Determinism

[maverixk]

I have started and been involved in some threads on this forum that have had determinism involved in it and I have read articles and definitions of it, but have still come to be confused by what I have read and the way people seem to be using it and arguing about it. Could someone provide me with a definition of it here please?

Sorry if this isn't enough to start a new thread for, but I am planning to discuss it afterwords. So hang in with me, because I have seen the debates on it, and they tend to be lengthy.

[OldTrees]

Determinism vs Free Will is a philosophic* question about whether you could have done other than you did even if EVERY variable was constant.

Determinism is the claim that with constant input we will receive constant output.
Free Will is the claim that the Will is free to choose between multiple outputs despite constant input.

*Philosophic and not scientific because there is no experiment to test the positive claim of Free Will existing.

[Ekki]

*Philosophic and not scientific because there is no experiment to test the positive claim of Free Will existing.

As far as I know, you can't test the positive claim of Determinism either.

[OldTrees]

*Philosophic and not scientific because there is no experiment to test the positive claim of Free Will existing.

As far as I know, you can't test the positive claim of Determinism either.

Determinism in this context is not the positive claim that causality exists. It is the negative claim that no Free Will exists that could alter the effect caused even with the same causal variables.

That said it is not rational to be biased toward either the positive or negative claim when both are equally untestable/unprovable.

[Nepycros]

However, if we assume the human race being nothing more than a chemical reaction of the universe, we can compare ourselves to any repetitively constant output in a given experiment. Unless I'm just spouting ridiculousness.

[OldTrees]

However, if we assume the human race being nothing more than a chemical reaction of the universe, we can compare ourselves to any repetitively constant output in a given experiment. Unless I'm just spouting ridiculousness.

Consider an experiment:
You have a Black box. You feed the black box the same inputs everyday. The outputs vary. What would you conclude?
I would conclude there was a variable missing from my model. The variable might be on my end with what I erroneously perceived to be duplicate inputs (perhaps the day mattered?) or it could be an input inside the black box. That variable might or might not be Free Will. I would not be able to conclude Free Will existed from that experiment.

[Ekki]

*Philosophic and not scientific because there is no experiment to test the positive claim of Free Will existing.

As far as I know, you can't test the positive claim of Determinism either.

Determinism in this context is not the positive claim that causality exists. It is the negative claim that no Free Will exists that could alter the effect caused even with the same causal variables.

That said it is not rational to be biased toward either the positive or negative claim when both are equally untestable/unprovable.

Well, I actually wanted to mean what you said in your last sentence...

However, if we assume the human race being nothing more than a chemical reaction of the universe, we can compare ourselves to any repetitively constant output in a given experiment. Unless I'm just spouting ridiculousness.

Well, you can't know the exact position AND direction of a same small enough particle (I think it had to be subatomic). That said, knowing the EXACT ouput of this "chemical reaction of the universe" would be impossible, and since some of our reactions are directed (at least indirectly) by some of that small enough differences of a particle, it would be impossible to determine the output of a single human fetus even knowing all the possible data about it.
Apart from that, there's a theory in quantum physics, that everything can happen with a large enough sample. Literally. I mean, your rubber could turn into uranium and travel to Andromedae, then come back as gold (one in a bazzillion-trillion chances of happening). But if you take in account smaller things and smaller differences (like where's a particle inside a neuron), you got bigger chances of random stuff happening.
In the end, you can't know if that "random" output is actually random, or if it is just the data you miss from the input the one that make those things to happen. So it ends being a philosophical debate.

[agentflare]

There's an alternate definition scientifically:
The idea is that given all variables, one can always determine the outcome of a result.

In a physics sense, this means that if you are given say, the location and velocity of every atom in the universe, you could predict the future infinitely, including human reaction, evolution, and motion of all bodies.

Because of Quantum Mechanics, this theory is now dead.

[OldTrees]

There's an alternate definition scientifically:
The idea is that given all variables, one can always determine the outcome of a result.

In a physics sense, this means that if you are given say, the location and velocity of every atom in the universe, you could predict the future infinitely, including human reaction, evolution, and motion of all bodies.

Because of Quantum Mechanics, this theory is now dead.

Would you please expand on your last comment. I thought the uncertainty principle just referred to the inability to measure both position and momentum not an inability for every particle to have a specific position and momentum. Thus it would be impossible to measure and thus know both facts but if they were known the reactions could be predicted (with the possible exception of Free Wills).

[Ekki]

There's an alternate definition scientifically:
The idea is that given all variables, one can always determine the outcome of a result.

In a physics sense, this means that if you are given say, the location and velocity of every atom in the universe, you could predict the future infinitely, including human reaction, evolution, and motion of all bodies.

Because of Quantum Mechanics, this theory is now dead.

Would you please expand on your last comment. I thought the uncertainty principle just referred to the inability to measure both position and momentum not an inability for every particle to have a specific position and momentum.

Quantum Theory just killed lots of things. Even the fact that particles have a specific position and momentum. They don't. They always have an unknown something that is like Schrodinger's cat, both here and there. Anyways, it's still a theory.

Thus it would be impossible to measure and thus know both facts but if they were known the reactions could be predicted (with the possible exception of Free Wills).

I don't think the unpredictability is about "Free Wills", unless it's just a way of giving a "charge of randomness" to particles.

[agentflare]

*snip*
Because of Quantum Mechanics, this theory is now dead.

Would you please expand on your last comment. *snip*

Well, the problem is that the uncertainty theory means that the particle must be measured as a superposition of the uncertainty in velocity multiplied the uncertainty in speed. This doesn't mean that we can't know both if we are a supernatural being, but that it is treated as a wave with random patterns.

According to Feynman's theory, (also proven by the two slit experiment), electrons do not take up 1 position, but rather every possible position. It is just much more likely to be found at certain places (the electron 'shells'). Therefore, it is a matter of probability. Since determinism is the absolute determination, probability does not coincide nicely with it.

[KeeperofDreams]

Determinism versus Free Will or Non-deterministic.

Well, in closed systems we can prove small cases of determinism.  However, in cases where the system is not closed we can't prove it.  Also it's very hard to prove as 'reading' the 'information' change's the result, hence the Cat Paradox.   So the only way to predict this is if we had a complete model of particle physics (which we are near with CERN, a few years away probably) and a change in most of our Physics based Calculus; because it is based on the Kinetic side of the equation and not the potential or 'information' side.  Although, I know of changes coming soon by a certain Physicist about to publish in the 3 largest journals about a different model for calculus, which is interesting as a lot of approximations go away doing so.

Sadly, in the end, I predict their is no true Free Will, just the appearance.  However, that does not mean we are not responsible for our actions, as at this level their is no way to calculate what is going to happen because we can't get a good Snapshot because of the Cat Paradox again and and the very idea of proving true Free Will wrong will change how you think again, and everything changes again.  So, in effect as X approaches infinity our equation looks like when we are racing against something to infinity but it had a head start.