Determinism Is Self Defeating

[bennyboy]

I saw where this was going, and was able to predict it. That means there is at least that degree of determinism in the universe. I could link 20 dictionaries and half a dozen philosophy sites that says determinism is just what I think it, but no matter how I reword or rephrase it, you'll insist that the 1:1 causal chain that I call causal determinism isn't what it is. We're no longer doing the interesting job of debating philosophy, and are now undergoing the less interesting process of debating semantics. Well, here we go, and then I'm out of this conversation because rather than stimulating, I'm finding it tedious:

Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

"Fixed" is "set in stone," and is not "open."

Determinism often is taken to mean simply causal determinism, which in physics is the idea known as cause-and-effect. It is the concept that events within a given paradigm are bound by causality in such a way that any state (of an object or event) is completely determined by prior states.

Not open.

(World English Dictionary)
1. Compare free will Also called: necessitarianism the philosophical doctrine that all events including human actions and choices are fully determined by preceding events and states of affairs, and so that freedom of choice is illusory

2. the scientific doctrine that all occurrences in nature take place in accordance with natural laws

3. the principle in classical mechanics that the values of dynamic variables of a system and of the forces acting on the system at a given time, completely determine the values of the variables at any later time

"completely determine," as in don't allow any "openness" with regard to any aspect of the future.

(Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper)

1846, in theology (lack of free will); 1876 in general sense of "doctrine that everything happens by a necessary causation," from Fr. déterminisme, from Ger. Determinismus, probably a back formation from Praedeterminismus

Oh wow, this looks like historically, "determinism" is just "predeterminism" with the suffix chopped off.
_____

At this point, I can only assume that you are getting into goofy philosophy like this:

Since modern physics shows that the universe in indeterministic, with profound effects on the atomic scale of microscopic processes, we will find it valuable to distinguish pre-determinism (inevitable causal chains) from the adequate determinism that we have in the real world and obvious in the classical physical laws that apply in the macrocosmos.

I do not accept this process, because it is moving goalposts: "Oh, you meant the determinism in which a state at t ACTUALLY is sufficient cause for the state at t + 1, which I want to avoid because the physics seems shaky to me. I was talking about the apparent determinism in which the state of the system can be very different, but all the things we care about (like bouncing billiard balls) still behave predictably." This is not a declaration of a physical (or philosophical) truth: it is an admission of the very course way in which humans interact with that physical truth: in course concepts.

Okay, I'm out. The last word goes to. . .