Determinism Is Self Defeating

[bennyboy]

In a deterministic universe, all these events are packaged into the Big Bang. As for destiny-- determinism is just destiny with one possible path.

Not even close. As the circumstances and participants in events could not have been said to have existed yet - so how could they lead to anything like clockwork? The interactions and results of the first event do not yet constitute a requirement for some action 14 billion years later. You've glossed over all the space in between and in the deterministic model all of the spaces between are crucial. The big bang may be -a part of- the chain of causality - but requirements other than (the big bang occurred) need to be met before any other event we might want to invoke has any measure of certainty attached. For example. The big bang has to have occurred a specific way to produce a force of gravity such that if matter exists with a specific mass and arrangement and proximity to another bit of matter with a specific mass and arrangement then inevitably this force will act on both in a predictable way (that is the only result of all of these exacting circumstances). All requirements must be met.

You're clearly not clear on what determinism is - what seems to have rubbed you the wrong way is fatalism. Fate or destiny has a power arbitrary to any preceding circumstance. Hopefully you can appreciate the immense difference between an invocation of destiny or fate and an invocation of circumstances in attempting to explain an event? To say that one is destined for something since the moment of the big bang is not to state a position of determinism - at all.

Careful with saying what I am or am not clear on. Them be 1 vs 1 debating words. One two three four-- I declare a link war! But to save us both the tedium and time of actually following through, here:

Fate is the idea that all roads lead to Rome, basically. So no matter what decisions I (freely) make, I cannot avoid arriving at a certain state.

Determinism is a belief in a single causal chain. So despite my apparent freedom of choice, actually all my behaviors are simply a response by my brain to various stimuli (including its own memory, as well as new sensations). I'd call this "hard fatalism," because it means that everything that has ever happened, or ever will, is set in stone, rather than just certain crucial moments.

As for "existence," I think you're wrong on that point. Nothing can really be created: there is just a stream from state to state. All the physical circumstances and "participants" have always existed, or determinism is necessarily false.

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Here you are providing a cause for the magic rabbit, and if the universe functions according to laws, then everything is determined. That basically defeats your own argument.

It shows that determinism isn't falsifiable. Any apparent disproval, evident in a failure to predict, can ALWAYS be met with a claim of lack of sufficient information. But this introduces both question begging and a paradox-- because if the unpredicted event is non-deterministic, then your appeal to hypothetical accurate information is an appeal to the non-existent.

Given the statement: "It's not possible (ever) to collect the kind of information you're talking about," there's also a potential argument from ignorance: "Since we can't collect accurate state data, you cannot show that this system is not deterministic." Then we get to play the BOP hot-potato game.

but nobody predicted it because "we just lack accurate enough data." All it would prove is that some things cannot possibly be predicted-- which is already the case for almost everything in the universe more complicated than billiard balls, taxes or death.

That also defeats your argument. You're saying, I can't predict because I don't know, which means, if I knew, I would be able to predict.

Good job.

Yes, IF I knew the state of a system, and all the laws govern its progression through time were deterministic, I would be able to predict perfectly (assuming I had access to a perfect analog calculator). But this implies that states are fully knowable, that the way in which they unfold is deterministic, and that such a calculator could exist, even in theory. For all these to be assumed true, even hypothetically, we've also already ASSUMED determinism, rather than showing it.