determinism versus indeterminism

[Purple Rabbit]

PR Hi
So you don't exclude randomness from nature or if you'll permit me to rephrase your statement you accept randomness as a part of laws of nature.
Now making a little step further I would ask, do you see randomness (synonim to indeterminism) as a marginal ,neglectable part of nature
or has it a major role within the general picture of natural laws known to man?
In my opinion randomness and casuality have an almost identical weight in the laws of nature.
Let me explain what I meant when I said that laws of nature are causal linked between them.
Every event taking place in the coordinates of time/space has always on the axis of time an event which preceed and an other which succeed,
linked between them according to a multitude of physical laws.No event is born out of nothing (except God who does not exist).
Now the problem is if we can affirm that there exists two sucessive events which are linked by an absolute causal law or that the causal link is flawed by randomness.
If you know of such an absolute causal law please speak up and I shall be happy to have learned something new.

In my opinion each physical law has a limited conventional validity where it is causal and beyond those limits it becomes more and more indeterministic.

Furthermore I also regret that from deterministic laws of nature it follows that free will, in the sense that man can intervene in causality and decide which action to take, does not exist. But that is the dilemma caused by deterministic laws. It is known as the problem of free will. Neurophysiological experiments done by (among others) Libet indicate that the brain activity associated with the preparation for movement starts a quarter of a second before the person being tested reports having decided to move (see for instance Freedom Evolves by Daniel Dennett, p 230).
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Here I must vehemently be in discordance with you because what you say about the inexistence of the possibility of man to intervene in the future sounds close to the proof of the existence of the immuable Destiny which is borderline to the belief in God.
Sorry PR take no offense

I take no offense Josef. This is an open discussion and disagreement is anticipated.

But the laws of nature are such that they leave no room for interruption by intelligent agents. You may not like this, but not liking it won't make it go away. I'm not at all suggesting a belief in god. A fully determined universe would make a good case against god I'd say, for there is no room of free will for man, which is part of all ahabramitic religions (notwithstanding the possible contradiction that arises with an all-knowing god). Personally my preference would be that there is room for free will. But when you look at the laws of nature as we know 'm so far, determination prevails on the macro level. On the micro level there is room for some indetermination (as a result of Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle and quantum fluctuation) but there is no room for causal interruption by intelligent agents. Whether the evolution of the universe with everyting in it is deterministic or not does not matter, the laws seem to leave no room for intelligent causal interruption. This is a question philosophy of mind is wrestling with since long, but nature hasn't provided any openings so far. If you know of any please let me hear about them, I would be very interested.

If the laws of nature are deterministic every event has a causal predeccesor: ... A causes B causes C ... But there is no room such that the following occurs: ... A causes B > interrupt by intelligent agent forcing event D, D causes E ...

If the laws of nature are partially indeterministic some events have no causal predeccesor: randomly X occurs, X causes Y causes Z ... But there is no room such that the following occurs: randomly X occurs, on X there is an interrupt by an intelligent agent forcing event D, D cause E ...

Although in popular literature often is suggested that quantum uncertainty gives a basis to free will, no such thing is the case according to the laws of physics, neither has any of the sort ever been observed. These assertions are based on nothing but speculation or as Murray Gell-Mann said 'quantum flapdoodle'.

On the other hand some stances vigourously defended in the scientific/philosophic community concerned with philosophy of mind, propose mental properties of physical matter. These proponents of property-dualism in general do not reach for quantum mystification. The reason thereof being that sheer speculation does not survive scientific scrutiny.