What Kind Of Determinist Are You?

[HopliteElite]

So, what kind of determinist are you?

Hard Determinst: You believe that every event is caused. Essentially, nothing can happen without being caused by something else. No behavior is free.

Soft Determinist: You believe that every event is caused but there is a difference between caused and compelled. For instance, someone robs a bank because they just want to; the behavior was caused by external factors but still free. Someone gets a bomb strapped to them and is told to rob a bank or be detonated; the behavior was compelled by external factors and is not free.

Indeterminist: Not everything is caused. The **** just happens theory, essentially. Free will reigns supreme.

I, myself, am a hard determinist. All scientific, empirical and sociological evidence seems to lead to the conclusion that everything must have a cause in order to happen, including human behavior. While this is still a theory, it not a faith based guess, like indeterminism. I do not mean faith as in religious faith though, just in that it requires you to believe without any empirical evidence to back it up. Soft determinism is just for hard determinists that are afraid to accept the truth, in my mind.

[Spurius]

Where do I file 'everything has a cause, but that does not mean you can always know the exact result in advance, or guarantee such a result is always repeatable' under?

[HopliteElite]

Where do I file 'everything has a cause, but that does not mean you can always know the exact result in advance, or guarantee such a result is always repeatable' under?

Probably hard determinism since you do believe everything must be caused. Hard determinism does not require the belief that we can ever truly know exact results in advance or that results will always be repeatable. I do believe we "could" but don't personally believe we ever "will".

[Spurius]

OK, 'hard determinism' it is then, I guess

[edit] with the added proviso that 'no behaviour is free' for me equals 'no behaviour is free of a cause' - humans have some leeway to operate, and can say no to a whim, although most would probably follow it. Of all systems that don't give guaranteed repeatable results, we're the worst example.

[Chaigidel]

its all true :O

everything is determined until we introduce necessarily indeterminate variables like a persons choices -- though the choices and people are created and motivated by the infinite and solid causes of everything they also are completely random in the end because there are so many things getting a say in how things actually turn out-- so even as it is all determined and caused; it is also completely free from all determination and cause; and it is also a mix on the human level.--- without the intermingling of this kind of processes in the universe I dont think the universe could exist at all.

[Ummon]

The problem with "everything has a cause" is that the cause has a cause too.

[Spurius]

Well, that's a meta-thing. Interesting but irrelevant. If I want to know my father, I don't strictly need to go back down the hereditary lineage all the way to amoebe level just to know *him*. Sure he has a father, too.

What bugs me more about determinism is that most hard determinists/behaviourists forget they would not be asking this question if they were absolutely correct in their strictest application of it.

We'd be chimps.

[Ummon]

Well, not exactly. Infinite regression prevents computation, hence prediction.

[Ummagumma]

**** happens. Far too often - Karma is bull.

[Justice and Mercy]

I believe that behavior is free. There's no way, however, that you will be able to be absolutely unnaffected by outside influences. However, your will is still free.

[King of Axum]

all of ones actions occur in the great mind of God thus he knows all things ahead of time ( predetermenation).

[Justice and Mercy]

all of ones actions occur in the great mind of God thus he knows all things ahead of time ( predetermenation).

Which is the great contradiction of Abrahamic religions.

Your future is determined, yet you have free will?

[Jubal_Barca]

I'm afraid I don't see how Free Will is a myth. In a sense it is, in that our brains function for decisions and will come out with a result. But the fun thing is...

If you use the rather popular multiple universes theory (yes, genuine science) then Free Will suddenly becomes a scientific possibility. This is because every possible decision you could make you DO make, but you simply can't tell which one is the future of the conciousness you are in, because all of them are.

In a hrd determinstic Univers it would be possible to tell, but as far as anyone knows there is no way of solidly telling the future, and this may well be why...

Therefore I'll keep my Free Will thanks...

[Spurius]

I don't think anything is predetermined. Nature doesn't seem to work that way, just look at the weather. It's stable, more or less, at the macrolevel, but not at the microlevel.

Same with large globs of cells, like us. The more complex we become (humans who use language become automatically very complex) the more valid ways and options become available.

Whatever we choose (which is far from random, ever, assuming you're sane) still has a traceable history as to cause and effect. A consciousness using language just has more possible cause-effect chains to choose from than a consciousness that doesn't.

I think that's why the multiple world idea is so appealing, since it's so similar. But the multiple worlds scenario is a false one, IMO. So I'd not make my free will dependent of such a fragile basis. And frankly, you don't need it.

Everything is determined, but I challenge anyone to give me determinator and determinee in writing in advance, given enough steps - in very ordinary cases.

[Trax]

I'm hard determinist

However, your will is still free.

Freedom is an illusion, a precious illusion but illusion nevertheless.
Every single decision of yours is derived from the previous events and decisions in your life.

[Justice and Mercy]

Freedom is an illusion, a precious illusion but illusion nevertheless.
Every single decision of yours is derived from the previous events and decisions in your life.

Yet everything about the world is so random?

Matter expands and contracts randomly, yet it's determined?


If tell a computer to come up with a number between 1 and 10, and to choose it randomly, it will generally come up with a different number, while nothing changes other than the randomness of it.



In a universe of such randomness, hard determination cannot exist.



And I know that my choices are my own. I don't need to prove it to anyone.

[Khosson]

The problem with hard determinism is that it is too damn similar to fate. I mean sure everything has a cause but hard determinism makes it sound like that cause had to be caused.

I'm a soft determinist.

[MasterOfNone]

If there is no free will then there is no responsibility, no accountability, no good no evil. It is all just a machine.

Although this has been the leaning of secular philosophies (and some religious ones) it is not one I espouse, nor do I believe the Bible or God teaches.

Predestination and Foreordination are two terms I like. The first indicates that certain events had to happen, the second indicates that there were people prepared and put on the earth to be a catalyst of those events. BUT they had a choice. Others could have done what they did.

Agency or free will is, to me, the most wonderful thing in the world. That people can choose to love, can choose to do good, can choose to be kind. Without free will there could never be any happiness in this world, because we are a product of the past decisions and actions we have taken of our own volition.

[Marcius Lucius 211]

I do not mean faith as in religious faith though, just in that it requires you to believe without any empirical evidence to back it up. Soft determinism is just for hard determinists that are afraid to accept the truth, in my mind.

You offer a false alternative. Being undetermined is not equivalent to being uncaused.

I tell my hands what to do and they do it, what can be more empirical than direct observation! Furthermore I am conscious of the happenings in my own mind and am aware of the fact that I am choosing a certain course of action.

More importantly, knowledge is impossible without volition. As you can see I believe it exists while you do not; according to you we were determined to believe these things and I was therefore determined to believe falsely! Even if you are right in any particular it would be impossible to verify it's truth because you may be accepting it as true only because you were determined to.

[HopliteElite]

I tell my hands what to do and they do it, what can be more empirical than direct observation!

The real question is what made you tell your hands to move in a certain way? It sounds like you would say "because I willed it so" but that is not enough for a hard determinist. We see so much evidence of people's behavior being influenced, if not outright controlled, by their given environment and this simply does not allow me to believe that we are free. I cannot just believe that people freely do what they want when it is so abundantly obvious that the environment plays a huge, if not an all powerful role, in determining who we are.

Furthermore I am conscious of the happenings in my own mind and am aware of the fact that I am choosing a certain course of action.

Your thoughts are simply byproducts of your environmental conditioning. For instance, to use a simple example. You learn in class that 1 in 4 girls have a venereal disease (true btw) then you go to a bar and a girl hits on you and wants to have sex with you. You "decide" not to have sex with her because of the stats which you heard earlier. You may believe that you made a free decision but this reaction is simply a response to a current stimulus, the girl, as well as a past stimulus, hearing about the statistic. In essence, you were determined to make this decision, you had no choice.

Even if you are right in any particular it would be impossible to verify it's truth because you may be accepting it as true only because you were determined to.

I agree. I do only believe in hard determinism because I was conditioned to. I will never argue against that. However, hard determinism, in the case of humans, "can" be proven. Behaviorism could be applied, on a controlled experimental level, upon humans, starting at birth, to see if scientisits could condition these subjects, over time, to consistently behave in certain priorly hypothesized ways. While the ethical standards of the day in the western world forbid such human experimentation, it cannot be said that behaviorism and determinism cannot be proven, as they "can" be if proper experimentation was allowed.