Re: A defence of determinism


Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
Lance wrote:
Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
I agree with all that, apart from one thing. I am sure that there are
people who are 'determinists'. I wouldn't count myself as one as I don't
'deny' that there type 'c' events, I simply see no evidence for them,
nor any need to posit them, so, as you say, in the interests of
parsimony, it seems otiose to hold 'c'.

Those who think the universe is finite and began with a "big bang" have
to say that the big bang itself must lie outside of causal analysis.
>
There's an interesting article on an alternative creation story that
doesn't require time to have started in a recent copy of the New
Scientist, suggesting that the universe is inside a sort of rather big
black holey sort of thing.

Causality, after all, is a mental construct not a feature of reality.
(If you don't agree, read Kant, and the empirical support his work got
from the likes of Michotte). The mental construct of casality depends
on notions such as time (for example, causes must preceed effects). But
if there is no time where does that leave causality?

Isn't that a variation of Zeno's paradox about Achilles and the tortoise?

I think Zeno is relevant to these questions since whilst almost
everyone was impressed with his arguments almost nobody believed them.
Why not? It seems to me that is because everyone has experience of
motion and so decides that however irrefutable the argument appears to
be it must be wrong.

I have the same kind of reaction to determinism. It seems to me to be
in conflict with experience in much the same way as Zeno's arguments
are. Hence I feel certain there is something wrong with it. I can't
understand why you guys are so willing to set aside your experience of
life as a moral decision making being and agree that all of that is
just a charade - and to do so on the basis of an unprovable
metaphysical doctrine to boot!

In another vein, perhaps you will note my implied point that
metaphysical questions of causality are closely related, indeed
dependent on, metaphysical accounts of the nature of time and space and
matter.


I'd also feel something of a fool to claim 'c' is the case since the
Universe has been around for a very, very long time with quite a few
events going on and nobody has found even a single one that conforms
with 'c'. Believing that little green men live on Mars seems to me a
much more sensible belief as it is far, far less improbable.

Well see above. The vast majority of "events" that we experience are
complex, and have multiple interafting causes. We can only see the
causal pattern clearly in really simple isolated systems (for example
Kepler's and Newton's solar system). So for the vast majority of cases
we have no direct evidence of universal causality. There are also many
systems - of the kind Popper called clouds - where causality seems to
be looser than the causality in clockwork systems.
>
I'd be interested in any evidence that it was looser, though I'm not
quite sure what that means.

I'll try to summarise Popper for you whe I get a chance.



We have mentioned the case of radioactivity in the discussion. I gather
the reply favoured here is that some trigger for radioactive decay may
yet be found (after an immense amount of research not finding such
triggers). Well why is it that people feel comfortable with that but
talk about sky-hooks when creationists suggest that evidence of God may
yet be found?

Yes, that is a good question. I haven't met or read of many creationists
who argue that, but I think that it would be prefectly reasonable and
consistent for somebody to design god detectors based on some theory -
particularly if the theory was falsifiable. If the god detector was
built and found nothing then the creationist would happily abandon the
theory and become an atheist would be quite reasonable.

So you agree with me. Hell must be cold today.

Lance

.

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