Determinism Is Self Defeating

[bennyboy]

All I really want to say about determinism is that I do not accept equivocation between scientific determinism (where, for example, two massive objects will always be attracted by the force of gravity) and a general philosophical determinism, whereby the state of all physical objects at time t is assumed to be sufficient cause for t+1.

Could you elaborate on the difference between the two in the same way that I elaborated upon these three diff positions we've been bandying back and forth? Doesn't the example of t to t+ adequetely describe the event in the first example offered (two objects)? IOW, in the same way that I described a claim of predeterminism and how it would be incompatible with the other positions - can you describe a claim in which those two examples are at odds with each other?

Okay, in "adequate" determinism, you hold a rock up, drop it, and watch it fall to the Earth every time. In a course way, you can say that the position of the unsupported rock, with nothing solid under it, is sufficient cause for its position on the ground a second later. Few people would argue that given those circumstances, the rock could have done anything but fall to the ground.

But the rock is just a symbolic shorthand for very many particles, with all their spins, velocities, etc. To have global (I'd just say "true") determinism, you'd have to be able to show that given t, only ONE possible configuration of those particles could elapse: only one possible spin, or velocity, or position, or whatever of every smallest particle.

Obviously, the first is easy to prove, and the second impossible. You'd have to be able to prove that there's no intrinsic randomness on ANY level of physics, and that there is no hidden variable.

Why does it matter? Because if even one particle in the universe behaves in a non-deterministic way, then all the rest may be affected.