Three knockdown arguments against Determinism

Forums: Philosophy, Determinism
Email this Topic • Print this Page

To the followers of the empty complexities of materialism- thieves, scoffers and riddle-makers all, and to gentle souls thrown into confusion by their intrigues, I offer three insurmountable arguments against determinism, that I may dash it in its pride to the floor and regain that heritage most assured, most profound, most ancient, most new, most immediate, to confound the makers of the mark.

1. AS, determinism is nothing if not expressed through its objects, yet of these it can point to none. Only a nod born of common understanding confirms a finger points to the red of the apple and not to the molecule that rests on its surface.
2. AS, a determined thing, I can never say 'yes, this is what I am determined by'. If I am a determined thing then I must identify completely with all determined things, small and large, for in determinism there is room for nothing but determined things, and no boundaries can present themselves. And if determinism does not consider that I am, by this reasoning, the whole Universe, then the question remains: of any one object that is determined, whether it is I or the Universe, how does one object, the same object, determine itself - except that the object is itself, determineless?
3. AS, one thing is and another thing is, yet no infernal boundary making machine for marking out things is found in determinism. No law of determinism can distinguish one determined object from another determined object.

(c)

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Discussion • Score: 2 • Views: 21,531 • Replies: 25

No top replies

Did you copy that straight from a book? Any chance you could rewrite it in a way that doesn't give me a headache?

I think I believe in determinism, and I think I'd call myself a materialist, so I'm interested to know what your arguments are. But I can't be bothered to make sense of what you've typed out there... plain english would me nice.

0 Replies

1. Isn't both the red and the molecule on the surface parts of the apple?

2. You determine things. Things couldn't care less.

3. No law anywhere can distinguish one determined object from another. It is all relative, subject to our dualistic understanding and always altering.

I do not believe that determinism, whatever it is in it's entirety, is a useful way to look at things. The things are not important. They are maya. Maya means two things, it means "energy" and "illusion" (in case you did not know).

All in all, I think I agree with you, allthough that post was hard on the head.

0 Replies

agrote wrote:

Did you copy that straight from a book? Any chance you could rewrite it in a way that doesn't give me a headache?

I think I believe in determinism, and I think I'd call myself a materialist, so I'm interested to know what your arguments are. But I can't be bothered to make sense of what you've typed out there... plain english would me nice.

I found it surrounded by flames near a cavernous pit, opening into the smoking bowels of the earth. It was one of Moses' tablets, one that didn't get busted.

0 Replies

Cyracuz wrote:

1. Isn't both the red and the molecule on the surface parts of the apple?

2. You determine things. Things couldn't care less.

3. No law anywhere can distinguish one determined object from another. It is all relative, subject to our dualistic understanding and always altering.

I do not believe that determinism, whatever it is in it's entirety, is a useful way to look at things. The things are not important. They are maya. Maya means two things, it means "energy" and "illusion" (in case you did not know).

All in all, I think I agree with you, allthough that post was hard on the head.

1. I can't point to any object. Only by being familiar with human mores can I indicate the object of my attention.

2. Objects do not define themselves. So there are no objects in determinism. Accordingly 'I' or 'you' is not an object of determinism.

3. I cannot say that the objects of determinism are relative to each other becaus there aren't any objects of determinism, and also because it presumes a universal standard by which I can assess something as being relative to something else.

That post I wrote was bloody awful.

1 Reply

I propose a new line of though. Ommism. Everything is one. There is just one thing, and that thing is called everything. All the rest is just sub-dividing.

(Sub-dividing is a musical term. If the beat is 4/4 you count 1-2-3-4. But it may be easier to count the offbeats as well, 1 and 2 and three... or 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 during the same space of time, for more referance points.)

I feel the urge to copy this post onto a new thread...

1 Reply

@John Jones,

"1. I can't point to any object. Only by being familiar with human mores can I indicate the object of my attention.

2. Objects do not define themselves. So there are no objects in determinism. Accordingly 'I' or 'you' is not an object of determinism.

I don't understand how your arguments would render determinism invalid.
In your first point, you made a statement about human mores and how they happen to affect our perception of distinct objects and events. You're simply addressing reality as it does NOT relate to its being perceived. Reality, outside of perception, has no discrete parts or attributes.
Do you mean to say that things are not distinguishable insofar as the cause and effect relationships that mark and map them? I feel as though the approach here is most one of epistemology. I feel that I can make the argument that there are natural laws, causal relationships, and means of predicting/explaining all phenomena. Human beings are such "phenomena," despite their ability to experience and interact with reality.
As the physical precedes the psychological (Ex. your neurons and your environmental input create your conscious experience of, and reaction to, reality) I would say that what we know of the human mind conforms to the deterministic standpoint.

0 Replies

@John Jones,

When phylosphers make such sentences they are only interested in making them look smart and intelligent and to hide that they have acctually no meaning and that they are just playing with words.
They don't care one bit to try to make what they want to say easy to understand.
This is totlay in contrast to scientific approach.
Sciense really tries to teach people how things work, tries hard to transfer knowledge in the most simplest possible form, and never says that someone is to stupid to understand something which is the common apporach of philosophers.

You cant jsut say stuff like
"determinism is nothing if not expressed through its objects"
"AS, a determined thing, I can never say 'yes, this is what I am determined by'"
withouth proving or providing flow of thoughts which resultet in this conclusions.
You argments are no differetn then saying three time "Determinisam doesn't exist".
You only mask this by going few step backwards invetning some unproven assumtions which then lead to also not proven conclusion that "Determinisam doesn't exist".

3 Replies

@Cyracuz,

that has nothing to do with free will...

1 Reply

@Pillog,

How does free will go against determinism? Why do the two have to be mutually exclusive?

1 Reply

If we are determined then we are determined to be determined.
If we are free then we are determined to be free.

Either way....

0 Replies

@vori1234,

I will prove your point wrong about talking simply wrong in binary: 000101010010101010010110101010101010010101010010101010101010001101111101010101010101010101010101011010101101011010101010110101010111101010100010110101011001010111101010101001010110010010101

2 Replies

@Cyracuz,

Thats actually called compatiblism but it isn't widely accepted.

0 Replies

@polypoly,

-.-- --- ..- .-. / -- --- - .... . .-. / .-- . .- .-. ... / -.-. --- -- -... .- - / -... --- --- - ...

0 Replies

@John Jones,

There's only one determined reality from which you cannot speak once uncomputable, if not for itself...
Indeterminism above all indetermins itself as certain theory...no reality under its scope, no reason...no nothing!

0 Replies

@vori1234,

Oh you see, but I did get what he meant...although I disagree with it.
And yes Phylosophers are not Scientists, thankfully...otherwise knowledge would probably be empoverished...

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

The OP made some interesting observations.

But it doesn't make much sense to speak of an object as being determined. Outcomes can be thought of as determined.

Just as we know a priori that objects have extension in time and space, we know that possibility and actuality are identical. In order for a state of things to be possible... that state would have to be actual.

As the OP pointed out, what we know a priori doesn't apply to the self. The self is an object we know neither prior to nor posterior to experience. The self is an object known by itself. This awareness involves a split in the self. It can be seen that the self-as-object is the foundation of all objects that come to be known through the experience of the mind.

As Kant pointed out, this is the origin of all we know a priori: that we know ourselves as objects. Therefore, as the OP points out, it is incorrect to lay deterministic rule upon actual events if this involves an invalidation of the self. Determinism doesn't make any sense once the self is excluded from the picture. And the picture holds a contradiction. The self is simultaneously dualistic and unified. I am simultaneously separated from the world as the subject, and unified with it as the object. Just as the self-as-object is projected outward to be experienced as a multiplicity of things in space, the self-as-subject is inwardly exploded over a time-line.

Put the two together and you have events. One event is made of a parcel of subject and object... both in disguise. In an event, the whole self -- past, present, and future-- meets the whole world -- in its entirety.

1 Reply

@John Jones,

John Jones wrote:

To the followers of the empty complexities of materialism- thieves, scoffers and riddle-makers all, and to gentle souls thrown into confusion by their intrigues, I offer three insurmountable arguments against determinism, that I may dash it in its pride to the floor and regain that heritage most assured, most profound, most ancient, most new, most immediate, to confound the makers of the mark.

1. AS, determinism is nothing if not expressed through its objects, yet of these it can point to none. Only a nod born of common understanding confirms a finger points to the red of the apple and not to the molecule that rests on its surface.
2. AS, a determined thing, I can never say 'yes, this is what I am determined by'. If I am a determined thing then I must identify completely with all determined things, small and large, for in determinism there is room for nothing but determined things, and no boundaries can present themselves. And if determinism does not consider that I am, by this reasoning, the whole Universe, then the question remains: of any one object that is determined, whether it is I or the Universe, how does one object, the same object, determine itself - except that the object is itself, determineless?
3. AS, one thing is and another thing is, yet no infernal boundary making machine for marking out things is found in determinism. No law of determinism can distinguish one determined object from another determined object.

(c)

What do you believe determinism is? I ask, since I don't see how what you say have anything to do with determinism. Why don't you look the word up?

0 Replies

@Arjuna,

The object, to be an object, must be determined...the action to be an action must be determined...what it is as actual, stands proof of whatever "actuals with it"...no future without actual, no change without object...
LAW is then the prime word for the World !

Everything is done, everything is determined, everything is what must be...
...if sharper, then just, Everything BE !
...there´s only the actual, now yesterday and tomorrow...the possible is epistemic conjecture and not ontological status...

The World is the only true object, and the World is everywhere !
ACTUAL is the WORLD itself !!!

Regards>FILIPE DE ALBUQUERQUE

2 Replies

@Fil Albuquerque,

What else would indetermin that which is ?
What but the world...to be what to be.
Indeterminism...is for knowledge (our) not for Being...and rightfully so...
...how else but the world to know itself, to compute itself, to be itself ?
...What beyond all ?
...Tomorrow if not determined, how could tomorrow then ???
...Why not a yesterday tomorrow instead ? or anything else for the purpose...
...beyond LAW, there´s nothing as LAW is the only ultimate substance...
LAW is the shelter of existence ! ...and existence the proof that LAW, is !

...SUBSTANCE is...but TO BE...the LAW with no beginning...the LAW period !!!
...SUBSTANCE, no matter, no spirit, not even words, if all that...
... thus that even motion and change needs SUBSTANCE...
...what substance in the changing ? what changing for the substance ?
...SUBSTANCE, that which IS, in the becoming of itself, "ITSELFS" itself, what else ???
Could all SEE that nothing but DETERMINISM for freedom if I want what I must as I must what I want...

Regards>FILIPE DE ALBUQUERQUE

1 Reply

Three knockdown arguments against Determinism

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know