Determinism - Is the playing field level ?

[studiot]

With the recent debates about determinism v some other explanation of  everything is a belief in determinism unwise ?

 

I ask this because throughout the entire history of mankind there has never been a time when there was not something known that was unexplained.

Even the God-did-it squad can only say GDI, they cannot say why or how he did it so cannot in all honesty say it was or was not determined.

Likewise those philosophers and scientists who cleave towards the mechanistic 'clockwork universe' have to admit that they cannot definitely conclude that everything, because if their their best explanation is ' we believe there is an explanation, we just don't know what that is' this is not conclusive.

[exchemist]

35 minutes ago, studiot said:

With the recent debates about determinism v some other explanation of  everything is a belief in determinism unwise ?

 

I ask this because throughout the entire history of mankind there has never been a time when there was not something known that was unexplained.

Even the God-did-it squad can only say GDI, they cannot say why or how he did it so cannot in all honesty say it was or was not determined.

Likewise those philosophers and scientists who cleave towards the mechanistic 'clockwork universe' have to admit that they cannot definitely conclude that everything, because if their their best explanation is ' we believe there is an explanation, we just don't know what that is' this is not conclusive.

I had always thought quantum theory knocked determinism on the head, a century ago.

Which is why Einstein found it so disturbing and unsatisfactory.

Edited November 7, 2023 by exchemist

[studiot]

39 minutes ago, exchemist said:

I had always thought quantum theory knocked determinism on the head, a century ago.

Which is why Einstein found it so disturbing and unsatisfactory.

Yet there seem to still be some who promote it in threads here. Some of these threads have been have been very long and it is now even difficult to determine (pun intended)

what their position actually is.

[Markus Hanke]

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

I had always thought quantum theory knocked determinism on the head, a century ago.

I think it depends exactly what you mean by determinism. What is stochastic about QM is only the outcome of specific measurements - but given some quantum state of a system, plus necessary boundary conditions, its evolution is entirely deterministic.

[joigus]

It's a very interesting question. Of course, I don't know the answer, but here are some ideas.

What seems to be a fairly simple question turns out not to be so easy when you start asking relevant questions on the basic definitions, primitive concepts on which it rests, hidden assumtions, and so on.

So, for example (taken from Wikipedia):

Quote

Determinism is the philosophical view that events are completely determined by previously existing causes.

What is an event? How do you characterise it? What is a cause? What does it mean to be determined?

So, for further example, suppose we accept the model of state of a system, state variables, one-dimensional time, law of motion, etc.

Is it even possible to factor the state of the universe into environment + system under scrutiny? If so, is it always possible?

Can prediction be extended indefinitely in principle without appealing to cosmic events?

Could any non-predictability be attributed to unknown --and what's worse, presumably unknowable-- circumstances of past states of the universe such that, were those to be known, a mathematician could carry out the prediction successfully?

What's clear to me is that QM dealt a very heavy blow to any intentions of formulating any naive determinism.

What's not so clear to me is that there is no chance at all of elaborating on the concept of state variables, evolution law, etc, so as to explain why the universe looks deterministic at some simple level (free fall, penduli, 2-body problem, and the like), inherits this property from some nearly unfathomable cosmic condition which later reappears here and there, but for the most part is lost in the middle ground, which constitutes most of what we see.

[Eise]

1 hour ago, studiot said:

Yet there seem to still be some who promote it in threads here. Some of these threads have been have been very long and it is now even difficult to determine (pun intended) what their position actually is.

For the record, I do not say the world is determined: QM shows it isn't. But of course one can play intellectual games, like 'Assume the world is determined: does it mean that in principle everything can be predicted?'. Or of course: 'Assume the world is determined: does it mean that we have no free will?'.

My position, maybe not very clear, for free will we need 'sufficient determinism', i.e. we can ignore random processes in the situation we are interested in.

And by the way, your 'pun intended': do you see that your 'determine' has another meaning than 'fixed by preceding causes'?

Edited November 7, 2023 by Eise

[studiot]

17 minutes ago, Markus Hanke said:

I think it depends exactly what you mean by determinism. What is stochastic about QM is only the outcome of specific measurements - but given some quantum state of a system, plus necessary boundary conditions, its evolution is entirely deterministic.

 

17 minutes ago, joigus said:

Can prediction be extended indefinitely in principle without appealing to cosmic events?

Both good thoughts, hopefully my response will add some clarification.

There is a cause and effect connection to determinism so if we can consider the very last cause before the effect Joigus comment of how far back can we go along the chain of cause and effect is pertinent.
Does determinism require the whole chain, just part of it, or just the immediate precedent ?

 

When I said that humanity has never known enough to determine everything, I wasn't thinking of (only) data and the idea that if we knew the state variables of every particle at some time we could calculate the evolution or future history of the universe.

I was thinking rather of our knowledge of the laws we would use to calculate this.

And my counter example from the cuurent time would be dark matter and dark energy, not quantum theory (though obviously qm is not discounted)

 

 

13 minutes ago, Eise said:

fixed

Isn't fixed another word for determined ?

[Eise]

1 minute ago, studiot said:

Isn't fixed another word for determined ?

Does one 'fix' the temperature with a thermometer? 

[studiot]

13 minutes ago, Eise said:

Does one 'fix' the temperature with a thermometer? 

The only way I would use that would be to mean to establish a base temperature to measure from.

Otherwise knows as 'benchmarking' in modern parlance.

There is no cause and effect relationship in play.

 

Keep the questions coming because they are showing good things and just how deceptively complex the subject whicha t first sight seems to simple and clear cut, really is.

Edited November 7, 2023 by studiot

[sethoflagos]

1 hour ago, Markus Hanke said:

I think it depends exactly what you mean by determinism. What is stochastic about QM is only the outcome of specific measurements - but given some quantum state of a system, plus necessary boundary conditions, its evolution is entirely deterministic.

Given a free neutron in whatever initial boundary conditions you care to set, in what sense could its instant of decay into a proton and W^- be understood to be '(pre)determined' prior to the actual event?

If there is none then it would seem to me that dterminism in any real sense is dead on its feet. Otherwise we would appear to have the mother of all hidden variables theories and I'd be interested to hear how this squares with the 2nd Law (where's all the information stored?)

Perhaps I'm missing something (yet again).

[studiot]

17 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

Given a free neutron in whatever initial boundary conditions you care to set, in what sense could its instant of decay into a proton and W^- be understood to be '(pre)determined' prior to the actual event?

If there is none then it would seem to me that dterminism in any real sense is dead on its feet. Otherwise we would appear to have the mother of all hidden variables theories and I'd be interested to hear how this squares with the 2nd Law (where's all the information stored?)

Perhaps I'm missing something (yet again).

Another good comment and viewpoint.

I think that the fact that it will decay to a proton  etc and not a raspberry pie is determined, but that when it will happen is not.

[iNow]

I'm reminded of the split between classical and quantum physics. For the most part, assuming the world is determined works just fine, and it's only at certain scales and under very specific conditions that we must introduce and reinforce awareness of randomness and vacuum fluctuations and particle antiparticle annihilations etc.

With sufficient information regarding the state of the system, we can accurately forecast the outcome (let's say) over 95% of the time.

The need here is clear. We obviously need a Grand Unified theory of Determinism. Done well, if it's good, we can use the acronym GUD... but sadly that sounds way too much like GOD, which will bring all the wrong sorts of people to the party... but at least it's more satisfying than saying, "It depends" (which is really the only correct answer, at least in consulting).

Language strangely is imprecise, and the mathematics of our verbiage often ain't nice. 

[joigus]

3 minutes ago, iNow said:

For the most part, assuming the world is determined works just fine, and it's only at certain scales and under very specific conditions that we must introduce and reinforce awareness of randomness and vacuum fluctuations and particle antiparticle annihilations etc.

Might this not be just a tad glass-is-half-full as to determinism and/or predictability? I think we who are trained in science tend to overestimate the scope of determinism. Determinism suggests itself very strongly when you first fall in love with science. Then it hardly ever occurs in practice.

[martillo]

It could be all about the "elbow room" we can have sometimes. If in the future we do have enough "elbow room" the future is undetermined. The hard problem is in how to demonstrate enough "elbow room" could actually exist sometimes...

Edited November 7, 2023 by martillo

[exchemist]

4 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

I think it depends exactly what you mean by determinism. What is stochastic about QM is only the outcome of specific measurements - but given some quantum state of a system, plus necessary boundary conditions, its evolution is entirely deterministic.

Sure. What I had in mind though is that at each interaction there is one value made concrete out of a range of probabilities and this value goes on to set the conditions for the thing interacted with, which at its next interaction in turn makes concrete one value out of a range, etc etc. So at the end of the chain of interactions the outcomes are not determined exactly by the starting conditions. 

[martillo]

Seems life is involved in the subject. Only living beings can make choices or decisions. Without life the universe could well be deterministic but seems life changes the things.

Edited November 7, 2023 by martillo

[iNow]

2 hours ago, martillo said:

Only living beings can make choices or decisions.

Maybe, but how do you know?

[martillo]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

Maybe, but how do you know?

May be? Do you doubt? 

Definition of choose (just googling): "pick out or select (someone or something) as being the best or most appropriate of two or more alternatives."

Just some few cases when we do make choices: menu in restaurants, political elections in real democratic countries, choosing a professional career... Volition does exist or do you think is doesn't?

The problem of how we make a choice in terms of our neuro-biology is another subject...

Edited November 7, 2023 by martillo

[iNow]

You again didn’t answer my question. 

[martillo]

23 minutes ago, iNow said:

You again didn’t answer my question. 

May be you could rephrase your question with the key point you are considering which I don't get.

[iNow]

5 hours ago, martillo said:

May be you could rephrase your question with the key point you are considering which I don't get.

You said, “Only living beings can make choices or decisions.”

I asked how do you know. 

Rephrased: What information have you encountered that informs this conclusion, this conclusion you’ve asserted with such certainty and zero hedge, this conclusion you’ve avoided acknowledging may be invalid?

Said another way, how do you know that only living beings can make choices and decisions? Can you answer this without using new questions of your own? Without appealing to common sense or folk wisdom?

Edited November 8, 2023 by iNow

[martillo]

No, I will not enter in such level of doubtfulness. Useless discussion, waste of time...

Edited November 8, 2023 by martillo

[joigus]

One thing is physical determinism, and quite a different thing is behavioural, psicological --or what may have you-- determinism.

Ie. Suppose some kind of physical determinism has been established and we all agree on it being the basis for the physical world.

There would still be a long way to go in order to prove or convince anybody that this has any bearing on the question of free will, as @Eise has argued somewhere else, if I'm not mistaken.

Those are two different things.

[studiot]

30 minutes ago, joigus said:

One thing is physical determinism, and quite a different thing is behavioural, psicological --or what may have you-- determinism.

Ie. Suppose some kind of physical determinism has been established and we all agree on it being the basis for the physical world.

There would still be a long way to go in order to prove or convince anybody that this has any bearing on the question of free will, as @Eise has argued somewhere else, if I'm not mistaken.

Those are two different things.

How does this affect the issue raised by the thread ?

[joigus]

16 minutes ago, studiot said:

How does this affect the issue raised by the thread ?

It's just an attempt to focus the discussion on physical determinism, which is what you meant, I think. Is it not? And we've been talking about free will for quite a while now.

The words "elbow room" kind of gave it away.

PS: Edited.

Edited November 8, 2023 by joigus
minor addition