determing determinism (if it's such a thing)

[I realized there was no context for my earlier posts today. Well, here it is:]

Determinists may only agree on one thing: reality operates on a causal system of rules, laws, and axioms. Every effect must have a particular cause. Humans begin to learn this empirically from the moment they enter the world, yet are never able to fully understand or master this phenomenon. Our lives are a constant demystification process of how our actions, thoughts, and individual lives affect the greater world around us. Perhaps we will never discover the ‘grand unified theory of everything’ – if it exists at all – and though it seems that we approach enlightened sensibilities about existence, morality, and science individually, it is unlikely that we will ever understand the objective totality. However, we may be free to ask what these ‘universal laws’ really are, and if they really are universal.

Scientific theory suggests that the laws of the universe are natural, intrinsic to existence, and are immutable both in their reaches and application. Modern physics boasts the ability to predict motion, relying on consistent unchangeable constraints like gravity and mass. Quantum mechanics, a controversial albeit scientific field, suggests that we are made up of small, fundamental particles which necessarily govern the autonomy of the larger bodies that they create. Even our best understanding of cosmology, beginning with the Big Bang Theory, supposes that the universe – since its very inception – has operated through a system of cause and effect. ...

And we can see the cause/effect paradigm on whatever scale we choose, whether we are explicating the relationship between studying poorly and receiving correlative grades or observing electrons crash into each other, affecting space as they move through the outer-shell of atomic particles.

The philosopher’s world of ‘hard determinism’ is inextricably linked with the notion that the world is fundamentally causal; everything therefore is connected by a chain of cause and effect, where effects in turn become new causes and reality cycles through this process indefinitely. There is, ergo, no such thing as true ‘autonomy’ for the hard determinist. Neither particles nor peoples are truly able to avoid the inexorable confines of their nature, which is beholden to the fundamental law(s) that govern everything. Though we may not know exactly what these laws are, hard determinists argue that every action and occurrence in the universe may be traced to a root cause (or causes) that necessitated a particular effect. In a relationship where causes are inseparable from there effects (and vice versa), the deterministic world supposes that an event could not have happened differently if given the same conditions.

Hard determinism is an exiguous, inflexible view of reality; we don’t live in “a garden of forking paths,” (Kane 19) as suggested by Robert Kane in A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will, but rather on a linear, absolute path that always tends the same way and never could have been otherwise. Thus, all events and occurrences are predetermined by their causes, and their causes are predetermined by their causes’ causes. Theoretically, this cycle may be regressed infinitely. People, existing only for seven thousand years, are therefore mere effects of larger causes. They are not autonomous self-determined creatures that have amnesty from the causal chain that created them. Personalities, therefore, may be explained purely in terms of their scientific, cultural, political, and evolutionary constraints; “the question, that is, of whether he became the person he is of his own free will seems to depend on whether other constraints were or were not entirely determining [his person]” (Kane 2005). In the world of hard determinism, there can be no room for free will.

On some level, however, the hard and fast rule of cause/effect is still a theory. Though determinism might be theoretically convincing at first, its implications and consequences (ironically) create metaphysical problems for the human being, especially if he believes in his own autonomy. This essay will outline four major problems posed by the hard determinist’s world. It is important to note that the epistemic problems resulting from determinism are not necessarily a rhetorical proof of free will. Perhaps several problems with determinism combined with the incompatibilist consequence argument may present an opportunity for such a proof. Regardless, we must constantly keep in mind how a ‘free will’ paradigm answers the inconsistencies present in determinism .

Ultimately, hard determinism falls apart because it is a counterproductive, highly irrational, morally dangerous, and overtly inflexible system. Later, it is my argument that the determinist system jeopardizes meaning in the lives of individuals and takes away the moral progress of any society. In the blog entries below, I'll look at the pragmatic and theoretical ramifications of a world defined by determinism, starting with the introspective human experience and gently moving outward. My hope is to shatter any inkling that it might be true or auspicious, beyond any point of recognition.
Read the Rest

A Nihilist Within and Without (A Refutation of Determinism Part 3)

Risk of Nihilism Within (1)
While my first claim against determinism is due to logical contradiction, and the second one is in the realm of scientific utilitarianism, the latter two claims against a determined existence stem from ethical claims about whether free will is a necessity for personal and social morality. Starting with the claim that the universe, and all causes and effects thereafter are predetermined, I shall demonstrate firstly that this awareness fosters a sense powerlessness and anxiety of the individual. Later, we shall discover the absolute impracticality of a society which accepts a deterministic reality.

Within the individual, accepting a deterministic world risks a justifiable embracement of nihilism catalyzed by personal anxiety about authorship. If indeed the world is predetermined, than ultimately you have no choice in the nature of what you will become, or in the actions that you perform. Choices that you think you might have are really just illusions; the decisions have already been made, so to speak, and you are just living out the consequences of a larger cause. Your life must be an effect – an effect which becomes cause to new effects – but nevertheless, you experience, thoughts, and choice cannot be self-evident occurrences. Feelings of regret are therefore irrational, because things couldn’t have happened differently. Wishing or hoping is also illogical. You are not the author of your actions, and are no way special or distinct from anything that has ever happened. You, itself is a confused signifier which means less and less as determinism becomes stronger. From these obvious moral conclusions, the life of a hard determinist seems miserable and dismal.

Moreover, if determinism necessities that you are unable to escape the terminus which has been prescribed for you, determinism lends itself, almost by definition, to fatalism – a system which acknowledges that all things have an unwavering fate. Fatalism, combined with the notion that we live in a world with other fated beings, easily lead an individual to embrace mechanism – a system which suggests that ‘autonomous individuals’ are really just shackled cogs in a machine, even if they are completely unaware of their lack of autonomy. While compatibalists, such a Mill, suggest “not to confuse determinism with fatalism,” (Kane 2005) this is an optimistic outlook given a softer, less determined lens of determinism. When assessing the risk of nihilism implicit in an individual’s awareness of a determined world, we cannot be so optimistic.

Upon realizing the hopelessness of one’s situation – mostly based upon the notion that your future will never, by definition, be ‘up to you’ – one finds himself entertaining a type of anxiety where he is not morally responsible for any of his actions (good or bad) simply because he is not the author of his own actions. They were fated to occur anyway. And, making the last philosophical step in a progression of despair, the individual reaches nihilism in a type of existential apathy, realizing that not only does he have no control over his ultimate fate, but an essential he (self) is an ostensibly unstable, irrational expectation altogether. Doomed to participate in a mechanistic system, devoid of personal meaning, there is no he to overcome the causal chain. Even by rejecting society, in an attempt to reject hard determinism, the archetypal nihilist cannot perform any action freely, of his own accord. Fate must always be realized in the world of determinism at the cost of personal value and meaning.

Assuming my previous arguments against determinism are untrue, and the deterministic world prevails; is this the world that the individual wants to live in? Is this a world he can live in? By affirming immutable fate, the determinist’s world risks all subjective experience. Mill is therefore wrong; the determinist must be concerned with fatalism, mechanism, and nihilism, simply because of the ontological risks they pose in a predetermined world. The harder we make determinism, therefore, the closer our affinity to nihilism.


The Risk of Nihilism Without (2 - an unlivable reality)
We may ask the same moral questions of society. It is my contention that regardless of how we break down the systematic ramifications of a deterministic world, our awareness of determinism, and therefore rejection of free will, creates an unlivable social reality. In a system where individuals are fated to commit wrongs, how can society hold them morally responsible for acts which could have been no other way? In a system where the authorship of the individual is put into question by the very nature of the reality we live in, how can society even attempt to govern, knowing full well that the laws of determinism will trump their sovereignty every time? Morality in both social and personal contexts must be completely irrational in a determined system, because their fundamental maxims – no matter how grandiose – will always yield to that system. In the deterministic world, morality is not self-evident; rather, it came into being through the vehicle of determinism. Thus, morality is not an absolute ends in itself (as Kant might claim) nor is it relative to cultures and peoples; it is the mere effect of a particular cause.

Society needs self-determinism and social determinism in order to function correctly. These cannot manifest in a linear world driven by singularity, the causal chain, and continual precedence. It is not only advantageous then for the individual to reject hard determinism, concerning the anxiety and nihilism that it may cause in him, it becomes necessary for a society to reject the tenants of determinism even if they are discovered to be true. For a world of hard determinism undermines society’s ability to hold individuals morally accountable for their actions, to legislate rule and order as their own supreme ends, and to conceive of an absolute definition of ethical standards altogether (be it universal human rights, collective relativism, or anything else). A society that embraces determinism is almost unthinkable. Therefore, in some sense, while the individual may be justified in holding truth over pragmatism, a society is more justified in following a pragmatic ideal more than a philosophical one. Taking a page of wisdom from Book X of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, even if determinism were correct, it would be a moral plaudit for the masses of men to believe the lie; society must pursue itself, not universal truth, to function properly.
Read the Rest

Problematic Probability (Refutation of Determinism Part 2)

A common misconception about atomic theory permits an argument for determinism, suggesting we live in an immovable constrained reality which cannot operate beyond predefined laws that govern its parts. To support paradigmatic determinism, some philosophers have argued that because reality is made up of atomic particles, the nature of that reality cannot transcend the physical restrictions and limitations of those particles. In laymen terms, if atoms indeed are the building blocks of everything, how can anything go against the nature of its parts? This argument is problematic both in its assumption that atoms are fundamental particles and that they only function in a specific pre-described manner. A more nuanced and sophisticated view of fundamental particles, without going too deeply into scientific lexicon and theory, suggests that atoms are not the fundamental particles of all matter. There exist sub-atomic particles, (electrons, protons, and neutrons to name a few) which, as described in a theory of quantum mechanics, do not function in a simply ‘predetermined’ fashion (Marvin 2003).

Though many claims made by quantum mechanics are largely controversial within the scientific community, the basic assumption that we can understand both a particle’s location and direction has been discredited by Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle (Ward 2008). The least controversial and perhaps most important claim we can make about sub-atomic particles (electrons in particular) is that their movement and direction does not exist as a matter of certainty (as the determinist world necessitates), but more as a matter of probability. Scientists are able to isolate these particles as existing in spheres of possibility; ostensibly meaning that fundamental particles, if they exist at all, cannot be pinned down with a predetermined location, but rather with a mathematical expectation based on possible locations. Simply put, our best understanding of the fundamental particles that create our existence probably operate in predictable ways, though we can never be certain of their location.

Probability, in a world of determinism, is irrational. If indeed causes necessitate the same effects given the same conditions, there cannot be an alternative. Probability always suggests an alternative, regardless of how astronomical the less likely odds might be. If we best understand fundamental particles existing in a type of probability-driven world, we are always left with the possibility that ‘it could have happened differently given the same conditions’. Determinism does not allow for probable occurrences; rather, it relies upon definite ones. And if there is no definite nature to the particles which create the world, how then could there be a definite nature to the things they create?

Additionally, if we extrapolate our understanding of probability beyond the controversial claims in the world of micro-science, we see the same problem posed by determinism on a lager scale. In the world of man, there is no hard certainty about the actions of people; rather social scientists and mathematicians use methods of probability testing to determine what an individual’s most likely course of action may be in a particular situation. Even if advanced mathematicians can predict human behavior, given societal and personal constraints with 99.999% accuracy, there would still exist a .001% degree of uncertainty. The minuscule possibility may be true only once out of a billion trials, yet it is always possible given the same conditions under which we expect the more probable outcome. Even with such a large margin of certainty, no question, from the nature fundamental particles existing in probability clusters to the nature of human choice factoring in all relevant conditions, can be answered with 100% certainty. And this mere possibility, implicit to any system that relies on probability, grants us the necessary evidence to diffuse and refute a determinist world that requires 100% certainty 100% of the time.

(Afterthought: I realize that one could claim that we are just not privy to the natural laws of the universe which are 100% certain. But it is a much harder claim to posit that math and probability, as we understand it now, have no corollary value to the operation and function of reality. It’s true we might still be in the dark, but the wager you make when you suggest that is to negate many of the applications of math and physics.)
Read the Rest