people very hard, there would be far less comorbidities involved. In other words, the Spanish flu was the only culprit in most cases.

In 1920, there were far less people to infect. The global population was under 2 billion.

To my knowledge, the Spanish flu was less contagious, but don't quote me on that, not sure. If that is the case, then the overall fatality rate for the Spanish flu was surely vastly higher in that it would have infected less people for the given number of fatalities.

Also, there was far less contagion spread possible in 1920, given that the world was less open to mass transit and almost unfettered movement of goods and people.

You cannot really compare 1920 to 2020. Different world, political landscape, technology level etc.

If humans in 2021 cannot handle a virus like SARS-Cov19, they will have no chance with something the equivalent of the Spanish flu. It would crush what's left of an already weak and crumbling civilization. What would people eat if supply chains completely broke down from something like the Spanish flu? Most people are entirely dependent on supply chains, which was not the case in the 20's .

Nations and people were far more resilient in the 20's. The current state of affairs is best described as pitiful. And the response to it is even more worrying!

UV light increases your levels of vitamin D, and people are not encouraged to be outside.
In the 1920's I think people had the basic wisdom to know that people were already poor after World War I, and compounding these troubles on an economy with destruction of a way of life would not help. They were at least wise enough to understand what you don't do!
which is not to make a bad situation much much worse.

,, it seems the observion must take place over time - not just a point in time. — Don Wade

And it does. Born's statistical interpretation is a useful tool to measure probability over time.

Is this a language problem? — Don Wade

In a way. As others pointed out, it's an evolutionary problem in that the Physics evolves to attempt to measure what is happening.

Basically, its not even about saying it behaves according to some probability distribution.
Some theories do postulate that what is happening is, in the end the output of a probability density function (weighted set of probabilities).

This is where the confusion arises. Every interpretation will still ultimately be a theory for something we measure experimentally.

But you can't measure a single photon, due the problem of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. You let a clump of them go through, one by one (It's not even definitive that it is one by one) and the pattern can be modelled as a probability density function, or over time using Born's statistical interpretation.

Some theories do propose that that the universe itself is behaving probabalistically and these tools measure what's actually happening, but other theories do not postulate that there is anything at all happening in terms of probability.

For any theory , probability distribution functions etc. are just tools to estimate the values they can't truly measure at the quantum level, approximations. It's not at all clear that the universal process itself is actually probabalistic. Radioactive decay is probably a better candidate for the universe behaving in an indeterministic way, but that's questionable too).

This is also part of the problem. Regardless of what theory we are talking about, technology and fundamental limitations on measurement mean that probability is used to approximate the measure.

The only thing any of these theories have in common with each other in terms of probability, is that probability density function or Born statistical interpretation are tools that used to approximate (in the case of superposition for example), how many photons are likely to be detected at some band or range or subset of probabilities. That's it..

For example the Bohmeian mechanics interpretation (sometimes called Pilot wave theory) of Quantum Mechanics proposes there is no indeterministic probability function at play.The wave of light travels with a pilot wave that interferes with the photon itself.

An intuitive ad hoc way to think about the distinction between wave and particle is that in motion, it is generally represented as a wave, and on measurement or absorbtion by an electron- a particle.

It is not wrong to be confused by this. But that is the current model, Einstein called it wave particle duality.

Are we heading backwards? — NOS4A2

Yes.

The problem is in some countries a particularly primitive expression of religion is a massive influence on generating retrograde social policies and laws and negatively impacting upon the life of others. — Tom Storm

It could be argued that is a problem of institutionalism rather than any religious indoctrination in particular.

Paul,

Could it be that indeterministic nature of a phenomenon (decay in this case) is limited in scope to its temporal locality and occurrence? I believe that when we talk of free will or indeterministic behavior, we are merely talking about a limited scope of such activity within which this behavior is probable and not some continuous chain of event that are somehow connected in a causal relationship.

For example, while entropy of the universe will continue to increase, regardless of what we humans do, and that in itself can be termed as determinism of our universe (heat death of universe), within the scope of our lives, our acts and interactions may "move molecules" in less predictable ways compared if we did not exist. So this less predictability is scoped within the span of human (or sentient beings) — hume

As I see it, we are the sum of our parts (if not taking any notion of the soul into account).
The indeterministic nature would not be limited in scope due to what we call chaos or non linearity. A subtle manifestation of indeterminism cascades rapidly so that the result is more often much bigger.
We already have random number generators based on radioactive decay. If you were to not leave it up to your immediate locality or the belief that you are truly random in your own right and base some important decisions around the output of a random number generator like this, you could in effect be galvanising an indeterministic future for yourself (that is IF the decay is truly random), but in reality, if there is true indeterminism in decay, then it is likely in other places too, and it would lead to an indeterministic future regardless. I would argue that if there is anything in this universe that that is indeterministic, then your life inevitably will be too, regardless of distance. After epochs of time, even the most isolated indeterministic effect would manifest its effects and alter an otherwise deterministic state.

Here is one such generator. When we listen to these random sounds, are we tuned into true indeterminism?

I enjoyed the topic.

I would like to add something in support of indeterminism and thus free will, because as others rightfully point out, determinism sure does appear to be prolific in the universe and probably can account for most of the mechanics we see (certainly at the macroscopic level). General relativity is close to explaining this overall. And, in any event I would accept that overall indeterminacy emerges form a sum of parts which are both deterministic and indeterministic, which I will discuss below.

Although it does appear that the conditions to allow our existence came to be from an unimaginably energetic event a very long time ago (as we perceive time, there is disagreement even about how this unfolded, but agreement around how matter came to be at all, and hence time itself in any meaningful way). Was there only one big bang? Are they cyclical? We don't really know.

Indeterminism is not intuitive and we have a tendency to reject such things as not satisfying our classical understanding of the laws of nature.

An indeterminant process is a stochastic or random process whereby there is some indeterminacy in its future evolution described by probability distributions. This means that even if the initial condition (or starting point) is known, there are many possibilities the process might go to, but some paths may be more probable and others less so. The basic idea is that if you have were to be able to recreate the precise conditions of an experiment right down the last detail, you could still not repeat the results. Some level of randomness would intervene during the manifestation of the outcome to make it unique.

The first thing to acknowledge is that whether the universe is fundamentally deterministic or indeterministic, there are profound implications which can make our heads spin, most notable being for determinism that we would have no genuine free will. And for indeterminism, that paradoxes around the universe being unrealistically disorderly and in defiance of the basic principle of cause and effect, depending on how far you take it.

I do maintain that the universe would still heavily consist of deterministic processes in either case at the macro level and maybe in many processes at the quantum level too, but be overall indeterministic in that the indeterminism pollutes (if you will) the overall evolution of the system to make it stochastic. i.e. a system which is part stochastic must be stochastic overall, at least in this universe as we understand it).
Think of that as 'If I place one dodgy indeterministic domino in a long line of dominoes that behave deterministically, then the overall manifestation of knocking these dominoes is indeterminant.'

It's probably best to focus on the leading argument for indeterminacy in the first place, and that is radioactive decay.


Above, simulation of many identical atoms undergoing radioactive decay, starting with either 4 atoms (left) or 400 (right). The number at the top indicates how many half-lives have elapsed.
This process is the best candidate we have in our observed universe as indeterministic phenomena.

The basic reasoning for radioactive decay being genuinely indeterministic is that the process (as they see it) is not complex enough to create such a complex variance in decay times from atom to atom, for any underlying working to be taking place they don't know about. They rule this out. The generally accepted interpretation is that it decays through a stochastic process, in an indeterministic way. It's not proof. It's evidence.

From an indeterministic viewpoint, it can still be argued that this process still inevitably emerges from the very origin of the universe in an unbreakable chain of deterministic events and that each atom's decay is inevitable. But if so, why do these radioactive atoms bleed off their energy in such an unstable way?

I think this may actually be an indeterministic process. For reasons we don't yet understand, I believe it may be the case that the superset of our universe (that which determines the workings of our universe), if there is one, determines this. It cannot be proven that chance is at work in this decay, but I believe that if chance is involved, it may come from something deeper, something that existed before the big bang as it were.

To suggest that this process may be manifested from outside of our known universe is no more extreme a view than the universal wave function being outside our known universe determining each parallel universe as in the Many Worlds interpretation that a lot of Determinism proponents are so fond of.

I'm not convinced this is the one and only big bang we have had in this universe or that there isn't something outside of our universe, containing it.

I can just repost with

"Ok, explain what what a deterministic event would look like. What does it actually mean for some event to be deterministic? All you will be able to do is provide reasons/causes for some event to be deterministic and you would then be head-deep in contradictions and paradoxes. Try it."

Go ahead, and I'll let you know how it too throws up apparent paradoxes.

It's not that the world is non-deterministic. It is deterministic as each state-of-affairs is determined by prior states. — Harry Hindu

That's not proven.

Indeterminism isn't some real aspect of reality. It is only an idea in the minds of humans that has no reality beyond the minds of humans. It is an idea that stems from our ignorant view of reality. — Harry Hindu

Neither is that.
Either case is essentially coming form a partially "ignorant view of reality". We simply don't know.


If on the other hand, you are making a point that, for you, in your opinion, which is not necessarily at all based in fact, that the question of determinism vs indeterminism is not of fundamental importance, then that is your opinion.

I don't think there's any more minimalist a term to conceive of, than this as an expression of the fundamental truth of the workings of the universe and our place in it.

It might be that indeterminism, if there is any, only exists beyond this universe. There doesn't appear to be any way to prove or disprove it.

In Physics, many who strongly believe this universe is deterministic, avoid this unsettling consequence that their lives are just played out, by postulating that we live out our lives in one of many possible scenarios, governed by a universal wave function. If you have ever seen the movie 'Sliding Doors' they see the sliding of the doors as just containing some splitting of a branch into different sets of alternate realities. This is the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum mechanics.

Those Physicists who believe it is indeterministic will often cite the perceived randomness of outcomes appearing as outcomes derived from chance, or spontaneous interference outside of a deterministic cause to effect an outcome, as though they are probability distributions.

But that is not settled. It's not clear that there is any true indeterminism.

One tonic for those who struggle with these profound implications may be to live their lives more arbitrarily and invite perceived randomness into their lives. You could start by flipping a coin. The coin may land on heads or tails and you may choose to commit some action based on the result.

But proponents of determinism will argue that the coin's flip was not random.

So that just leaves bias. I often find that my bias reveals itself when I commit to flipping a coin. It's as though the act of deciding to flip reveals a slight bias I didn't perceive before, that I have for one of the outcomes if I know the outcomes. Kind o like suddenly it's horse race I have no control over and I feel an interest in backing a winner, whereas before I simply picked the winner. Maybe you could get two empty plastic balls and put a commitment into each one and mix them around or have someone else mix them.

But there is still a hope or preference you have in finding one of the outcomes that effects your choice. You could give a friend full decision over some arbitrary list of activities for the day that you have no say in and under the condition that they are all mundane things you have no preference for. He/She sets the choices for you and you pick one. Now you have no real preference or bias arguably and you just pick purely.

But the argument can still be made that your friend had a preference.

You can of course always still argue the whole sequence of events:
You deciding to introduce some variability into a choice by having your friend pick boring arbitrary things, and both you and your friends deterministic actions led to an inevitable outcome.

You can argue that my hope or will for something to happen is indeterministic. But a proponent of determinism can equally come along and say that even if I do have the power to influence the outcome, it is derived from my deterministically derived will to do so.

Of course it's hard for some and unsettling, that we may have no control whatsoever over our lives, which is one reason why the Many Worlds interpretation is so popular with many people.

It seems to me that our senses and scientific instruments cannot detect time, therefore defining what it exactly is is completely and solely within the realm of philosophy. — Gregory

Energy is spacetime. Spacetime is energy

Our concept of time is an abstraction.
There is no spacetime in the universe as a whole. It exists only where there is sufficient energy.

We are heavy in that we are made of matter, as is our world. Light is invariant. Almost beyond our ability to reason about, it travels at an invariant speed c. i.e. it has no mass (no potential and kinetic energy), no spacetime.
In the beginning there was light. Scientists have now successfully created matter (and antimatter) from high powered lasers.

In doing so they contributed to creating or warping spacetime with photons.
You could argue they created some quanta of time itself, since time is a human abstraction entirely dependent purely on energy.

There's all kinds of evidence for both atheism and theism. My problem is having a word for people who do not believe in something...seems kind of lame. — synthesis

I just think of it as a-theist, anti-theist.

God is one of those things that should rarely escape from the personal realm. Who gives a rat's ass what anybody else thinks when it comes to your religious/spiritual beliefs? — synthesis

Thanks synthesis. There was probably a time when atheists would be whispered about behind their backs. Now I think we live in an era where it is the reverse.

If a person said atheism resonates with me better than theism, that's why I believe it, that would be inadequate. — Paul S

We all have bias whether we admit it or not. There is no evidence for or against atheism any more than there is for or against theism. Whether you like that or not, that's the case. If you think of the probability that the universe is one or another, it's as good as evens so you have no choice but to be either agnostic or to pick a bias (which is what I meant by resonates), unless you have some dramatic evidence to share.

There is comfort in picking the option that one resonates with. It's comforting to have a bias for the side of the argument that requires no belief and so no explanation of that belief. Because there is just nothing to explain. And yet, it's not more likely than the truth being that supported by Theists.

All you seem to be saying is that theism allows for more mystery than atheism. — Tom Storm

That's not what I'm saying. I'm sorry if you see it that way, not the intention.

Let's assume there is nobody else in this cosmic courtroom other than you and I. Please, address my postulate that determinism is is on some level more synonymous with atheism, and that indeterminism is on some level more synonymous with theism. That's the question I was really trying to ask, and get an opinion on. Then take it from there.

Physics itself doesn't give a damn. — antor

There is still nothing boring about the questions it has for our finest abstract capabilities to understand it.

I think the word interpretation is kind of an unfortunate choice. — antor

You will not find a much more open ended term to invite a description of what is going on.

It is not yet certain if QM is a true case of "we will never know therefore we might as well dream up some INTERPRETATION" or if it's just another case of "were not there yet". — antor

If light's fundamentally invariance, invariant speed, is not just a property of our universe but a property of any other super set we could conceive of as harbouring our universe, that is to say, in any way that could be described epistemologically as a super set from our human contextual frame of reference, then time itself and the concept of tense that goes with it, ultimately have no meaning from a the frame of reference of these invariant phenomena. There is no cause or effect from that perspective. Cause and effect would be on some level merged together from the point of view of light and anything else with such invariant properties. We do not have an agreed consensus as to how to interpret this invariance and the implications that come with it as baggage. Hence the invitation to interpret a fundamental implication: quantum mechanics.

At least that's how I see the question.

They hold this position because it resonates better with them. It just feels right. — Tom Storm

Resonance describes the phenomenon of increased amplitude that occurs when the frequency of a periodically applied force (or a Fourier component of it) is equal or close to a natural frequency of the system on which it acts.

It's not necessarily the same as equating it. It's not even so much that theism resonates with me. It's that atheism doesn't, and I see agnosticism as a port I would much sooner visit before atheism, which does not resonate with my experience or perception of how things are, regardless of any comfort factors. There is nothing necessarily comforting in resonance. It remains the case that there is no stronger a case for atheism than there is for theism.

Inaccurate use of the term cherry picking. I was simply restating the point you made and providing an assessment of it. — Tom Storm

Now, you're cherry picking what I said you were cherry picking, you didn't really address the issue I raised.

Bringing up bigotry as somehow intrinsic to any of this is confabulation. Who is really comforting themselves here? No offence.

Beings may not get too close to the secrets of our universe, but they can mimic quite a lot, as arguable demigods that manipulate the creation of life itself. I'm being purely speculative but what if most of the beings across the universe were genetically engineered by few or one species.

Even if you call this universe a simulation, it's a pretty impressive one. I don't expect to achieve true insight into this, just maybe get a little closer.

Indeterminism can be composed of partly deterministic parts. I don't see a logical fallacy in that.
— Paul S
I do. — Harry Hindu

Ok,

Well let's say (sorry I had a toke) I stack a big group of deterministic tiles (let's just say I conceded and that's what they are) and I know that for this deterministic tile, it will hit the next deterministic tile and it will fall etc. I can put just one non deterministic tile in the group of tiles, that may or may not fall, and if you replay knocking these tiles down as dominoes over many times, you will have a very non deterministic outcome overall!, when you add up all these different results.

Why does mysticism have to be so irrational? — TaySan

The case for mysticism I think would be that we cannot trust ourselves to reason about the things we don't have true insight into, and to open ourselves to channel it from some external source.

If we put ourselves in a god spectrum, we're probably somewhere in between evil and divine.

What do you think? — TaySan

I we put ourselves between the spectral lines of indeterminism - that there is some kind of interventionism, and determinism - that there isn't, then agnosticism would be in the middle, and actually the more logically sound given that we don't have, and likely will never have a solid case to support either position.

At the fundamental level, I associate evil with destruction, and good with construction. Humans can destroy and construct. I think our default is to construct our families, society and civilisations. Destruction seems to emanate from a defensive posture, as we respond to anything that would compromise what we are trying to construct, generally speaking.

One problem with this approach is that this is the same justification people often use for racism or any number of bigotries. 'It just feels to me that X race of people are inferior to the rest of us - this just resonates more with me.' It can be a trap to hold a belief merely because it is comforting or because you were socialized to think it. — Tom Storm

You're cherry picking. That's not at all in the spirit of what I was getting at. What I was getting at, in your parlance, was that either position can be construed as a comfort pill, because there is no more or less evidence for the fallacy of theism than there is for atheism.

You are also loading in hypotheticals that conflate the argument. I could just as easily flip the coin and say that atheism disrupts a persons modal logic as their basic ability to trust or believe in anything is reduced to permanent skepticism.

As humans, we are modal. We believe things to be true in every moment of life despite the problem that we cannot be sure. If you use the words 'maybe', 'it's possible', it's unlikely', you are showing a bias without definitive proof. If you are honest with yourself, you comfort yourself with these things all the time, irrespective of your beliefs.

Either can be and is a trap from that standpoint.

What I was really getting at:

Theists are open to the possibility that something divine or supernatural can interfere with an experience and effect the outcome - that's very like an indeterministic outlook of the universe.

Atheists are not accepting of a divine or supernatural influence on experience that can effect an outcome - that's very like a deterministic outlook of the universe.

We have no idea which is the case. From a tautological high ground, agnosticism trumps both.

it's a little over my head — Leon Spencer

You're vey welcome Leon. It's a little over all of our heads in my opinion, which is why it's interesting.
It's a good idea for a Philosopher's postgraduate maybe, to investigate the formalism for what negligible means, and if such a definition is justified or not and if not, then why/why not, in what context etc.

It all depends on the level of enlightenment of a person. I can respect a person of any faith or anti-faith or whatever you want to call it.

If you're like me, you went through different stages, and by the way, I don't equate these stages as being set in stone and somehow indicative of any ranking of belief systems in either chronological or reverse chronological order. It's just how it was for me.

I was raised in theism, spent some time with atheism but rejected it at an early age, but was always allured by Hinduism and Buddhism and they seemed to offer not only theism but enlightenment and philosophy, but never invested any genuine curiosity into them, being whizzed along by other distractions at the time. I have always and still do have reverence for paganism.

I think I went through a void for a while then, not really caring or giving much thought, got into Buddhism, found it very enlightening for health and philosophy but it didn't truly resolve my belief issues. Well Zen Buddhism I will always be open to, but Pure land, not so much.

Being someone who has always loved Science, I sought to understand what great Scientists believed, but they are not Gods (pun not intended) and have the same predicament ultimately. I was happy to see so many great Physicists were not Atheists, or were Agnostic.

My problem with Atheism when I was young was I felt it cut me off somewhat. Like I was accepting a brutal material world, with nothing beyond it, just cold hard laws of the jungle, a feelingless void that just is. It never sat right with me.

My problem with Atheism when I matured was still similar to that for sure, but also, the universe in my opinion doesn't really appear to offer any cold hard truth of determinism that ultimately many Atheists crave (in my view).

It's not that we have proof of indeterminism either. We don't. Ultimately, that's a big part of the justification for Atheism or Theism, which I don't think we can ever really prove on either side. I think our belief systems are ultimately dear to us as humans, and we defend them against even alleged proof of their non existence, or proof of their existence.

I have no true justification to equate determinism with Atheism and theism with indeterminism, but there are parallels.

Theists are open to the possibility that something divine or supernatural can interfere with an experience and effect the outcome - that's very like an indeterministic outlook of the universe.

Atheists are not accepting of a divine or supernatural influence on experience that can effect an outcome - that's very like a deterministic outlook of the universe.

Theism just resonates more with me and feels more like how it really is, at least for me. It's at the edge of perception, or what an Atheist would call delusion, it's subjective and fuzzy so it's not like I can really support my view.

It just feels as it should (for me). It feels as though my will for something to happen, or my wish for something awful to not happen has a tendency to manifest. Not in any profound eureka way necessarily but it seems to satisfy a need but not a want, and brings solace in a time of pain. It fulfils me.

I don't know how else to describe it. It's a bit ineffable.

when logically the very use of probabilities denies any known cause. — Gary Enfield

Thanks Gary. I will check it now. Before reading, I will add that probability density functions are used not merely because that's how the outcome is described. It's more to do with practicality. Due to Heisenbergs uncertainty principle, the momentum of a particle cannot be accurately determined if we know its position, and when the particles are fired off one by one, it does "appear" to be probabilistic, but it's a debate that is not settled. De Broglie and Bohm would have contended that there is a kind of pilot wave creating what looks like a probabilistic system, when as they see it, it's wave behaviour caused by an unknown to Physics wave that travels with the particle. The Many worlds proponents would say it's the alternate realities that overlap our reality at the time the particle is detected, and what we are seeing is the universe splitting or branching, the pattern is like a wake left behind by this in their eyes, and not from probability as such, although they see every outcome as playing out so there is some universal probability playing out in their eyes, a universal wave function.

The more I think about it, the more I think Paul Dirac was right. The particle interferes with itself. So its wave like behaviour and not probabilistic. But I don't deny that our reality could be indeterministic. We may never know.

The problem is that the parties have adopted contradictory positions and there isn't any meaningful distinction between them. — Harry Hindu

Is that not a contradiction? Just asking.

I exhibited no such thing. — Harry Hindu

You did !

You exhibited a misunderstanding of what I was saying. — Harry Hindu

Your definition, as I recall it, was fallacious, but I don't want to over dwell on it. I'm not that pedantic
I don't think so!

What is the indeterministic argument for QM? Again, if a theory is providing reasons for some observation, then the theory is deterministic. — Harry Hindu

I think you're conflating 2 different arguments.

Indeterminism can be composed of partly deterministic parts. I don't see a logical fallacy in that.

“Every good mathematician is at least half a philosopher, and every good philosopher is at least half a mathematician.”
― Gottlob Frege

The benefit of being over indoctrinated in one field is you are free to explore another one more loosely.

Ideological subversion, is my guess. — Tzeentch

+1

There is no way to prove or disprove that life has choice. However, if you believe that you have no choice, then you don't and just let things happen. Believing that you have a choice makers life more interesting. BTW, you do have a choice. — MondoR

I agree. I'm starting to believe that what makes life indeterministic is that we believe we have free will and have a will to prosper. I associate it with spirituality.

What makes life indeterministic is surrendering our free will or not believing we have it to surrender in the first place.