(June 20, 2010 at 10:29 am)mem Wrote: But isn't the idea that everything is already mapped out, well isn't that a bit like "god has planned our lives"? Is determinism a religious stance cos I can't believe in that. It seems crazy to me. Am even more confused now....
Nah, determinism doesn't need to invoke any higher power. It says that everything is determined, but does not specify whether it was "planned."
Most scientists (except for, maybe, quantum physicists) presume that determinism is true when they ask "what caused so and so to occur?" A feather falls at an acceleration of 9.81 m/s^2 in a vacuum... what caused it? Gravity. A person feels severely depressed despite having a fairly good life... what caused it? A hormonal imbalance. Determinism would be proven false if an action did not have a cause.
Determinism has held true, so far, in every science at the macroscopic level. At the quantum level it seems to break down, but then you just have probabilities (which are no more kind to the concept of "free will").
