Is there a skeptical/scientific argument against predeterminism?

[David Mo]

Delete. Duplicated.

 

[David Mo]

Deleted. It was duplicated.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

This means that the postulates of metaphysical determinism leave no room for a morality of compassion. Because determinism is a theory about causes and effects. While a morality of compassion presupposes the priority of some feelings over others, of the altruists over the selfish, something that determinism cannot establish. Attempts such as the common good, what the majority wants, etc. are empty.

As for Hans' memory, don't pay much attention to it. It's very bad. Here he is talking about compassion. By the way, it's a good example of how metaphysical determinism doesn't imply compassion. What counts is effectiveness. Compassion is irrelevant. Ask him why, if it is not sufficiently clear.

Nevertheless, the quote "Determinism does not imply any kind of too compassionate morality. Quite the opposite." was not written by me. As Winter already pointed out, it's YOUR text from message #117, and it's in the part written by you, not in the part quoted from me.

So, I dunno, my memory may not be perfect, but YOU are flat out a liar at this point. As usual. And, as usual, lying about who said what in a forum where it's preserved for everyone to check out is stupid. But then, hey, it's you, so that is what we've all come to expect.


And, as usual, even your attempts to lie about it just illustrate your comprehension problems. Because what you try to pass off as me saying something is an implication of determinism, is a case where I can't say any clearer that it's orthogonal to it. As the words "deterministic or not, free will or not" should have indicated to anyone with even the most basic comprehension skills. What I say there is explicitly NOT conditional of things being either deterministic or non-deterministic.

It also doesn't even mention compassion in any way.

But hey, that's a bit unfair to you. After all, to know that, you'd need to actually be able to comprehend what you read.

 

[David Mo]

Nevertheless, the quote "Determinism does not imply any kind of too compassionate morality. Quite the opposite." was not written by me. As Winter already pointed out, it's YOUR text from message #117, and it's in the part written by you, not in the part quoted from me.

"It's really most philosophically useful to me for the purposes of forgiveness and compassion."
"Is it? "
What does that "it" mean? The Galapagos Islands or the camel sura? Well, it doesn't. You are referring to forgiveness and compassion that you try to discredit afterwards with a really... deficient theory.
Am I going to have to teach you English grammar? You were talking about compassion and stop playing.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

@winter salt
Well, since you're not David, I assume you had no trouble parsing what I wrote in message #101.

But if any clarification is needed: look, regardless of how we believe that the brain works, we must still ultimately acknowledge reality. Not everyone will be nice just because you tell them to be nice. They'll need some more reasons NOT to do something nasty than "mommy said I shouldn't." That is just reality. It won't go away if we ignore it.

And I mentioned Ted Bundy before for a reason. Ted was most certainly aware of the value we all put on a human life. He volunteered at a suicide hotline, for Pete's sake. You can't get much more aware that most people would rather not have other people die. Yet he was a serial killer in his free time.

So at some point you have to also give such people a "you'll get caught and go to jail" reason to, you know, not murder someone. Even if it doesn't work on every single one (there'll always be someone who thinks he's too smart for the cops to catch), nevertheless the empyrical data we have indicates that on the whole it does work.

Compassion can enter the equation in many ways, not the least being compassion for the victims and potential victims. But you still need some deterrence, because while you can be all compassionate, you can't make everyone else be compassionate.

But ultimately, at the end of the day, it all boils down to: we can't just ignore reality. Whether you believe that the brain works in one way or the other, we still have the same data from the real world about what works and what doesn't work in a justice system. And, as they say, reality is that which doesn't go away when you ignore it. The only sane thing to do is still to base our justice on that real world data, rather than try to have some vague unproven ideas overrule reality. The latter would be just magical thinking.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

"It's really most philosophically useful to me for the purposes of forgiveness and compassion."
"Is it? "
What does that "it" mean? The Galapagos Islands or the camel sura? Well, it doesn't. You are referring to forgiveness and compassion that you try to discredit afterwards with a really... deficient theory.
Am I going to have to teach you English grammar? You were talking about compassion and stop playing.

Ah, the joys of quoting two words out of context Because the rest of even the same line goes, "One of the purposes -- and arguably the MAIN purpose -- of laws and social norms is deterrence. If everything is forgiven, then there is really no reason not to do something evil."

You'll notice that I'm only talking about forgiveness there. Compassion isn't even mentioned or implied in the whole message.

So basically, yeah, you would have only needed to be able to read and comprehend more than the first two words of a message, and the mystery of the "it" would have been solved. Only when you eventually master THAT skill, yeah, THEN you can presume to teach anyone about it

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

To address this too. Again:

It's only you getting tangled up one more time.

Aaand more ego wank from you instead of meeting the burden of proof. Why am I not surprised?

I've already exposed where the contradiction resides in Skinner (and other deterministic psychologists). You're the one who says I'm explaining Skinner wrong. If you say so, you must prove it.

No, silly. I'm saying you haven't met that burden of proof.

You've only shown that it conflicts with what YOU postulated to be the only way to go about morality. Which frankly holds about as much water as when Pixie Of Key proclaims that you can't go about using curved space metrics, therefore obviously Einstein is wrong.

It doesn't work that way, no matter how often you proclaim it.

Cite your sources and how I am misleadingly explaining Skinner's position. By quoting. I don't mind quoting Skinner directly. You seem uncomfortable with your sources. Maybe because he doesn't know very well what he's talking about. Quote your sources and I quote mine. Let's see who misinterprets Skinner.

No, silly. You can't just demand to waiver the burden of proof just because you're too... unequipped to even understand it

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I continue my argumentation (part 3):
1. There is a contradiction between determinism and the justification of moral principles and responsibility or merit.
2. This contradiction can only be solved by the substitution of one of the two parts.
(I set aside the second and concentrate on the first).
3. The contradiction disappears if we replace the concept of metaphysical (or "scientific") determinism with that of methodological determinism.

That is my subsequent line of argument (part 4). .
1. To begin with: determinism is not a scientific concept. It is a philosophical concept.

So basically all you're saying there is that you were doing a big red herring, by way of a really really nonsensical equivocation?

Because that's not what the thread asked. And it's not the kind of determinism it was talking about.

To wit, what the thread asks about is predeterminism: the idea that all events - past, present or future -- were already determined in advance. E.g., that, whatever importance or lack thereof you assign to it, the Russian prince couldn't be anything else than a haemophiliac.

Even reducing it to a softer form of determinism, it is still about actual events being determine in advance.

Meanwhile "methodological determinism" is simply defined as a pragmatic research heuristic: that if two highly similar situations develop seemingly independent of each other and in different ways, a sociologist or similar scientist should first look for a common cause that might have caused both. E.g., that if we see that Feudalism has developed in both Europe in wake of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and in Japan in the Genpei War, we might want to look at whether similar causes might have been at work in both cases.

But it's just a rule of thumb of where to look first. It doesn't say it will actually be true. Quite trivial example: both Russia and Eastern Germany ended up with a highly similar communist government. So the "methodological determinism" just says, let's look if both had the same underlying cause. Well, it turns out they didn't.

The two have utterly different meanings: one is actually a claim about events being predetermined, while the other is just a methodological heuristic about what to research first. They don't even go in the same direction.

So to claim that "determinism is not a scientific concept. It is a philosophical concept." is nonsense. You can't just replace a word by equivocation like that, just because in a completely different context it's part of an expression that means something completely different. It's like trying to redefine meat to mean candied fruit, because it's used in the composite word "sweetmeat".

 

[winter salt]

This means that the postulates of metaphysical determinism leave no room for a morality of compassion. Because determinism is a theory about causes and effects. While a morality of compassion presupposes the priority of some feelings over others, of the altruists over the selfish, something that determinism cannot establish. Attempts such as the common good, what the majority wants, etc. are empty.

As for Hans' memory, don't pay much attention to it. It's very bad. Here he is talking about compassion. By the way, it's a good example of how metaphysical determinism doesn't imply compassion. What counts is effectiveness. Compassion is irrelevant. Ask him why, if it is not sufficiently clear.

I don't understand. You're talking about determinism as if it's an ideology that I can choose to believe or not. Is it an ideology ?
And that it can not establish the kind of morality you seem to regard superior.
I wanted to understand how determinism doesn't imply too compassionate a morality and "quite the opposite". Your response was that you were quoting Hans and he says he never said such a thing, and in your last response you seem to say it.
Seems like you're doing tap dancing. You could've influenced my opinion on this topic but you lost my vote.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, you can see for yourself what I've written in the thread.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

That said:

I don't understand. You're talking about determinism as if it's an ideology that I can choose to believe or not. Is it an ideology ?

Determinism is a hypothesis that basically all events are completely determined by the pre-existing causes.

Predeterminism takes it to the extreme where all events were always pre-determined to happen, in the sense that all history of the universe is one big domino chain. Event X causes event Y, which in turn causes event Z, etc. And nothing could have happened in any other way.

Methodological determinism, which David introduced, is just a pragmatic research heuristic, that says that if two highly similar situations happened in very different circumstances, there might have been a common cause that was present for both, and you might want to start by looking for one. E.g., that if both the USSR and East Germany went from being an Empire to a highly similar form of communism, a common cause must have existed for both to happen. In that case, it's obviously not the case, but if you don't know better, you could do worse than starting from that working hypothesis.

The first two quite overtly trespass on the domain of science, in that they make (theoretically) testable claims. The second one is also trivially false, unless all we know about QM is fundamentally false. Anyway, you probably shouldn't believe such claims unless sufficient evidence is provided that they're true. As in, anyone can actually make such falsifiable predictions and have them actually happen. Science isn't a matter of choosing your favourite belief.

The third one is just a methodology heuristic. Kind of like starting by looking for your keys where you usually put them. If that doesn't work, you go from there. It doesn't make any concrete claims that anything is necessarily true, just that it's PROBABLE enough to be true, that you might want to start from that as a working hypothesis. Technically a probability claim would also need evidence, but considering that it's only binding for the researcher choosing to apply it, meh, you can choose for yourself.

Of course, unless you are a historian, sociologist or similar, the third one probably doesn't concern or affect you in the slightest.

 

[winter salt]

The randomness factor that you introduced, does that injure both the deterministic hypothesis and the free will hypothesis (if it is) ?
If that becomes very obvious would the way science and ethical philosophies done be effected ?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

The randomness factor that you introduced, does that injure both the deterministic hypothesis and the free will hypothesis (if it is) ?

Well, SOME events are still going to be more or less deterministic, others less so. Things that could go either way, well, could go either way. So technically speaking determinism is false.

Free will, well, it depends on how you define it. I'm still under the impression that some people define it in such a way where nothing could possibly qualify as free will.

If that becomes very obvious would the way science and ethical philosophies done be effected ?

Well, science would still go with whatever is the simplest explanation that actually explains the available data. I don't think most science would be affected at all, since almost none depends on any free will. I mean it might be interesting for domains like sociology, but at the end of the day sociology still is basically a sub-category of statistics, i.e., maths. It still deals with the same real world data in the end, and it's still a statistical spread when you deal with large populations.

Philosophy, well, it's all over the place. Philosophy basically just means thinking hard about some topic. As such it includes Descartes, but it also includes Beavis thinking about why is it called taking a dump, when you're not taking it anywhere. It's kinda like a nudist beach: no quality control

But ultimately, either it's based in RL data, in which case the same applies as for science: show me the data and what falsifiable predictions you can do. And then it will still need to deal with the same observed data. Or anything that's not even theoretically falsifiable, well, it's a nice mental exercise that might delay the onset of Alzheimer's, but otherwise nobody else has to take it seriously.

 

[David Mo]

You'll notice that I'm only talking about forgiveness there. Compassion isn't even mentioned or implied in the whole message.

This is your present explanation. But what you say in the first comment about forgiveness is the same you say after about compassion. What matters to you is "deterring": Compassion and forgiveness are secondary if not irrelevant. It is consistent with sheer determinism.

In any case, this gallitos' fight is stupid. It is typical mess of people that are out of ideas.

 

[David Mo]

Meanwhile "methodological determinism" is simply defined as a pragmatic research heuristic: that if two highly similar situations develop seemingly independent of each other and in different ways, a sociologist or similar scientist should first look for a common cause that might have caused both. E.g., that if we see that Feudalism has developed in both Europe in wake of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and in Japan in the Genpei War, we might want to look at whether similar causes might have been at work in both cases.

(...)
So to claim that "determinism is not a scientific concept. It is a philosophical concept." is nonsense.(...)

This is not what I mean. Let me explain this to you. Maybe you can understand it.

Determinism is not a factual theory that can be proven or refuted. Even Skinner recognizes this in a part of Beyond Freedom and Dignity that you know very well. (This is irony, honey). There is not a single article with a scientific demonstration of determinism as a theory of the universe. Name one if you know it. This would say that determinism is a philosophical theory that is discussed in journals and philosophical books with philosophical arguments. I can send you to a philosophical search engine where you will find a lot of material.

What is the meaning of this? First of all, that determinism is a philosophical theory. Is it a metaphysical theory? If this were so, it would be an empty theory. But it is not. Determinism is not a factual theory because it is a methodological mandate: "If you want to know and manipulate things you have to look for their causes" This does not mean that we know that everything has a cause. In fact, we do not know the causes of a large number of human actions (almost all in real life), but this does not mean either that the principle of causality is false. Nor that it is true. It is useful for knowledge.

And that is why determinism cannot be proven by science. And this is the question of this thread. Is it not?

 

[David Mo]

I don't understand. You're talking about determinism as if it's an ideology that I can choose to believe or not. Is it an ideology ?

Metaphysical determinism is an philosophical theory. Methodological determinism is not arbitrary. If you want to know things you have to search causes. This is a necessary condition for knowledge. See my precedent comment to more explanation of this.

And that it can not establish the kind of morality you seem to regard superior.
I wanted to understand how determinism doesn't imply too compassionate a morality and "quite the opposite". Your response was that you were quoting Hans and he says he never said such a thing, and in your last response you seem to say it.
Seems like you're doing tap dancing. You could've influenced my opinion on this topic but you lost my vote.

Sorry for your vote.

In my comment 280 I wrote:

This means that the postulates of metaphysical determinism leave no room for a morality of compassion. Because determinism is a theory about causes and effects. While a morality of compassion presupposes the priority of some feelings over others, of the altruists over the selfish, something that determinism cannot establish. Attempts such as the common good, what the majority wants, etc. are empty.​

"Quite the opposite" because a consistent determinism gives priority --frequently as the only tool-- to manipulate causes without any consideration to "sentimental" reasons. In a scientific mode the only interest is this: make things if you can do it. Morality is not a job for science. If a scientist deals with moral issues it is not as such a scientist, but as something that falls outside of his work as such.
Skinner, since we are talking about him, says so verbatim. What matters is behavior modification and feelings is nothing more than a by-product of our way of talking about reinforcements and contingencies (which is the way he calls the causes of behavior). I insist, to avoid misunderstandings, he was not always consistent with this program.

Perhaps you want to plead for moral determinism. I would like to see it.

 

[David Mo]

Philosophy, well, it's all over the place. (...) It's kinda like a nudist beach: no quality control

Interesting comparison. But in a market you find many things that don't have a quality control label and you buy them because you need them. Isn't that how we find a partner? This is the case of philosophy.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

This is your present explanation. But what you say in the first comment about forgiveness is the same you say after about compassion.

Err... mate? I didn't even mention compassion at all. Please show where I said anything like that, or preferably the exact place where that quote from you is supposedly a quote from me.

What you're doing there is what I called reading between the lines and ignoring the actual lines.

What matters to you is "deterring": Compassion and forgiveness are secondary if not irrelevant. It is consistent with sheer determinism.

Not sure how that's relevant, since what I've repeatedly said is that I don't even believe determinism to be true. So essentially what is the claim you've backed into now? That you've done all this show about how determinists think, based on, what? A sample of one, and even that being just your just somehow "knowing" that I'm one even when I say why determinism is false for several pages? Among other things that I may have said I'm against, but the voices in your head assured you I'm secretly for, and viceversa? Or what?

In any case, this gallitos' fight is stupid. It is typical mess of people that are out of ideas.

Yes, I gather that you ran out of ideas a long time ago. At the very last when you started actively baiting and trolling to get the talk derailed into your own dumb collection of red herrings, strawmen, and assorted fallacies. But if it bothers you, stop doing it, silly. You have the power.

I mean, you have the free will, right? You're not a predeterminist, so obviously you can't think that you never had a choice and it was fore-ordained since the dawn of time that you'd pollute the thread with that nonsense, right?

 

[David Mo]

Err... mate? I didn't even mention compassion at all. (...)

I mean, you have the free will, right? You're not a predeterminist, so obviously you can't think that you never had a choice and it was fore-ordained since the dawn of time that you'd pollute the thread with that nonsense, right?

"Compassion can enter the equation in many ways, not the least being compassion for the victims and potential victims. But you still need some deterrence, because while you can be all compassionate, you can't make everyone else be compassionate." (By a certain HansMustermann).

Easy, man, easy. Don't get cocky and please reply with reasons and without insults to my comment 296.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

"Compassion can enter the equation in many ways, not the least being compassion for the victims and potential victims. But you still need some deterrence, because while you can be all compassionate, you can't make everyone else be compassionate." (By a certain HansMustermann).

Easy, man, easy. Don't get cocky and please reply with reasons and without insults to my comment 296.

That was on page 8 of the thread. So how does that somehow justify your going on about it on page 3, or your claiming that it was somehow a quote from me (that just isn't anywhere on the forum) on pages 6 and 7? Are you going to claim that it's so deterministic that you knew in advance that I'd say that several days in the future? You were quoting from the future, that's it?

Seriously, I get that you're dishonest and trying to back out of the claims YOU made. But trying to pass a message on page 8 as what you were "quoting" from me on page 3 is too dumb even for words. But apparently not for YOU