/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18368355]

I subscribe to hard determinism due to overwhelming evidence, should I kill myself? Literature on the matter?

[Anonymous No.18368372]

There’s actually no difference between “determinism” and its opposite, just as there’s no difference between free will and no free will, as you are never “outside” that which you’re analyzing. In fact, free will as a concept is an issue made in the mind. It’s not a real problem.

[Anonymous No.18368397]

>>18368372
congrats, you aren't an npc

[Anonymous No.18368401]

>>18368397
YES, I KNEW IT

[Anonymous No.18368448]

>>18368372
Holy cope

[Anonymous No.18368493]

>>18368448
No, it’s not because it’s realizing you’re in the same place irregardless. I thought like you when I was a teenager.

>>18368401
Never understood this trend on 4chan of people impersonating others quite literally for no purpose? Who the fuck are you

[Anonymous No.18368513]

>>18368448
I don't see why he's wrong, or why it's a cope. The issue of free will is really a moot point. If it does not exist, then we cannot restructure society around that because nothing fundamental has changed. If it does exist, then we still can't really do anything practical with the knowledge.

The issue is really only valuable in an epistemological sense. Knowing changes nothing, because even if you can't control your actions on a fundamental level you still have to try to get anywhere.

That being said, my two cents is that there is an irreducible determinism. If it is given that free will exists in a meaningful sense, then "what will happen will happen" and eventually decisions will be made. The very passing of time means that free will cannot exist in a meaningful sense, because all uncertainties will be resolved.

[Anonymous No.18368897]

>>18368355
books on genetics.A starter /lit/ fag tier work would be macbeth

[Anonymous No.18369079]

>>18368355
>should
Its a meaningless question. Also the evidence doesn't matter. You will necessarily read more about determinism until you necessarily experience realisation of why your question is eternally stupid.

[Anonymous No.18369085]

>>18368355
Hard determinism is refuted in its literal entirety by quantum uncertainty.

[Anonymous No.18369091]

>>18369085
>Hard determinism
No it isn't. Quantum Mechanics has nothing to do with how humans are affected by their outside stimuli

[Anonymous No.18369106]

try again, kiddos.
it's all nothingness and chaos, nothingness and being. nothingness is what makes us free! stop it right now. determinism is to confuse the beggining with the ending, the cause for the effect.

[Anonymous No.18369110]

>>18369091
>No it isn't
Yes, it is. Determinism is fundamentally the belief that from perfect knowledge of initial conditions, the future can be perfectly predicted. This is directly refuted by the fact that, when you chase the initial conditions down to their root, certainty as to what those prior conditions even are is mathematically impossible.

[Anonymous No.18369122]

>>18369110
This guy >>18369091 is currently busy reading the Wikipedia page on quantum uncertainty and will reply shortly.

[Anonymous No.18369130]

>>18369122
Retard quantum mechanics has very little affect on the macroscopic world. Are you nuclear powered or something?

[Anonymous No.18369137]

>>18369110
Hard determinism in regards to the entire universe is definitely BTFO by quantum mechanics, but in regard to free will it's still valid. Quantum tunnelling has no effect on your reaction to stimuli

[Anonymous No.18369143]

True "freedom" can't be described, shown, or conceptualized at all. All attempts to imagine a truly free act are stumbling over the same fundamental problem, which is that "imagining" anything presupposes determinate relations. Determinate both mechanically (efficient cause) and determinate conceptually (formal and material causes).

To describe something IS to describe it as a perfectly determinate function of its causes, at least at the level of ordinary discursive consciousness, which is the form of consciousness involved in both everyday life and science. As Hegel said, a good concept is "dead." It "does what it does," and nothing else. It is determinate. That's what makes concepts useful in the first place, that's what allows everything from science to logic to math to useful intuitive predictions in everyday life (which still run on provisional assumptions of perfect determinacy in attempting to model situations involving many or squishy variables).

What this basically means is that your very way of seeing the world, the way your mind's eye works, is to see it as a world of objects without subjects, an object being anything that is a determinate function of its grounds and causes, and a subject being.. something else. So every time you look at the world and try to find freedom in it, every time you try to create a philosophical system that gives an account of freedom, you will be frustrated, because you are using a tool that is designed to be a freedom-not-seer. Yet every time you go "phew, guess that means freedom is impossible haha, I'll stop looking for it," you will realize YOU are free, or at least you feel free. Whatever your subjective consciousness it, it isn't behaving like an object, despite the fact that your whole rational constitution is practically begging and commanding it to.

To a large extent Kant's philosophy is grounded in this problem: what are the limits of scientific, conceptual, rational cognition? What does it mean that we we feel and treat ourselves as free beings, yet can never understand what "free" even means? What does it mean that every time I'm looking at another human being, the whole scientific part of my cognition, the part suited for reducing the world to physics problems and logical relations, is aggressively trying to reduce him to his constitutive parts, and yet always comes up short, always leaves an unsatisfying remainder?

The two greatest mysteries in philosophy, the two things no human being can think of without getting angry at how amazing they are, at least if they are thinking of them clearly and distinctly, are:
>Why is there something instead of nothing?
and
>Why am I a subject reflecting on myself instead of a soulless object, "doing what it does" according to physical and rational laws?

Fichte talks about that in the introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre. Every subject is capable of looking inward and seeing himself as a free, positing being, not like the objects he posits.

[Anonymous No.18369153]

>>18369085
Not in a meaningful kind of sense. If the nature of the universe is that events are structured according to some probabilistic function that doesn't necessitate free will at all. Suppose, instead of QM, all your life decisions came down to the roll of some magic die on the other side of the world. Is that freedom? Compatibilists can fuck off, also.

[Anonymous No.18369155]

>i subscribe to hard determinism
>should i make x choice
kek
you either will or you wont, its already been decided, no point asking, you dont get to choose

[Anonymous No.18369156]

>>18369137
A deterministic stance incorporating QM is no longer hard determinism. This is my point. Obviously macro structures trend towards deterministic behavior. I subscribe to something close to soft determinism myself. This is because hard determinism is basically just determinism for people who've never heard of Heisenberg. To people who have actually done at least some of the actual legwork behind researching a rigorous philosophical system, hard determinism is equivalent to phrenology.

[Anonymous No.18369165]

>>18369156
Correct me if I'm wrong but I was under the impression that there was a difference between believing Hard Determinism in regards to the events in the universe and Hard Determinism in regards to free will

[Anonymous No.18369172]

>>18369165
Hard determinism is just that — hard. There are extrapolations from that stance wrt free will, but they all rest in the fundamentally and demonstrably fallacious "hard" stance towards determinism itself as I explain here >>18369110.

[Anonymous No.18369179]

>>18368355
Evidence is for nerds. Free will is a construct. Freedom is spaciousness and flow. Proliferation of concepts is self imposed prison

[Anonymous No.18369263]

>>18368355

>>>/lit/thread/S18284981#p18286353
>The true free will extends "backward", irrespective of extending "forward", and does not mix with the world, irrespective of being able to do so. Free will being given to Man so that he might affect the world in the vulgar Catholic sense would be tremendously insulting to both God and Man in that Man being given "free will" after the fact, after being created in this way and not in that and, indeed, after being created at all is an absurd abomination: implicitly burdening the "free will" with that which it did not will, both in content and in form, mere predestination is both more just and more dignifying. Similarly, freedom of will and freedom of action being one and the same, as Catholics maintain they are in the "ideal" state of their world, would make the freedom of such a will Epistemologically indistinguishable from a will totally subordinate to an autonomous Phenomenal, mere predestination is both more just and more dignifying. Moreover, I maintain that "mere" predestination is actually THE true will itself: a will so free that it has implicitly chosen and concluded everything, implicitly unburdened and unburdening itself even of what itself wanted to choose, before one is even "created", let alone born, so that one is then not ironically free but truly free, even from choice, to passively observe the technicality of one's Phenomenal life excreting itself away.

[Anonymous No.18369288]

Ok chads, list of arguments for determinism-
>What is the self? Is there a ghost in the machine?
>Psychological: our entire conscious mind underpinned by an unconsciousness few ever grasp at all
>'Where do your thoughts come from?'
>As this anon said >>18368513 The very passing of time means that free will cannot exist in a meaningful sense, because all uncertainties will be resolved.
>Scientific level, this guy >>18369130, and with Q Physics - even then are you defining free will, the self, as valid through randomness?
>(idk how this is gonna format, fuck it)

>>18369143
I like the unique point you've made, except I completely disagree with your assumptions for the existence of free will. I genuinely feel in my self, contrary to what others believe, that I am not fully aware (and so not aware) of myself. Why is that inherently a psychological miracle to do so? I look at myself and others as objects, honestly. I once thought to myself 'there is no difference between me, this tree and this book'. I know I do not know myself. Your basis for free will is you feel it to be true, it's your human nature, but I say there is no such thing as human nature and there is no reason to, at least rationally, believe it.
Many people think this perspective detracts from life like retarded OP. And it is true fundamentally nothing changes like >>18368372 says but I disagree with him in that I think there is great utility in having this perspective for the sake of truth and informing your moral thinking. I just know from a top-down rational perspective, I do not have free will. That fate guides all my actions, but this fate I do not know, which is a key understanding that separates this from mere fatalism. It would be injustice to me to tell me that free will exists, because I do not see free will in the patterns of people. It's almost like statistics itself, that everyone is a demographic, proves something. And technology hasn't advanced to the point where all traditional human wisdom has transcended us.

[Anonymous No.18369316]

>>18369263
Kino
>>18369288
Same. Except I don't even believe there can be said to be a unitary "self" at all. What's inside our mind is an impossibly chaotic maelstrom of self-mutating processes that coalesce and form the illusion of unity.

[Anonymous No.18369331]

>>18368355
>should I kill myself?
You are asking somebody's opinion so that you could make a better-informed
>decision
?
Enlighten a pleb, how can you actually decide without free will?
Maybe you just want to participate in pain olympics and free yourself from any consequence at the same time.
>hmm maybe if i convince myself that free will doesnt exist, then i won't have to struggle and actually try to exert it upon the world
>*clears throat* oh noes! whatever i do is predetermined! woe is me! now i can cry about the injustice of existence and stew in my unresolved problems while slurping starbucks coffee

[Anonymous No.18369339]

>>18369155
It was already determined he'd ask and make his choice based on the responses (that are determined) or not.

[Anonymous No.18369352]

>>18369316
Anything to do with metaphysics is incredibly complicated if you want to be correct. The subject-object distinction in itself has flaws. I prefer to stick to moral philosophy where everything is grounded in humanity.

>>18369155
>>18369331
If you believe in determinism, it is better to apply it backwards rather than forwards for the sake of coherency. I choose an action, and that action was pre-determined. Rather than, this action I choose will be pre-determined - for I don't know that. Of course I have to look both ways before I cross a road, if a car comes I won't step into the road.

[Anonymous No.18369385]

>>18369352
>Anything to do with metaphysics is incredibly complicated if you want to be correct.
True, this is why I've given up on philosophy and now focus on doing art

[Anonymous No.18369395]

>>18369385
No reason to give up philosophy just for one facet of it. Moral philosophy is inherently more pertinent than abstract metaphysics. Also, you better not be making degenerate art.

[Anonymous No.18369421]

>>18369395
>No reason to give up philosophy just for one facet of it.
Metaphysics is foundational in my opinion, without it everything else becomes a empty exercise in rhetoric and comformism.
>Also, you better not be making degenerate art.
I'm a man who lives in the end of times, there's no such thing as degeneration where there are no points of reference.

[Anonymous No.18369432]

>>18369421
>Metaphysics is foundational in my opinion, without it everything else becomes a empty exercise in rhetoric and comformism.
I would argue it's the opposite. Moral philosophy, grounding everything in the relativity of being human, is what gives coherency and meaning.
>I'm a man who lives in the end of times, there's no such thing as degeneration where there are no points of reference.
True but that is only ironically agreeing with the times. You can always invent your own point of reference, for an ideal future that does not yet exist.

[Anonymous No.18369433]

>>18369352
>it is better to apply it backwards rather than forwards for the sake of coherency. I choose an action, and that action was pre-determined. Rather than, this action I choose will be pre-determined - for I don't know that.
You don't know if the action you chose was "predetermined" either.

[Anonymous No.18369444]

>>18369433
Well isn't that akin to saying, 'what are the arguments for determinism anyways?'. How could things ever be different? The entire causality of my life leads up until that point.

[Anonymous No.18369452]

>>18369444
If we say that you can infact know what has happened and by knowing that it is has happened you can infer that it was pretedetermined, then by that same logic you can infer that whatever will happen in the future will also be predetermined.

[Anonymous No.18369456]

>>18368355
Determinism doesn’t mean you don’t have the subjective experience of choice brainlet

[Anonymous No.18369466]

>>18369143
based take, maestro

[Anonymous No.18369469]

>>18369452
Yes that is true, but I do not know the outcomes of what choices I will make in the future. I can only know the outcome once I have chosen. So doubt becomes the uncertainty factor instead of free will.

[Anonymous No.18369471]

>>18369085
Why is it uncertain?

[Anonymous No.18369479]

>>18369288
you being able to realise that you are an object is already an act of free will. the tree or the monkey do not realise their condition and that of others. what makes you human is your underlying understanding of who you are. the fact that most people do not access free will and behave in patterns doesn't mean free will doesn't exist by the way. it is a human potentiality but very few people uncover it.

[Anonymous No.18369495]

>>18369469
>Yes that is true, but I do not know the outcomes of what choices I will make in the future. I can only know the outcome once I have chosen.
If you raise a cup to your mouth and drink it, then your "knowledge" of what would happen before you did it, is equivalent to your "knowledge" of what happened after you did it. Both are ultimately flawed mental recreations. This is also irrelevant to the logic that says that anything that happens is predetermined.

[Anonymous No.18369512]

>>18369479
The capacity to 'realise' my condition (whatever exactly that means) and that of others, of sentience, is still simply the product of an object, a very complicated object with many moving parts. I do not think anything is special in us. It is not an act of free will.

[Anonymous No.18369547]

>>18369495
I like your thinking. However I still think from a metaphysical perspective of time, only one choice can ever be the outcome and all reality itself including you, is one serial sequence of outcomes. And either way, I think the strongest argument against free will is the in-cohesiveness of the concept itself, and psychologically our unconsciousness.

[Anonymous No.18369563]

Arrow in the Blue is a book about a guy who realizes this and decides "well, if it's all predetermined I may as well start doing interesting shit". so he left uni and joined a kibbutz for a while and ended up almost starving to death in some city in palestine. pretty good book, 6/10

[Anonymous No.18369570]

>>18368372
but free will is a word that describes a human experience. as such it's no different from any other word or experience

[Anonymous No.18369587]

>>18368513
well belief in one or the other is bound to affect (deterministically?) our behavior. what we believe in the matter appears to matter in our decision-making because it crucially affect how we judge what is happening around us and ourselves. it obviously matters if I believe that I killed someone out of necessity or because I am foul, any human will testify to this

[Anonymous No.18369593]

>>18369547
>However I still think from a metaphysical perspective of time, only one choice can ever be the outcome and all reality itself including you, is one serial sequence of outcomes.
Yes, but whether you have knowledge of the outcomes doesn't matter.

[Anonymous No.18369605]

>>18369593
Thought about it some more. You've made a very good epistemological / phenomenological point and I'll cede you that, but it nulls the entire basis of this particular argument for arguing either free will or no free will. And for most people, this goes beyond their metaphysical understanding and I wasn't addressing that but refuting something on their level in their terms. Instead I still think my other arguments still stand.

[Anonymous No.18369620]

>>18368355
>I subscribe to hard determinism
>Should I

You fool, you refute yourself, since even in your affirmation of determinism you must deny it.

[Anonymous No.18369622]

>>18369130
>quantum mechanics has very little affect on the macroscopic world
Holy mother of idiocy, read Roger Penrose

[Anonymous No.18369627]

>>18369605
>>18369620
Like this guy here haha

[Anonymous No.18369658]

>>18369110
> Determinism is fundamentally the belief that from perfect knowledge of initial conditions, the future can be perfectly predicted.
No. Determinism is the idea that all things have specific causes. Whether you can predict the future with "perfect" knowledge is irrelevant.
>This is directly refuted by the fact that, when you chase the initial conditions down to their root, certainty as to what those prior conditions even are is mathematically impossible.
"We can't determine it" is not "It is uncaused".
Your confusion stems from a conflation of the ability to determine(ie. to uncover) something with the proporty of being determined(ie. to be caused).

[Anonymous No.18369679]

>>18369143
>Whatever your subjective consciousness it, it isn't behaving like an object
I'm not sure, but.. so you find objects in your senses, but there are mental processes that seem to have a different kind of origin, such as will. It's hard to say "my knowledge of my will is the result of an observation" in the same sense that "my knowledge of my table is the result of an observation". However, I think this is what the concept of the subconscious means to point to. I think the idea is that even mental processes arise as the result of the intermingling of an inward sense and subconscious processes, where the point is that this inward sense sometimes can not really relay what it is it finds in the subconscious, and so it presents it in the form that it is capable of (thought and feeling). Clearly I can't point precisely to where my thought comes from, but this is a theory that is consistent with what I understand to be the fact that my thoughts, like my other observations, take place within what I understand to be my consciousness. I receive them as a form of knowledge, and as such they are *known* just like other knowledge is known.

Another thought is this. Muhammad has said in a hadith that, regarding mans psyche, "the part is the same as the whole". This has been taken as grounds for interpreting the Quran as an allegory of the soul (I think there are indications of this kind of reading quite clear in the Quran as well). So here one could say that "the earth" in the Quran represents the clearly corporeal "lower" senses. When mercy comes from heaven as rain, the earth blooms. The Quran says many times that God created mountains as a kind of anchor or the earth, to keep it still. Some have taken this to mean that the mountain is the persistent sense of "I", it is the one knowledge around which the others gather to become meaningful. But the mountain also stretches into heaven, and heaven is taken to be higher functions, such as thought. So in this theory thought, feeling, perhaps even will-formation, are taken to be processes that arise in the psyche in the same sense that Gods will is mediated by angels in heaven. In this kind of theory, "higher functions" are little other than the speech of angels and satans. In this "man as all the cosmos" model of psychology, this is what higher functions are: they are where God makes his will known through his messengers (angels are Gods messengers). And angels and satans are unseen, and can not be caught by human faculties. So in a sense it's the same as belief in a subconscious will-formation. Man is tasked by God to act as his steward in creation. So each man is given the cosmos (himself) to tend to. Where the true "I" is, if it exists... frankly I suspect it is with God (and if my fate is that of al Hallaj then I ask that God have mercy). The rest are processes. How does the true "I" relate to the processes? I don't know. But I do know that Gods mastery of the same is complete.

[Anonymous No.18369680]

>>18368355
>should I kill myself?
I don't know, maybe, not that you actually have a say in the matter anyway, it's all been predetermined, as you say.

[Anonymous No.18369691]

>>18369605
I think
>I choose an action, and that action was pre-determined. Rather than, this action I choose will be pre-determined - for I don't know that.
is an argument against free will, rather than an argument against determinism, as you cannot make any meaningful choice if you don't know the outcome.

[Anonymous No.18369707]

>>18369658
>Whether you can predict the future with "perfect" knowledge is irrelevant.
It's not irrelevant, it's the only rational conclusion. If we live in a perfectly deterministic universe where every single event is strictly delineated by its initial conditions, it follows that from those initial conditions there is precisely one way in which that event could have occurred. If there is only one way that event could have occurred, then it could have been predicted from perfect knowledge of those conditions. Since these conditions aren't actually knowable at the quantum level, it follows that hard determinism rests on rotten foundations.

[Anonymous No.18369722]

>>18369547
chaos theory refutes this

[Anonymous No.18369729]

>>18369707
basado, thank you.

[Anonymous No.18369737]

>>18369707
>It's not irrelevant, it's the only rational conclusion. If we live in a perfectly deterministic universe where every single event is strictly delineated by its initial conditions, it follows that from those initial conditions there is precisely one way in which that event could have occurred. If there is only one way that event could have occurred, then it could have been predicted from perfect knowledge of those conditions.
Only if you were God and stood outside the universe could you have "perfect" knowledge of it.
>Since these conditions aren't actually knowable at the quantum level, it follows that hard determinism rests on rotten foundations.
"Since we cannot determine it, it means they are uncaused."
No. I already addressed this.

[Anonymous No.18369761]

>>18369737
>Only if you were God and stood outside the universe could you have "perfect" knowledge of it.
No fucking shit, retard. Drop your sanctimonious attitude, and your anthropocentrism while you're at it, and then maybe you'll have a chance of understanding the argument I'm actually making.

[Anonymous No.18369762]

>>18369691
Good point. And yes, I was conflating determinism and free will a lot out of laziness. Determinism itself is extremely complicated to discuss. We can not know anything about objective reality or even the metaphysical framework it would have. Good chat, I'm gonna read now instead of wasting time on /lit/ lmao.

[Anonymous No.18369764]

>>18369679
and God knows best.

[Anonymous No.18369768]

>>18369761
I already explained why your argument stems from a confusion of concepts.

[Anonymous No.18369776]

>>18368493
>impersonating others
Not that anon, but he clearly wasn't claiming to be OP at all, people can chime in with quirky comments without impersonating you for whatever reason you think they are.

>I thought like you when I was a teenager.
That's some weird condescension. The anti-determinism crowd basically agrees that even with quantum nonsense or what have, you are still able to perceive the appearance of free will, even in denying the simplest of choices to your self benefit. You can stop and contemplate and make reasonable choices but go against them for no reason other than to assert your free will thus breaking whatever rationalist determinism you think dictates reality. Irrationality more or less solves the problem from an individual perspective. As to the perspective itself, you're free to maintain a positive outlook on free will just by, well, believing it. Short of being ambushed by a man in a white lab coat who predicts your every movement and choice you have no reason to believe you yourself are a predictable actor insofar as your choices are predetermined by some ontological force beyond your conscious comprehension.

[Anonymous No.18369785]

>>18369288
>is a conscious object
>is therefore able to decipher causality
>is therefore able to act beyond these boundaries through conscious efforts
>still believes himself to be a “thing” stuck in a huge machine
Retard. Pedantic retard.

[Anonymous No.18369798]

>>18369785
What makes you more conscious than a squirrel?

[Anonymous No.18369837]

>>18369679
I guess the question is: "ok, my freedom can't be known, but how do I know my will?"

[Anonymous No.18369841]

>>18369798
observe squirrels throughout their evolution and throughout the history of this planet, versus humans. you will see that squirrels are stuck in cyclical patterns that have remained unchanged since the very formation of their species, whereas humans are able break out of certain cyclical patterns and transform their way of living, whether it be for the best or worst.

[Anonymous No.18369855]

>>18369841
This is not the reply I was fishing for.
>whereas humans are able break out of certain cyclical patterns and transform their way of living, whether it be for the best or worst.
Is this ability caused by any physiological difference between humans and squirrels?

[Anonymous No.18369872]

>>18369768
No, there is no conflation. What we are discussing is something FUNDAMENTALLY UNKNOWABLE, which if we acknowledge as being in keeping with the arbitrarily defined endpoint representing the culmination of ALL HUMAN MATHEMATICAL ENDEAVORS, refutes any hard deterministic argument which asserts ANY certainty. It is an argument which is not just unsubstantiated, but unsubstantiable on its most basic level. Since determinism is only a conjecture, proposing a viewpoint, we can take QM as a refutation of this conjecture which ultimately resolves into uncertainty – fundamental, unbridgeable uncertainty. It is not an explicit refutation, but one that precludes the knowledge of its truth value.

At this point, we can with a good, rigorously reasoned opinion, conclude that determinism is essentially rooted in faith rather than reason, and from here takes on theological overtones. We are, after all, considering some fundamentally unknowable force which is taken to run a current underneath all observable phenomena in the universe and which delineates their trajectories. Sounds a lot like God to me.

It's always been interesting to me how we deal with unknowables that pop up at the ends of so many rabbit holes. They converge on something that takes on a Godlike quality.

[Anonymous No.18369906]

>>18369798
Maybe my ability to have an influence on my environment? Look at the fucking tools you’re using to post your retarded philosophy, you idiot. It’s a dialectical dynamic: our environment influences us and we can also influence our environment. This dialectical materialism enables us to provoke change in history. As a guy said, we can transform our way of living.

[Anonymous No.18369914]

>>18369622
>unproven hypothesis

[Anonymous No.18369927]

>>18369872
>Since determinism is only a conjecture, proposing a viewpoint, we can take QM as a refutation of this conjecture which ultimately resolves into uncertainty
No, because you are refuting only the strawman you have made based on your conflation of being able to determine something and something being determined.
Or to put it in terms that you might be able to understand, that mathmaticians cannot determine something with their equations doesn't mean that that something is "unknowable" to God with his "perfect knowledge".
>conclude that determinism is essentially rooted in faith rather than reason,
Determinism is inferred by assuming universal casaulity. So of course it is based on "faith". It just so happens that when you do away with this assumption, you cannot have any understanding or meaningful or discussion of the external world.

[Anonymous No.18369931]

>>18369906
I repeat my question
>>18369855

[Anonymous No.18370220]

>>18369927
>Or to put it in terms that you might be able to understand, that mathmaticians cannot determine something with their equations doesn't mean that that something is "unknowable" to God with his "perfect knowledge".
It has nothing to do with mathematicians. The language of mathematics is purely human-agnostic. While a hypothetical alien civilization may come at it with different set of incidental assumptions (eg base-12 instead of our base-10 decimal system) they will have the same fundamental understanding as we do. Addition and subtraction, integrals and derivatives, etc. Quantum uncertainty is not a hypothesis or a conjecture; it is a rigorous principle which refers to the mathematics itself in its capacity as a universal bridge between humans and human-agnostic, capital-R Reality. The point is that I am not arguing something humans have created. It's something that exists separately from humanity and which we have only discovered the manner of expression.
>No, because you are refuting only the strawman you have made based on your conflation of being able to determine something and something being determined.
Determinism is the assertion of things being determined. The determinability of determination is indeterminable. It follows that the proposition that all events follow deterministic causality is unknowable, and therefore that the statement that they are is false. I don't know how else to explain this.

I'm tired of going in circles on this. Please directly address the "perfect knowledge" argument. I'll go over it again in greater detail.
>1. Assume the existence of a suprahuman entity which has perfect knowledge of all events an arbitrary point in time. Assume this entity is immortal and omnipresent, but still plays by the rules of our universe.
>2. For determinism to hold true, this entity would by necessity be able to take the state of all events at this arbitrary point in time, and from that state predict the future state of all future events
>3. This predictability is held to be endemic to the nature of deterministic systems whose events follow exclusively from prior conditions. If events proceed linearly and exclusively from a discrete set of prior conditions, with perfect knowledge of those conditions comes perfect prediction. Determinism is, in this way, also determinability itself.
>4. Therefore, if events happen in an unpredictable manner to an omniscient entity, determinism must be discarded
>5. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle states that it is mathematically impossible by the rules of our universe that we can ever predict the location of a given quantum past a certain precision based on prior conditions. If we are to disagree with this statement we must either toss out mathematics itself, and many basic laws of reality, or we must toss out determinism. In lieu of a refutation of Heisenberg, I submit that determinism's central argument that all events are driven by prior events has been demonstrated to be false

[Anonymous No.18370259]

>>18370220
>Please directly address the "perfect knowledge" argument.
Ok.
>Heisenberg's uncertainty principle states
Irrelevant.
> If we are to disagree with this statement we must either toss out mathematics itself
No. This is not a statement which is derived from pure math. It is derived from an inability of mathematical physicists to make observations fit their model.
Also
>Quantum uncertainty is not a hypothesis or a conjecture;
Lol. You are hopeless.

[Anonymous No.18370262]

>>18368355
You can prove hard determinism if and only if you show that *all* decisions and actions are products of *all* inputs *all* the time.

[Anonymous No.18370282]

>>18370259
>trust me bro I'm right

[Anonymous No.18370300]

>>18369931
And the answer is no, retard. Unless you can solve the hard problem of consciousness.

[Anonymous No.18370310]

>>18370259
Got some bad news for you my man. Inequalities and paradoxes are at the very center of how the universe works on a physical level. They aren't transient phases between ignorance and truth. They are themselves truths. Read Gödel.

[Anonymous No.18370313]

again you should start with the approachable component. "free" can't be captured. but what about "will"? if free will exists then "free" relates to "will". so look at "will".

[Anonymous No.18370323]

>>18370310
>Inequalities and paradoxes are at the very center of how the universe works on a physical level.
This statement is nonsense. You are treating abstract concepts as though they were physical objects. This is called reification.
>>18370300
>no
So if a human being was born with the brain of a squirrel, he would still be able to "break out of cyclical patterns" the same as a normal human?

[Anonymous No.18370356]

>>18370323
>This statement is nonsense. You are treating abstract concepts as though they were physical objects. This is called reification.
not him but he is talking about actual PHYSICAL laws of the PHYSICAL UNIVERSE you complete retard

[Anonymous No.18370372]

>>18369914
What unproven hypothesis? Whether or not Orch-OR is true doesn't change the fact that quantum processes have large scale effects in the macro world, as you would know if you weren't a scientifically illiterate fedora tipper.

[Anonymous No.18370377]

>>18370356
>t. doesn't know what a mathetical model is - thinks "laws of phyiscs" are physical objects

[Anonymous No.18370382]

>>18368355
If you believe in hard determinism then it doesn't matter what you think or feel, you're either pre-determined to kill yourself or you're not. Your question doesn't make sense.

[Anonymous No.18370390]

>>18369914
>>18370372
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25714379/ checkmate atheists

[Anonymous No.18370391]

>>18370310
>Inequalities and paradoxes are at the very center of how the universe works on a physical level
No. They are a mark of the limit of our understanding. Paradoxes emerge in our models and systems of the universe. Not in the universe itself. But nowadays paradoxical exotic statements are seen as a mark of "elite theory" because it can be talked about endlessly. Like now.
>Read Gödel
"Read" godel? Why don't you go through his mathematical proofs instead. Which you clearly haven't. You have instead read much of the literature surrounding his proofs, which are very "interesting" and "cool" because they involve word games about "how things really are".
Godel didn't do much. He said 1) In any sufficiently complex system of statements, it is possible to construct unprovable statements. 2) A system of statements cannot be used as proof of itself, despite its internal consistency.
Theorem 1 is trivial and has been known since the greek (and even before if you consider vedic mathematicians). Theorem 2 says circular reasoning is no proof.
What part of this supports your claim about how the universe works and its inherent paradoxes?
>>18370356
>he is talking about actual PHYSICAL laws of the PHYSICAL UNIVERSE
Are you retarded? A law is a theoretical model. It has limits within which it predicts something. Outside those limits, "paradoxes" may arise, but those "paradoxes" are null because they are outside the context, the limit of the model and those "paradoxes" are are product of the tools we use to construct that model.
For example, take the equation for the electrical field of an electron as a function of distance. r is defined as: r > 0. But if you put 0 into r you get the electric field as infinity. But you don't see an electron collapsing and tearing everything apart do you faggot? The model produces the paradox. The universe itself doesn't.

[Anonymous No.18370406]

>>18370382
You can't blame him though, it was predestined that he would make this thread, and you and I make these posts.

[Anonymous No.18370407]

>>18370391
...continued
The evidence may "strongly indicate" hard determinism. But a definitive proof would require >>18370262.
>>18368355
And finally OP. What the fuck does it matter if free will is true or not? Some philosophical questions are worth pursuing. Others are mere navel gazing and word games. This is one of them.

[Anonymous No.18370438]

[Anonymous No.18370453]

>>18370391
>No. They are a mark of the limit of our understanding.
Fallacy of inductive reasoning taken as fact. Our ability to resolve prior paradoxes does not predict our ability to resolve current and future paradoxes. It's a very useful fallacy to believe in since without it there's no point in even making the attempt. It's a useful little lie, but it's still a lie.
>What part of this supports your claim about how the universe works and its inherent paradoxes?
In short, Gödel illustrates the improvability of provability. You're implying a total disconnect between the model and the reality, as if a totally cohesive model that accurately represents—or even simulates—reality is impossible, and that in corollary if it is possible that paradoxes in complete systems are impossible. I don't share your confidence. As Gödel has shown, otherwise complete systems are more than capable of containing insoluble paradoxes. It's arrogant to assume a universe in which a paradox cannot exist. It's arrogant to assume that it's wholly deterministic. We've got a lot of evidence, both physical and theoretical, that suggests otherwise.

[Anonymous No.18370516]

>>18370453
not that guy but
>You're implying a total disconnect between the model and the reality, as if a totally cohesive model that accurately represents—or even simulates—reality is impossible
A total disconnect is a complete disconnect, meaning there is no connection between the model and reality. This is different from
"a totally cohesive model that accurately represents—or even simulates—reality is impossible"
Which means that the connection cannot ever be complete. Which is a conclusion you can reach through a little deductive reasoning.
The number of different variables will always be too great for any model to take them all into account.
>It's arrogant to assume a universe in which a paradox cannot exist. It's arrogant to assume that it's wholly deterministic. We've got a lot of evidence, both physical and theoretical, that suggests otherwise.
Here you are, rather oddly, suggesting that it is arrogant to assume that an apparent paradox is due to the incomplete nature of the model, rather than assuming as you do, that any apparent paradox you encounter by using a specific model must be inherent in the universe.
As though it is not more arrogant to assume that your model is perfect, and that the universe works "paradoxically".

[Anonymous No.18370526]

>>18370453
>Fallacy of inductive reasoning taken as fact. Our ability to resolve prior paradoxes does not predict our ability to resolve current and future paradoxes. It's a very useful fallacy to believe in since without it there's no point in even making the attempt. It's a useful little lie, but it's still a lie.
Lots of words to say: what if we can't resolve the current paradoxes? But those paradoxes belong to our models, because they emerge from our models. If we observe something paradoxical in the universe, we modify our model to fit it. Which again implies it is our model that causes paradoxes. Not the universe.
Further, let us say that the universe is "paradoxical" by nature or that some aspect of it is paradoxical. We still have to take whatever the universe gives us at face value and deliberately NOT PARADOXICAL. Because we are trying to understand it. We aren't outside the universe to determine if it is or is not paradoxical.
>In short, Gödel illustrates the improvability of provability...As Gödel has shown, otherwise complete systems are more than capable of containing insoluble paradoxes.
No. Godel shows that in a "sufficiently complex" system of statements (the criteria for sufficient complexity is not clearly defined, but you can assume it is a system that allows for self referential statements) one can create compound statements that are unprovable (or as you love to call it: a paradox). It does not show that a theorem is perfectly fine containing a paradox. In fact almost all theorems contain a paradox if you allow for self reference. Even physical laws have paradoxes outside of the contexts they are defined (like the electric field example I gave). Again, you have read a lot of the literature surrounding godel. And like all modern philosophers, you assign his theorems wayyy more "meaning". Further, you are putting words in my mouth to argue against.
>I don't share your confidence...It's arrogant to assume a universe in which a paradox cannot exist. It's arrogant to assume that it's wholly deterministic.
Which part of my response says this retard? I even say >>18370262. Pretending "philosophical concern" is philosophical rigor are we? When making a scientific model, no one assumes the universe is completely deterministic, except retarded faggots like yourself. The only thing assumed is that it is possible to predict some phenomenon using a model. Without this assumption, no further science would be conducted.
>You're implying a total disconnect between the model and the reality, as if a totally cohesive model that accurately represents
Because that is what a theory is moron. We verify a theory by conducting experiments. That verification is done via measurement. What we don't do is aggressively jerk ourselves off about moot points.
Its very clear to me that you are a complete pseud.
It is also clear to me that determinism vs free will debates are designed to keep everyone jerking off about some philosophical moot points.

[Anonymous No.18370575]

>>18370262
>You can prove hard determinism if and only if you show that *all* decisions and actions are products of *all* inputs *all* the time.
Even if that is true, that doesn't prove hard determinism.
If there are singularities of information complexity in nature -- and why shouldn't there be, since information complexity exists and follows the mathematical laws we expect it to follow -- then some processes can be products of their inputs and yet still be completely unpredictable.

[Anonymous No.18370597]

Objectivity silence.

[Anonymous No.18370612]

>>18370575
No you didn't get what I am saying.
I am saying: It is impossible to prove determinism, because that would require you to show what I said earlier. How are you going to trace and measure all actions? How are you going to isolate all actions? How will you determine the inputs for those actions and know that you have an exhaustive set of inputs? How will you measure all events and inputs all the time, and with sufficient accuracy? It is impossible.
My point being: the evidence may "strongly suggest" hard determinism. But it cannot conclusively ever prove it.
Note: I'm not saying anything about uncertainty or quantum mechanics or anything along those lines. Just what I mentioned above.

[Anonymous No.18370627]

>>18370526
>Lots of words to say: what if we can't resolve the current paradoxes?
You've spent even more words trying to dance around this (disingenuously reduced) question and redirect to pedantic elaborations on simple points as if you think I don't understand. My main point, which you seem to think you can redirect me from, is that paradoxes, or within this context, physical events or objects which behave completely separately from determinate causality, are not only mathematically possible but provable. Therefore, hard determinism is not just improbable but impossible. You seem to have overlooked in your self righteous fervor to jerk yourself off (at some solipsistic construct to which you think I bear a resemblance) the name of this thread, and its topic. To a hard deterministic universe, ANYTHING that behaves contrary to its initial conditions is impossible. If you want to give me a refutation of Heisenberg, by all means do so. But in the absence of that, the only reasonable interpretation is that there are elements to the fabric of our universe which behave in a divergent, PARADOXICAL way viz. the laws all other objects must obey.

You seem to think that a reconciliation of QM with Euclidean physics is some kind of forgone conclusion. I'd be glad to be proven wrong, but I have reasonable doubts.

[Anonymous No.18370742]

>>18370627
i'm just another anon just following the thread, but i'm with you, just so you know. your reasoning has been perfectly clear from the start.

[Anonymous No.18370769]

>>18370627
Just a tip: the next time you want to make a point, make it in the most direct way. Like you have just now. Dont say "read godel" or things like that, because you invite confusion.
>physical events or objects which behave completely separately from determinate causality, are not only mathematically possible but provable
Yes, they are mathematically possible.
Are you citing godel and observed quantum phenomena as evidence that they are also mathematically provable? As in: the free behavior of electrons is a paradox, and that godel has shown paradoxes are provable? If so:
1. Godel showed that the existence of paradoxical statements is allowed in any sufficiently complex system of statements. But such statements will remain un-provable. Not what you are claiming.
2. You are calling the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics a paradox to classical mechanics. Then you conflate this "paradox" with the logical paradoxes mentioned by Godel. This is like saying: women are a paradox, hence they is provable.
So this line of reasoning is refuted. This was my contention. Because you brought up Godel and false logic to bolster you argument.

Your next argument: an object acting contrary to its inputs disproves determinism, is shaky. Simply because you would say: my understanding of the universe is at its limit now. You wouldn't say (like most modern "physicists" and "philosophers"): oh mother nature is just a paradox. I think the reasons for this are pretty clear from my past replies.

Anyway anon, you dont warrant any more replies. Cya.

[Anonymous No.18370835]

>>18370769
>Just a tip: the next time you want to make a point, make it in the most direct way
I already did here >>18370220. It was ignored in favor of cherrypicking logical twists and gimmicky gotcha moments.
>Your next argument: an object acting contrary to its inputs disproves determinism, is shaky.
That's because it's not an argument. It's a summary of an argument, which was ignored. In the absence of an actual argument you've elected to, as you've done since your very first reply, make up the gap between your comprehension and what I'm actually saying with your imagination. I get what you're doing. You want to feel smart and you're getting a cheap ego kick from it. You want to "win the argument" more than you want to actually engage in it. That's what all these snide little insults and jabs are about. I see through it, and I know you've developed these behaviors because you've been on the receiving end before. You'll learn the genuine joy of discussing things in good faith eventually. See ya!

[Anonymous No.18370952]

>>18370835
You are in luck anon. I am bored. So I will continue to reply.
So you agree your Godel tangent is retarded? Good.
No anon, your lengthy reply in >>18370220 says the same thing. Let me flesh it out for you. Your logic is as follows:
1. A deterministic universe requires a fixed action or outcome for a fixed set of finite inputs.
2. Some experiments show that electrons and photons don't have a deterministic outcome ie it is impossible to predict where a photon or an electron will end up in those experimental setups.
3. Hence the universe is not deterministic.
The problem is with step 3. In short: just because quantum physics employs statistics and probability as a tool to predict the outcome of an experiment, doesn't mean the universe is statistical and probabilistic (despite what most modern "physicists" and "philosophers" say).
I have said earlier that it is impossible to even prove determinism in >>18370612.
Further, as I have stated before, from a philosophical standpoint, we are in no position to ascertain the paradoxical nature of the universe. It is not just a mere matter of convention to assign any paradoxes to our theories and not to nature. We must fit our theories to our observations, not the other way around. Saying "nature is not determinate" because you can't predict outcomes definitely is horribly arrogant.
The rest of what you said, attempting to psychoanalyze me is moot. You are on 4chan after all anon. You expect people to talk to you in perfectly polite tone baka.
The fact still remains: it is impossible to ascertain the nature of the universe, whether it is determinate or non-determinate, whether it allows for free will or not, etc. Like I said earlier, these debates are designed to spread confusion and endless discussion.

[Anonymous No.18371011]

>>18369587
that's why the original anon said it's all in the mind. the only thing it affects is psychology in the end.

[Anonymous No.18371041]

>>18369153
it refutes determinism but does not affirm free will. the two concepts do not form a dichotomy, although determinism does preclude free will (yeah compatibilists can fuck off)

[Anonymous No.18371060]

>>18368355
Free Will vs Determinism doesn't matter and you shouldn't care about it at all. It is a problem caused by confusions about the use of language and can be dissolved simply by study of how ordinary language functions on this matter.

In real life, there is never a question of a free or unfree Will, only a strong or weak Will. No matter how much you metaphysically foreclose your own free choice, a choice in action and intention will still be apparent and you will still have to choose. It makes no difference whether you could have choose otherwise or not.

[Anonymous No.18371554]

>>18368355
yeah, you should kill yourself. imagine thinking you have no freedom, what a miserable existence.

[Anonymous No.18371734]

>tfw predetermined to be nondeterministic
help

[Anonymous No.18371744]

>>18368372
>>18368397
this

[Anonymous No.18371923]

>>18368372
>“determinism” and its opposite
This implies there's a difference :v)

[Anonymous No.18372201]

>>18368355
That's not for you to decide.

[Anonymous No.18372718]

The mechanics of the universe are fundamentally probabilistic. This presents itself as determinism on a macro-scale.

[Anonymous No.18372723]

>>18368355
Whether you kill yourself or not, you can't help it either way, per your worldview

[Anonymous No.18372745]

>>18368372
/topic

[Anonymous No.18372751]

/lit/fags are pathetic when they try to delve into math and science. Your obscurantist bullshit falls flat whenever it's put to the test.

[Anonymous No.18372981]

>>18372751
It's less pathetic than faggots pretending to understand quantum mechanics or even pretend we're

[Anonymous No.18373264]

>>18372981
You don't need to understand quantum mechanics, you just need to understand the implications of true randomness in nature, one of those implications being that hard determinism is bunk in the face of true randomness (probabilistic or acasual events) in nature. Validity and accuracy of modern quantum mechanics theories aside, the poster earlier in the thread simply can't comprehend that the presence of true randomness in the universe completely invalidates determinism (unless of course you equivocate and start talking about determinism in a colloquial manner).

[Anonymous No.18373282]

>>18373264
true randomness is just gobbledygook and you are a pseud.

[Anonymous No.18373291]

marilynne robinson is America's greatest living author. She's a hard Calvinist (lol. you don't get many of them these days). Read her novels or essays or both.

[Anonymous No.18373434]

>>18373282
Radioactive decay

[Anonymous No.18373449]

>>18373434
Do you pray every night to a picture of Niels Bohr?

[Anonymous No.18373484]

>>18373434
Everything in the universe has a pattern.

[Anonymous No.18373508]

>>18373484
Chinese fortune cookie.

[Anonymous No.18373522]

>>18373508
Insulting.

[Anonymous No.18373538]

>>18373508
>>18373484
>>18373522
Sneed.

[Anonymous No.18373772]

>>18373484
And who's to say there can't be truly random, probabilistic elements underlying aspects of those patterns?

[Anonymous No.18375033]

>quantum phenomena refutes determinism
Holy fucking shit. Quantum phenomena refutes the deterministic theories of light and electrons and such, part of of classical mechanics. It says nothing about the true nature of the universe.
By this logic, if I use addition operator to predict some phenomena, I can then say the universe is "additional" and there is nothing more that can be extracted from it.
You realize how fucking retarded that is !!??