Determinism?

[elfece]

Hello!
I'm sure you all know the old deterministic cause-effect based view of the whole universe, like if it was a huge pool table, or a clock.

Well, since quantum mechanics emerged, and with it the concept of "chaos", lots of things have been said using it as an excuse, quantum mechanics has been used to justify lots of strange, surrealist theories to a point that I don't trust any of those magazines or articles pretending to make accessible the highly complex system of quantum mechanics theories to the "average human" (well, I think I never really trusted them :))

What I was going to say is... Nowadays determinism has been pretty much abandoned, and I can't exactly find the reason why. I firmly believe in the causality of EVERYTHING that takes place at the universe, and if something cannot be predicted, or happens in an unexpected way, it is not due to an inherent degree of randomness, but to our incapacity to measure it with enough precision, or because we're just not capable to take in consideration every factor that can influence that expected effect.

And taking it to its last consequence, I just don't find any reason to not to say that we're determined; the whole universe was determined since the big bang (or however it started) and even if I think that I have free will because I am free to do and think whatever I "want" at any moment, it all forms part of the inexorable chain of causality, and we're certainly not so special to be outside of it.

And with no free will, responsibility is nonsensical, as well as willing to transcend, justice, good and evil, hope, guilt, envy...

Oh, and just a though, even if we admit that there could exist a certain degree of randomness at quantum scale, I think that the matter itself have a certain tolerance against it at a higher scale, so even if when observed at an incredibly small scale, matter behave in strange ways, the scale we "exist" into is not affected by it... Maybe if we accept that, then there may exist the possibility that our brainwaves, being electricity, can have a certain degree of "freedom" inside a perfectly determined universe...

And if that where true, and there exists "free will", it is really MY will? Is ME who is free? Maybe that way I'm not determined, but instead, my behaviour is at least in part in hands of the pure randomness, and I find that being controlled by the pure randomness is not more encouraging that knowing that I'm controlled (determinated) by uncountable previous phenomena... Anyway you focus it... being is rather a joke, an utterly Machiavellian joke.


Maybe all we can do is pretend?. Pretend we're free, pretend our actions have any importance or trascendence, pretend that we are responsible of our acts, and any system of justice, and almost everything that makes us humans, starting at our own self-consciousness is just a sad theatre that keeps us from drowning into that black pit of nothingness?

Would anyone be so kind to tumble down this castle of beliefs that leads to nowhere but pure nihilism? Or should we be happy with pretending.


And no, as you probably have seen, I consider myself pretty much an atheist, and I don't believe there is a white bearded old guy "out there" pulling our strings... But when you take it to the limit... there is not any reason to firmly believe that there is NOT a God...

[umop_3pisdn]

I tend to view determinism similarly as you do. Or like Neitzche's idea of the eternal return or eternal recurrence. It's not an idea I necessarily wish were true. In fact, I tend to find it highly unappealing and somewhat damning. I find it's most appreciable in that I feel it's an uncomfortable "truth" that I have to come to terms with. One can accept their relative insignificance within the flow of causality, and can still aspire to greatness.

[eternaltriangle]

As a human you have two possible strategies.
1. to assume you have free will.
2. to assume you have no free will.

In the universe there are two possibilities (actually it is probably more like a spectrum, but for the sake of argument).
1. A universe of free choice
2. A universe of no choice

Thus, there are four possible outcomes
1. You assume you have free will, and you do. You will end live or die by your successes, but probably do well in life.
2. You assume you have free will, and you don't. In this case your choices were predetermined anyway, and you will end up somewhere predetermined by various circumstances beyond your control.
3. You assume no free will, and you have free will. In this case you will likely do poorly - waiting on fate to deliver results (I think of all those people that believe in true love, or that "love will come when you least expect it").
4. You assume no free will, and there is no free will. Same as 2.

Therefore, by assuming no free will you cannot do better than if you assume there isn't - although you can certainly do worse through doing so. Reality is probably somewhere in-between absolute determinism or absolute free will, but at any rate, it is irrational to assume no free will.

[umop_3pisdn]

Therefore, by assuming no free will you cannot do better than if you assume there isn't - although you can certainly do worse through doing so. Reality is probably somewhere in-between absolute determinism or absolute free will, but at any rate, it is irrational to assume no free will.
I don't find it that irrational, I tend to view them as compatible. A large part of my identity and personal identity boils down to causality and probability. Where and by whom I was raised, and what values and morals were instilled in me, the collection of my life experience, etc. We have no way of knowing for sure either way, so obviously it makes sense to view life as if your decisions matter. They do, obviously, to some degree, and I don't think anyone is arguing that. But if you view the universe as one huge system of cause/effect, who is to say that if we understood the whole system, consciousness wouldn't be entirely predictable? Then just extrapolate it onto a social scale, and the entire universe could fall within a completely perfect and non-deferrable predetermination. For some reason, this strikes me as plausible. I tend to be of the view that determinism trumps like nearly everything in it's scope, so I find it holds intellectual appeal. I feel as if accepting this possibility isn't accosting me my autonomy. I can still make decisions and guide my course through life in the human ways that we humans tend to be capable of, and according to how we subjectively perceive reality.

[elfece]

umop_3pisdn: I'm a huge Nietzsche fan, I've read Thus Spoke Zarathustra twice in a few months, and also another 3 books by him, and I'm pretty embedded into his philosophy, but I find eternal recurrence to be the weakest part of it... Well... today's science says usually says that the universe have a beginning and an end, so there is no an infinite amount of time at our backs and in front of us, but a hard-core deterministic fan would say that the universe will big-bang and big-crunch infinite times, and maybe it is already happening, and every time EXACTLY the same way as it did before... so in a certain way, eternal recurrence could be true:huh:

But yeah, it's a really comforting theory

and eternaltriangle: I do agree with you, after every philosophical debate I have with others, or just with myself, I nearly always end up believing that pragmatism is the only reasonable way to play the game of life, independently of the rules we're submitted to...

That pragmatism.. Acting as if you do in fact have free will... Is then pretending I talked about..

I mean, yes, it is the most rational way of acting from a pragmatic point of view, but if I don't find a good reason to believe in randomness, then I have no option but to assume that we're all inside a big lie, and as an INTJ I'm not very comfortable into that...


Oh, and yeah, not being in control of oneself sucks, it makes you doubt even if it does make sense speak of -oneself-.

[umop_3pisdn]

but a hard-core deterministic fan would say that the universe will big-bang and big-crunch infinite times, and maybe it is already happening, and every time EXACTLY the same way as it did before... so in a certain way, eternal recurrence could be true:huh:


That's more or less the train of thought I entertain with the idea of the eternal return. Although I don't even necessarily feel certain that that is what happens, I feel adopting that mindset makes me more conscientious of what I can be doing to make the best of life right now. My thoughts may all boil down to some simple deterministic principle expanded to higher levels of complexity, but if that's the case, and say I am unhappy with my life, then some change must be initiated in myself. If I am not happy with life, the idea of it repeating forever is somewhat terrifying. In fact, this notion influenced me most powerfully in the most psychedelic trip I've had. I thought reality would repeat itself as it is now, throughout all eternity, and I found this in my case to be entirely damning! So ironically I think determinism motivated me more so, to take responsibility for my path in life, though that may not really make much sense.

[thod]

it is not due to an inherent degree of randomness, but to our incapacity to measure it with enough precision

This is not correct. You cannot use intuition to extrapolate to the quantum world. Position and momentum are related. The more accurately you measure the position the more uncertain the momentum becomes. There is even such a thing as a planck length which is the smallest possible measure of distance. There is no such thing as moving a particle half a planck length. Choas theory, or fractals simply show how complexity can arise from small differences in starting conditions.

Just because you have never studied the subject does not make it wrong. I found an article by someone that thinks like you:

For far too long I've sat idly by, twiddling my thumbs and respecting the right of others to form thoughts and opinions independent of my own, and I can't take it anymore. I've got to speak up about the many things that annoy me or I'm going to go crazy. Take these new credit cards with the microchips in them, for instance. Man, those things really get my goat—trying to improve a device that was working perfectly fine as it was. Even worse are those wrappers on CDs that take forever to open. But you know what I hate the most? The one thing that makes my blood boil whenever I see it? Anything beyond my mental capacity, that's what.

God, all the people, places, and things I haven't made the least bit of effort to comprehend should just die already.

Will you look at all this stuff I have neither the intellect nor the maturity level to process? What a load of crap. It's in my face every day, doing lots of things I don't have an immediate desire to do and saying things I can't identify with at this stage in my life. How lame is that? I mean, what kind of pathetic loser would actually enjoy something that's so incredibly not among my personal preferences? Not me, that's for sure.

Maybe my standards are too high, but if you like any of the hundreds upon hundreds of things that are too multifaceted for my attention span, you should have your head examined, weirdo.

And don't even get me started on complex and sophisticated notions I can't possibly wrap my head around. That stuff makes me want to puke. Just knowing there are people out there who like—actually like—interacting with concepts that overwhelm my feeble consciousness makes me embarrassed to be an American. I don't like it in our homes, I don't like it in our schools, I don't like it outside of my comfort zone—well, I just plain don't like it. And if that makes me closed-minded, well, then I guess I'll have to dismiss that accusation outright in order to avoid being introspective even for a moment.

Why, only yesterday I saw a commercial on TV for a new product I have no immediate use for and therefore cannot see any value in. Who's making this worthless junk? Seriously. If I see one more household appliance I am not mature enough to own or operate, I'm going to punch someone. I swear. Sell that to the suckers with the money and inclination to buy it, because I wouldn't take it off your hands if you gave it to me, provided me with a living situation stable enough to house it, and showed me how to use it in a manner that didn't disrupt any of my cripplingly sedentary lifestyle habits.

Same goes with any TV show, movie, band, solo act, artist, book, burgeoning subculture, celebrity, fashion trend, or religious belief that makes me feel excluded from my peers or otherwise ostracized by the mainstream. That stuff is retarded.

While I'm at it, I'm sick to death of this growing trend of people who don't share my cultural heritage. I don't know how you did things back in that country I never took the time to educate myself about, but around here, we dip our fries in ketchup. That's the way it's always been as far as I know, and that's the way it's going to be until such time as I choose to acknowledge diversity among the earth's 6.6 billion people.

If things don't start changing around here, I might have to up and leave this town. It's gotten to the point where I can't walk down the street without having some flier thrust into my face, advertising some dumb concert or stupid party or annoying art festival or lame-o Minnesota primary or any number of other events that no sane person with a crippling fear of the unknown and a wildly underdeveloped imagination would ever want to go to. I've never been to any of these social gatherings, but I imagine the scores of people who attend them must be total idiots.

You know what? You geeks go knock yourselves out. Really. Have a blast with all your differences in personality and preference. Don't worry about me, because I'll be sitting at home alone listening to the same four records I've been listening to since college, laughing at your expense.

What a bunch of losers.

[eternaltriangle]

But if you view the universe as one huge system of cause/effect, who is to say that if we understood the whole system, consciousness wouldn't be entirely predictable?

If you predicted everything that would happen for the next thousand years, wouldn't actors change their behaviour? Or what if you accounted for the fact that you had predicted everything - wouldn't they change their behaviour on the basis of that? Would you act differently knowing what will happen, versus not knowing?

Let me give an example - the Philips Curve, in the 50's and 60's was the basis of monetary policy in the free market world. Countries would trade off between a certain level of unemployment and a certain level of inflation. However, the Philips curve changed the reality of the system: all of a sudden, people's expectations of inflation in the long term were not zero. Unions started demanding wage hikes, companies raised prices, and the stagflation of the 1970's took place. Knowing the relationship changed reality.

[elfece]

This is not correct. You cannot use intuition to extrapolate to the quantum world. Position and momentum are related. The more accurately you measure the position the more uncertain the momentum becomes. There is even such a thing as a planck length which is the smallest possible measure of distance. There is no such thing as moving a particle half a planck length. Choas theory, or fractals simply show how complexity can arise from small differences in starting conditions.

Just because you have never studied the subject does not make it wrong.


Okay, thod, first of all, you should quote the whole phrase I said; it says that I FIRMLY BELIEVE what I said, and by no means I wouldn't use my sole intuition to invalidate the whole quantum theory; I'm sure it would be pretty difficult to make good science with just ideas and words, but take in consideration that this post is in the "Philosophy" area of a non-scientific forum, so if you expect here numerically backed-up demonstrations, this is not the forum you're going to find them into.

I don't think I should have a Ph.D in Quantum Physics to be able to expose some ideas I've had and be surprised that other people likes them, shares them and elaborate on them. You should see that what we're doing here is not science, but rather philosophy (at a pretty amateur level, by the way)... I do not intend to become the 21st century Einstein, I just grab a given set of ideas and by combining them arrive to conclusions which I like to share, this ideas could be wrong (either because they itself are wrong, or because I hadn't understood them well)? Surely they could, but should I confine my ideas and stop myself from sharing them?... I think that's not the way.


Said that, one of the last things I said is that I wish that someone could expose a good theory demonstrating that randomness exists, okay, you say that I'm wrong by giving some well known "theories" that nowadays are almost popular culture...

The fact that I cannot accurately measure momentum and position at the same time just means that: I am unable to know it, it doesn't implies that every particle at the universe isn't happily existing with its own momentum in its own position at any given moment without any observation-related complication.


And I think i've read somewhere something about Planck length, what I have in mind is that there cannot exist such an instant perception: When I observe my keyboard, I am actually observing the light it reflexes through my eyes, and the time that light took to make the travel to my eyes is inappreciable... But if I stare at the sun (heh, it hurts), knowing that it takes approx. 8,3 min to the sunlight to arrive to earth, what I am seeing is a delayed picture of the real sun, sun would eventually explode, and 8,3 minutes would be needed for me to notice it. With Planck length it is a similar situation, there comes a moment that observations made over a extremely extremely extremely small piece of matter just doesn't make any sense, because what you perceive is not what there is, like the delayed picture of the sun.


You said that I cannot move a particle half a Planck length, does it means that the universe itself can be splitted into "frames" just like a film? I would rather say that beyond the Planck length you cannot perceive the movement, and is in that way that it becomes "nonsensical" to "move" a particle half a Planck, but again, the fact that we're unable to measure it, doesn't mean it doesn't exists, or it doesn't make sense by itself (yeah, I know, the pink invisible pony also may exist, but I find what I've said to be a little more logical at least...)


And talking about logic, even if we admit that at quantum scale the rules of logic becomes totally different -unintuitive- it doesn't represent any danger to causality, as long as it is "logical" enough ;D, and even if there exist some kind of logic that accepts randomness at that level, how can that randomness affect the matter at the scale we "exist" into as living, conscious beings? If I started jumping, I wouldn't expect to variate the earth's trajectory, in a similar way I think that even if something such as "quantum randomness" exists, it wouldn't affect the "deterministic" behaviour of bigger forms of matter, is what I've said before about "randomness tolerance"...

And about chaos, a chaotic system is highly sensible to its initial conditions, so an incredibly tiny variation in the input (cause) leads to a totally different output (effect); in the real world, we may not be able to repeat a "chaotic experiment" twice with EXACTLY the same initial conditions, and that's why we cannot predict accurately the behaviour of such complex systems, but the fact that they can be really disconcerting doesn't implies that chaos=randomness...

To put it simple, lets suppose that spontaneously the whole universe rewinds itself. Then, the universe gets in "play" mode again, why wouldn't EVERYTHING develop EXACTLY how it was the "first" time? (Again, at least at a bigger-than-quantum level)...

[Homini Lupus]

I started a similar thread (are we really free?). You may be interested in that too since it deals with similar questions (I didn't mention phisics because I'm no expert in that)

About the eternal return I always tought it is more a way to love than a prediction about the future. What I understood is that the logic is that you should live as if you would have to do it over and over again (so no self sacrifice if you don't get enough reward by example).

[umop_3pisdn]

If you predicted everything that would happen for the next thousand years, wouldn't actors change their behaviour? Or what if you accounted for the fact that you had predicted everything - wouldn't they change their behaviour on the basis of that? Would you act differently knowing what will happen, versus not knowing?

Let me give an example - the Philips Curve, in the 50's and 60's was the basis of monetary policy in the free market world. Countries would trade off between a certain level of unemployment and a certain level of inflation. However, the Philips curve changed the reality of the system: all of a sudden, people's expectations of inflation in the long term were not zero. Unions started demanding wage hikes, companies raised prices, and the stagflation of the 1970's took place. Knowing the relationship changed reality.
That sort of thing wouldn't necessarily place us outside of causality, though, it might just add another dimension to the whole thing.

Us realizing the pattern could just be another part of the flow of determinism. Meaning, yes, it may 'change' our behaviour, but deterministic priniciples may have already accounted for this human understanding being developed in the future, and it might be one of those 'changes' that are just as pre-determined as anything else. We cannot see the flow of causality, perhaps every breakthrough of human understanding also falls within it? If so, then the events following it would also fall under causality.

edit:
About the eternal return I always tought it is more a way to love than a prediction about the future. What I understood is that the logic is that you should live as if you would have to do it over and over again (so no self sacrifice if you don't get enough reward by example).
I generally agree, but I believe taking it literally gives the statement more power. I don't know much about physics of chemistry, but there's probably a limited amount of matter in the universe. If the universe exists in a continual set of destruction and rebirth phases, and the starting conditions are always the same, it seems likely follow the same path each time. At least, that's what I thought the ordered chaos/fractal thing indicated, though I'm much of a layman in this.

I'm not saying I'm confident it's what happens, but adopting this mindset tends to get me thinking of things like transcendence and such. Even if the physical world is an infinitely repeating cycle, or a prison of causality, there still must be some way to transcend it somehow? We don't really know how our consciousness works, or if there is or isn't a basis for the "spirit"? I find it gets me thinking of not just how I can improve my life, but also a more spiritual side to things, and how I can improve the world by perhaps being a good influence on others? If life/reality is a circle, then it almost seems to exist to be transcended. Taking it literally isn't any attempt to aspire towards objective truth. I don't really bother with that, to be honest. I find it more so to be a means of inciting a desirable internal effect.