philosophical

sorry for not posting much! just nothing much to blog lately, been busy with school and all. Uni is no joke, at least for arts faculty. So much reading to do! just know already spent 3 hours on one chapter of psych.

Anyway, just gonna leave you with my first forum post on the Philosophy forums.. because for NUS for each module you take there's a forum. Then in the philo forum there were already alot of posts so I didn't want to be left out :p haha.
Not sure how much you're going to understand since it's a little out of context.. oh well.

The brown text is the original post of the person I replied to. The black text following it is my reply. Enjoy!


Philo Guy #1

following from Pelzar's lecture today, in my head came an idea to disprove determinism, and im not sure if its watertight, so u guys help me check it out?

assuming determinism to be true, it states (from lecture) that theorectically with enough information we can predict the future to 100% accuracy. either that or something like laplace's demon can know the future, with 100% accuracy.

also with determinism it follows that we make the choices we made because of forces we cannot control, that make us want and choose to, for example, eat an apple instead of a banana. now we are unable to change the fact that we will want to eat the apple, and that there will be nothing stopping us from eating that apple.

now if with enough technical data one can predict the future, that you will want to eat the apple and that you eat it eventually. but because one is informed, he lets say, chooses to inform you that youre gonna end up eating that apple. you are now presented with foreknowledge, and if you dont believe in determinism, you would want to disprove it by eating the banana instead.

because you choose to be rebellious, in that sense, and assuming you are continually informed of your next predicted move, you are now capable of disproving that prediction, aka becoming unpredictable, so to speak. this i think becomes a paradox, as if you choose the apple, u will then know of it and choose the banana, and then back to the apple. i think it implies a shifting future, which to me is kinda indeterministic.

im not sure if this summarizes it but, with foreknowledge of events through study of atoms in the universe (theorectical, of course), it therefore implies that the casuality of events no longer follow a chronological order, that our future will affect our present. it also means determinisn does not hold true.

thats all ive got,

cheers

My reply:

Alright, decided to start posting here since there are so many posts already. :) If I sound blunt or aggressive please forgive me, I'm just joining in the spirit of debate :)

Actually I was confused about the way Prof Mike defined 'determinism', when he kept including the mention of 'forces, of which we have no control, making us want to do something' when in actual fact determinism is simply "the philosophical view that every event, including human cognition, behaviour, decision, and action is causally determined by previous events"

I think this original definition, with the exclusion of the subject of 'forces' are clearer to explain what it is, when it simply is just a world of cause->effect.
The introduction of 'forces' make it seem like there's a divine being who maps out the plan for us, or that there is 'something' that we are trying to go against, when in actual fact, it is just a very simple model of cause->effect.

That aside, the theory of being able to acquire sufficient technical knowledge to 'predict outcomes' is more all-encompassing then you think. If you could actually ever acquire sufficient technical knowledge (which we all know is just a hypothesized point as it is impossible), this knowledge should be able to predict your rebellious nature as well.

I.e. The cause of you wanting to disprove determinism is because of taking PH1102E and disagreeing with the concept.
The cause of you disagreeing with the concept is because of how your mental faculties have been equipped and developed.
etcetc (leads back to your genetic state, blabla)

Thus, there is no way that you can 'fool' the system, because if you could, it would mean such a system isn't 'sufficient technical knowledge' already as it has failed to predict that. So if you want to argue for your point, you have to assume that it is a perfect system that can predict your decision, and hence you can never 'fool' it.

So to summarize, if you want to assume the hypothesis that we can attain sufficient technical knowledge to predict future occurences, this very hypothesis will automatically refute any arguments you put forth against determinism due to its circular nature.

And just a concluding point, I feel determinism is quite hard to argue against, and the only contender i can see is from the theory of quantum mechanics, which implies that things may spontaneously occur, like mini Big Bangs. (this is my shallow understanding of the concept, my apologies if I totally misrepresented quantum mechanics) and hence evade the irrefutable logic of determinism.