Determinism Is Self Defeating

[bennyboy]

Not only is determinism unproven, it is unprovable. You must prove that given a particular state of the universe at time t, there is only one possible outcome for time t+1.

Show me the evidence that "things could not have gone differently than they have." You cannot. What you have is not a scientific conclusion, but a philosophical assumption made on the basis that it accords with what we are used to thinking about in science.

Really, the only relevant issue here is whether or not the universe is sufficiently non-deterministic to allow us to have real free will. The answer to that question appears to be no. The only non-deterministic processes we've detected are at the quantum level, far below anything approaching our consciousness, and even if those drove consciousness, we'd have random will, not free will.

The problem is that you can only detect physical processes. The whole process of using science to study mind is a giant question-begging one, because you already accept that mind is a physical process. I do not accept that only those things which are physically provable are existent, or real, or of value; I DO accept that only those things which are physically provable are appropriate subjects for scientific inquiry. The problem is that "prove it" has become a modern mantra-- and yet I cannot even prove the existence of mind, the most salient feature of my existence. If you really want to be scientific, we should be saying, "What is this mind thing of which you speak? There's no mind, so there can't be any free will, which is a property of mind." Of course, we all know the problem with saying that.

Some of the experiments done showing that you can predict some action shortly before a person becomes consciously aware of their own intent are very cool. HOWEVER, as far as I know, in all cases subjects were "primed" to say hit a buzzer. So although the moment of striking was unkown to the subject, the willful intent to hit a buzzer at some time had already been reached.

Now would be a good point for people to link all the experiments that show how wrong I am.