Next page.-------------- Link to intrologic.htm

As you read this, it's important to remember that the definition of "determinism" does not include any reference to free will. It most especially does not include any suggestion that free will does not exist. got that? Determinism does not say that free will doesn't exist.

Your reading is from Does the Center Hold? by Donald Palmer. Page numbers in blue refer to the 3rd edition, greenish page numbers refer to the 4th edition, and dark blue page numbers refer to the 5th edition.

In the 3rd Edition, read ALL and ONLY the following pieces of text.
Read about Leucippus, Democritus, D'Holbach and Laplace on pages 214-216.

In the 4th Edition, read ALL and ONLY the following pieces of text.
Read about Leucippus, Democritus, D'Holbach and Laplace on pages 214-216.

In the 5th Edition, read ALL and ONLY the following pieces of text.
Read about Leucippus, Democritus, D'Holbach and Laplace on pages 211-213.

1. The definition of determinism (aka "necessity" and "nonrandomness"), and how it is different from things like coercion, programming, predetermination, predestination and nofreewillism.

2. The definition of indeterminism (a.k.a. "randomness"), how it is different from controllability and predictability, and what this means for the role of determinism in our experience.

3. The relationship between determinism and predictability, how it is that predictability implies determinism but determinism does not imply predictability.

5. The difference between determinism and programming.

6. The difference between determinism and predetermination.

7. The difference between determinism and predestination.

8. The difference between determinism and indeterminism.

9. The difference between nofreewillism and determinism.

10. The definitions of "volitional determinism" and "volitional indeterminism."

3. The doctrine of Laplace, and what it means for determinism and predictability in the world.

4. The doctrine of D'Holbach, and what it means for for determinism and predictability in human beings.

REQUIRED READING
You are required to read the following pages of the text book and the definitions and examples given on my assigned webpages. The "Helpful Questions" are here to help you understand the reading.and to anticipate the points I will be discussing in class. If you can master this material without following the reading questions, then you don't have to bother with them. However, the additional text I give on these pages is required because at least some of the points it covers will be on the tests.

Remember, you will be tested on this reading before the next lecture. Be ready to answer questions about this material.

Your reading is from Does the Center Hold? by Donald Palmer. Page numbers in blue refer to the 3rd edition, while greenish page numbers refer to the 4th edition.

To prepare, I want you to be able to do the following.

1. Understand the definitions of "necessity," "randomness" and "freedom."
2. Understand the logical implications of saying that an event did not happen out of necessity.
3. Understand the logical implications of saying that an event did not happen randomly.

DO NOT read Palmer's account of soft determinism on pages 221-226 for the upcoming lectures. These pages give an utterly false and deeply misleading picture of soft determinism, and I simply do not have time to teach bizarro soft determinism along with the real thing. I strongly suggest that you refrain from reading that part of pages 221-226 because if you do, you might get your ideas about soft determinism from the text, and not from my pages and lectures. This would be bad, because it could very possibly lead you to giving wrong answers in the final exam. You will not get credit for wrong answers. Not even if you come to me and show me the place in the book you got the wrong answer from. (Those students who are interested in pursuing Palmer's version of soft determinism can read strawsoft.htm.)

At this point I want to remind you, in the strongest possible terms, that the textbook isn't necessarily right about everything. In my view, the textbook is quite clearly wrong about several vitally important points. This is part of the reason you only have a few pages of reading for the next few classes. It's hard to read a textbook critically, but you've got to be able to do it if you're going to be able to do any kind of real intellectual work.

The other thing I want you to think about here is that the issues we will cover here will require us to think very carefully and logically about the precise nature of various concepts, and what the features of those concepts imply about the relationships between them. For this reason, it is of paramount importance that we all understand precisely what the correct definitions of these concepts are. So make sure you read carefully, and do your best to understand the definitions and examples for this section of the course.


Determinism

Determinism is also known as "necessity" and "nonrandomness." Whenever you see the word "necessity," remember that it means exactly the same as "determinism." Whenever you see the word "nonrandomness," remember that it means exactly the same as "determinism."

It should go without saying that the word "necessity" does not suggest that free will doesn't exist, and that the word "nonrandomness" also does not suggest that free will doesn't exist.

Determinism is the doctrine that events are not random. This means that every event that ever happens in a deterministic system is precisely caused by the ensemble of relevant conditions that immediately preceded it. A slightly different ensemble of conditions may or may not produce a significantly different event, but exactly the same conditions will always produce exactly the same event. This potentially applies to every object and condition in the universe, even humans. If you are a deterministic system, and if we could recreate exactly the same conditions that existed at eleven o'clock yesterday morning you would do exactly the same thing that you did do at eleven o'clock yesterday morning. If we were to recreate exactly the same conditions that existed just before the last time you ordered chocolate ice cream, you would order chocolate ice cream. (Of course, you wouldn't know you were orderining it again, because your memories would be exactly the same as they were just before the first time.)

Indeterminism (or "randomness") is the denial of determinism. It is therefore the doctrine that events are random. Events that happen in indeterministic systems are not precisely caused by the ensemble of relevant conditions that immediately preceded them. In a system that is not deterministic, the exact same ensemble of conditions will not necessarily produce the same result. (In fact, a group of objects that are indeterministicly related to each other cannot really be called a "sysyem", because the concept of a system depends the objects being able to affect each other, and that requires at least some degree of determinism.) This also potentially applies to every object and condition in the universe, even humans. If you are not a deterministic system, then being in the condition of being absolutely determinined to do something has absolutely nothing to do whith whether or not you go it. Even if you experience yourself as choosing to order ice cream, that isn't necessarily what you will do. In fact, if your brain isn't deterministic, there is virtually no chance that you will actually do any of the things you choose to do.

Volitional determinism is the doctrine that people's volitions all follow by necessity from their immediately preceeding brain states. The state of your brain at time t-0 precisely determines the decision you make at time t-1.

Volitional indeterminism is the doctrine that people's volitions are all random with respect to their immediately preceeding brain states. The decision you make at time t-1 has nothing to do with state of your brain at time t-0.

In terms of indeterminism, the phrase "you could do anything" does not mean you could choose to do anything you choose to do. It means you could find yourself doing anything at all, no matter what you choose to do. Say you choose to respond to a red "don't walk" sign by stopping at the curb by a crosswalk. (Maybe you do this because you don't want to get run over - which would be an example of determinism.) But let us also say that at the moment you chose to stop, indeterminism kicks in, and "you could do anything" in the indeterministic sense of "could do anything." You want to keep standing on the curb, but you could find yourself attempting a back flip. (Remember, this is indeterminism. What you want does not determine what you do.) Or you could dance out into traffic. I don't mean that you could choose to dance into traffic. Indeterminism means that what you choose to does not determine what you do. What indeterminism means that you could dance out into traffic even you desperately want not to. In fact, it means that you could dance into traffic even if you choose not to. That's right, you choose to do one thing, and despite that, you do something completely different, and perhaps suicidal.

General Determinism (usually just "determinism") is the doctrine that everything in the universe, not just our volitions, but everything, is determined. If general determinism is true, volitional determinism will certainly be true and quantum indeterminiacy will be false. If quantum indeterminacy is true, general determinism will be false. However, if general determinism is indeed false, volitional determinism can easily still be true. This is because volitional determinism is logically compatible with quantum indeterminacy. Quantum indeterminacy, which may or may not be true, is the doctrine that at least some behaviors of at least some subatomic particles are indeterminate to the extent that the state of a particle at time t-1 is at least sometimes not completely determined by it's state at t-0. However, this indeterminacy is strictly bounded, and seems limited to very small particles and in fact supports determinism at the level of atoms and molecules. Thus it is perfectly possible for your brain to behave completely deterministically while at the same time billions of subatomic particles in your brain are behaving with a significant amount of indeterminism. (Isn't physics fun!)

Misunderstandings of Determinism

One of the biggest problems with discussing determinism is that many people confuse it with programming, predetermination, predestination and other forms of external control. This is a very dangerous confusion, because it confuses determinism (which does not necessarily have anything to do with free will) with situations in which a person's actions or destiny are controlled by external forces (which situations are usually assumed to eliminate free will, or render it futile.) Let me be perfectly clear here. In this class, "determinism" only refers to determinism. It does not refer to programming, predetermination, predestination, fate, karma or any other kind of force external to the person that eliminates or negates her free will. It should also be unnecessary to add that "determinism" absolutely does not refer to "nofreewillism" or "coercion."

Coercion is a condition such that some person is being forced to do something against his will. It has nothing to do with whether or not a system is deterministic. Coercion is also the only condition that can remove free will from a physically capable human being. If an action was coerced, then it was not free. If an action was free, then it was not coerced. Coercion only exists when there is an outside force controlling what someone does. A condition would only remove someone's free will if it created an outside force that overruled the volition-creating processes in that person's brain.

For instance, say that Pierre's internal state has determined that he will go to church today. Unfortunately, a group of ninja have decided to take him to a Kurosawa film festival, so they surround Pierre, menace him with their scary black katana, and force him to go to the festival and watch The Seven Samuari. Now in this case, Pierre's actions were not determined by his own internal processes, and so they were not free.

Freewillism (a word I made up) is the doctrine that free will exists. It is the doctrine that, whatever else is true, people at least sometimes act on their own free will.

Nofreewillism (another word I made up) is the doctrine that free will does not exist. It is the doctrine that, whatever else is true, people at never act on their own free will.

You need to be able to distinguish between determinism and coercion.

Determinism is Not Coercion

Coercion is an external force that prevents people from what they want to do. Volitional determinism is an internal condition that determines what people want to do. It doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. What it does do is allow a person's mental states to determine what he does. This is important because it is coercion that prevents people from acting on their own free will. Since the only alternative to a free-willed action is a coerced action, people who believe that determinism is incompatible with free will will have to show how an internal condition of determinism can reach outside of a person to create an external condition of coercion.

Determinism Is Not Done By People.

When an event is determined, that means it was caused to happen by the immediately preceeding conditions. It does not mean that the event was determined by somebody,

Determinism Does Not Say That Things Are Already Determined.

If you think deteriminism is the doctrine that things are determined ahead of time, you are absolutely wrong. Deteriminism is when events are determined by the immediately preceding conditions. Nothing is determined until the moment it happens. so don't ever say that "deteriminsm is the doctrine that events are determined" without pointing out that they are determined at the instannt they happen, and not a moment before.

Determinism Is Not Programming.

Some people interpret determinism as saying that people are presently equipped with programs that will control their future actions. It is true that some psychological theories claim that people have habitual ways of reacting to situations, called "scripts," that cause them to behave in certain ways. Couples who repeatedly enact exactly the same argument over and over again can be said to be operating on scripts. The presence of scripts in a person's mind can be said to reduce that person's free will because that person will tend to meet the same situation with the same response every time, instead of re-thinking, and possibly making a new decision with each new occurrence. If a person's script is so powerful that he cannot change the way he reacts to certain situations, then the script could well be seen as having eliminated his free will.

For instance, consider the case of a woman who has been programmed to always form relationships with arrogant men. You can make up your own story of how she got to be programmed. You can assume she was programmed by events in her childhood, or perhaps that she was the victim of a mad scientist. The one thing you cannot do is assume that she was programmed by volitional determinism, because volitional determinism cannot, and does not, program people. Anyway, assuming that this woman is programmed, we will infer that she is unable to resist overtures from arrogant men. Even if it is the case that she is well aware that all her previous relationships with arrogant men have been painful and psychologically harmful, even if she is absolutely determined to never again go out with another arrogant man, the fact that she is programmed means that she will never be able to say no if an arrogant man asks her for a date.

Determinism contradicts the view that people are programmed. Determinism says that the woman in the above example does not have to be programmed to always accept dates with arrogant men. Rather, it is a says that the next time an arrogant man asks this woman out, the decision will be determined by the conditions that exist in her brain at that time, which will include all her memories of painful experiences with arrogant man, and all her previous resolutions never to date one again. If the woman's decision is determined, rather than programmed, she will be able to resist the arrogant man's overtures, and indeed, will probably do so.

The doctrine of scripts is not the doctrine of determinism. Determinism says nothing about whether or not people are programmed. The theory of determinism says nothing about future behavior, and in fact says nothing specific about human beings at all. It just says that things do not operate randomly Although some people assume that determinism means that people are programmed, and illegitimately and confusingly refer to this theory as "psychological determinism," it is absolutely wrong to assume that the doctrine of volitional determinism is the same as this doctrine of psychological "determinism."

If you think that volitional determinism implies that people are programmed, then you will have to show how the mere fact that the volitional system does not operate randomly creates programs that prevents people from ever changing how they react to things. If you cannot show that nonrandomness in the brain creates programs that act on the volitional system as a kind of external control, then you rationally should conclude that it does not, and that determinism does not imply that people are programmed.

Determinism Is Not Predestination.

Sometimes, students write things like "determinism rules out free will because, if our fate is already decided for us, and there is nothing we can do to alter it, then we have no free will." There are two things wrong with this. First, it misunderstands determinism. Second, it misunderstands free will.

Predestination is best illustrated by the story of the Appointment.in Samarra. A man has a servant. This servant came in one day in a state of extreme distress. He tells his master that he was just in the marketplace and he saw Death there too. He would not have been scared, except that Death gave him a funny look, and that panicked him. The servant begged his master to lend him a horse, so he could go and stay with relatives in the distant town of Samarra. The master agreed, but after the man had ridden away, he became very angry and decided to give Death a piece of his mind. So the master hurried to the marketplace and confronted Death. "Why did you give my servant that funny look," he demanded. "I'm sorry," Death replied, "but I was very surprised to see him here. You see, I have an appointment with him tonight in the distant town of Samarra."

Predestination is the claim that our fate is already marked out as, and that there is nothing we can do to avoid ending up there. However, predestination does not rule out free will. The man in the story went to Samarra of his own free will. He was not coerced. Nobody dragged him there. He struggled to avoid his fate, but his fate caught up with him anyway. Notice that the story does not say that he did not have a choice in what he did. The story just said that he did not have a choice in what eventually happened to him.

Secondly, and more importantly, predestination is enormously different from determinism. Determinism simply does not say that there is any inevitable fate picked out for us in advance. If anything, determinism contradicts predestination because it says that events are determined by present conditions, not by arbitrarily assigned destinies.

If you want to say that determinism implies predestination, you are going to have to come up with how determinism can arrange for someone's destiny to be picked out in advance, and then you're going to have to give an argument that shows that the mere fact that people's decisions are non-random with respect to their present brain states inevitably creates the arbitrarily chosen destinies necessary for predestination to be true. Again, good luck with that.

Determinism Is Not Predetermination.

Sometimes I see students write things like "determinism rules out free will because, if our actions are predetermined, then they are not chosen by us." The problem with this is that determinism does not say actions are predetermined. Determinism just says that actions are determined, which is a very different thing . If an action is predetermined, that means that some external agency decides what you are going to do before you have had a chance to make up your own mind about what you are going to do. (Or that you've somehow locked yourself into a future action you are unable to change your mind about). Determinism does not say that your actions are predetermined because it does not say that there is any external agency that can decide your actions for you before you make up your mind. It just says that, when you do make up your mind, do so in a nonrandom manner. Volitional determinism just says that your decisions are determined by the conditions that exist inside your brain at the time immediately preceding your decision. No external force is involved, and the determination is made only at that point in time where you make the decision.

For example of predetermination, consider the example of a man who has been predetermined to buy a doughnut with his morning coffee tomorrow. (Again, you can make up your own story about how he became predetermined to buy that doughnut. Whatever story you tell, make sure you remember that whatever it is has nothing whatsoever to do with determinism.) If the man is predetermined to buy that doughnut, then his brain state at the time he makes the decision will have nothing whatsoever to do with what he does. He is going to buy that doughnut, no matter what. Even if he is absolutely determined to lose weight, even if he has come to hate donuts, even if he has decided absolutely not to buy that doughnut, he will buy it. That's what "predetermined" means. And it is also the opposite of determinism. Determinism says that his brain state, which includes all his desires and decisions, will determine whether or not he buys the doughnut. Volitional determinism implies that decisions are not predetermined, because it clearly implies that decisions are only determined at the time that they are made, and not before.

Remember, determinism just says that our decisions are not random with respect do what is going on in our brains at the time we make them. If the man's desire to lose weight is stronger than his hunger and his craving for sugar, he will decline the doughnut. If hunger and craving are stronger, he will buy the doughnut. You may think that a condition in which a person's decisions are not random with respect to his present brain state is not a state of free will, but you cannot legitimately say that the nonrandomness of this person's decisions means they are predetermined.

Predetermination is not determinism. Determinism not only says nothing about whether or not people's decisions can be determined for them in advance, it actually contradicts this idea by saying that people's decisions are determined by their brain states of hope, fear, desire, determination and conscious thought at the time of the decision.

If you want to think that determinism implies that decisions are predetermined as well as determined, you have to prove two things. First, you would have to show how a person's decision can be both determined by the conditions that exist at the time of the decision and by some different set of conditions that existed at some previous time. Second, you would have to show how determinism creates the conditions in the human brain that allow previous conditions to determine present decisions. Good luck with that.

Determinism is Not Nofreewillism

Determinism is the doctrine that events are determined by the immediately preceeding conditions. Nofreewillism is the doctrine that free will doesn't exist. Not only are these doctrines different, they don't have even one single solitary term in common. So it should be obvious that determinism isn't nofreewillism. In fact, saying "determinism is not nofreewillism" is like saying "basketball is not the rejection of cheese production."

"Random" in this context, means MORE than "Unpredictible" or "Happens For No Apparant Reason."

In our text, Donald Palmer uses the word "random" to mean "undetermined" which means "happens for no reason whatsoever." In ordinary life, we use the word "random" to mean stuff that we could not have predicted or which happens for no apparant reason. Both of these are perfectly compatible with determinism, because complex deterministic systems are usually unpredictible and contain many unseen elements. But undetermined events don't happen for reasons. If an event is undetermined, it happened for no reason whatsoever. Since Donald Palmer is using the word "random" to mean "not determined," it is vitally important to remember that every time Palmer uses the word "random" it means "not determined, and therefore happening for no reason whatsoever."

Indeterminism Is Not Freedom

If you think free willed actions cannot be determined, please write me an essay explaining how your "free" actions can still be your actions when they are completely random with respect to your mental state at the time you made them. (An if you think your free actions aren't random, then you think they're determined, because random and nonrandom are the only choices you get.)

Determinism is Nonrandomness.

If you think they're different, write a paper explaining how they're different. And then consult the definitions above to figure out where you went wrong.

"Necessity" is Determinism

Well, in this unit it is. In real life, "necessity" means something a little different from determinism, so I don't know why Palmer uses the word "necessity" since we already had the word "determinism." Still, when Palmer says "necessity," he means "determinism."

Indeterminism is Randomness

It just is. Deal with it.

Predictibility

Remember, determinisim is a condition of non-randomness. A system is deterministic to the extent that it's behavior at any given instant is not random with respect to it's state in the immediately preceeding instant. To put it another way, determinism is a condition such that whatever happens at a given instant is fully controlled by the exact state of the universe in the immediately preceeding instant. It is important to remember that this is the whole definition of determinism. Determined just means non-random. Random just means undetermined.

Determinism sometimes allows predictability, if the system is simple enough that all the important variables can be known with sufficient precision. However, most deterministic systems are much too complicated for this to be possible, so vast majority of deterministic systems are highly unpredictible. For this reason, determinism does not imply predictibility.

Randomness does not allow predictability. If a system is operating without determinism, then it's behavior at any given instant does not depend on it's state at any preceeding instant, so knowing it's state at any given time will not tell us anything about it's state at any later time. Since a system can only be predictible to the extent it is deterministic, predictibility implies determinism.

For instance, say that Pierre is a very regular churchgoer, and we know that there is absolutely nothing unusual about this Sunday moring for Pierre. He is not sick, his family is fine, he has not had a crisis of faith. In fact, for Pierre, this Sunday is exactly like last Sunday. (When I say exactly, I mean exactly. Don't be saying to yourself, "there could be something different." In this case, there isn't anything different.) Given that this Sunday is exactly like last Sunday, determinism says that Pierre will go to church, so if it turns out that he actually does go to church, that is evidence that determinism is true, at least for Pierre.

Of course, in real life, we never get the exact same conditions over again, and we also never know enough about any situation to make accurate predictions, so most deterministic systems are unpredictible. Still, it is a fact that predictibility is only ever possible with deterministic systems, so the fact you can make accurate predictions about some systems implies that at least those systems are deterministic.

Indeterminism Makes Control Impossible

Imagine that your car's steering wheel is not deterministically connected to your car's front wheel. If the connection isn't deterministic, then a slight turn to the left won't necessarily cause the car to make a slight turn to the left. It might make the car turn hard left instead. It might even make a slight right turn. You just don't know. And whatever it does this time, it won't necessarily do the same thing the next time you turn the wheel the same way. In fact, an indeterministic connection is just like having the steering disconnected and the car's wheels moving randomly as you desperately try to regain control over your vehicle. Don't try this at home.

Indeterminism Makes Prediction Impossible

Say your car's wheels move randomly. Can you predict which way they'll move next? How would you do it?

Now that you know all the things that determinism is not, you can get on with the reading!

Reading Questions (These will help you with the reading. The number on the left is the page number.)
214. Explain the doctrine of determinism in your own words.
214. What does it mean to say that something happens "of necessity?"

Thinky Questions
Do we have compelling reason to think that any of the events around us in our daily lives happen completely without reason?
Or is it rather the case that events that seem random to us always turn out to actually have causes that made them happen?

For instance, a car appears to come out of nowhere and crashes into yours at an intersection. For that to be an undetermined event, the car would have had to literally not even exist before it hit yours. If, however, the car was previously made in a factory in Japan, shipped to America, bought by a massage therapist, and stolen by a drunk who then ran a red light and hit your car, then the event was actually determined, not random, and counts as an instance of determinism in action.

Can you think of an actual provably random event that had ever happened to you?

If you think that all the events that happen to you happen for reasons, you believe in determinism.

215. What claim did Baron D'Holbach make about the brain?  How did he support this claim?
216. What did Laplace think he could do if he had just two things?
216. What are the two things that Laplace thought he needed to do whenever it was?

There is an important problem with Laplace's view that Palmer does not mention. No measurement whatsoever can ever been made with absolute precision, and a small difference today can make a slightly larger difference tomorrow. You can never know absolutely everything about any particular situation. So, even if that situation develops completely deterministically, any prediction you make about how it will develop is likely to be invalidated by some small, but unavoidable error in your description of the situation.  The more complicated the situation, the more small errors there will be, and the faster your prediction will be invalidated. Even in a simple situation, our inability to make any measurement with absolute precision means that there will be numerous small errors in any description of that situation. Some errors will cancel each other out, but statistically, there will always be some that add up, and these will sooner or later invalidate any prediction.

If Laplace could know everything with perfect precision, could he make perfect predictions?
Can anyone know anything with absolutely perfect precision?
Does determinism imply that the universe is actually predictable for people like you and me?
Does determinism imply that the universe is logically, or "in principle" predictable?

WARNING The third edition of the book gets the relationship between determinism and predictability exactly backwards. The fourth edition does not mention this relationship, which is a pity because the information that predictibility implies determinism would help his readers make sense of the role of determinism in human behavior.

The truth is, if an event is predictible, that means it was determined. Without determinism, no event can be predictible, so any predictible event (Pierre goes to church) is determined by prior events (Pierre became Christian, he adopted churchgoing as a value, he wasn't sick that day ....). If an event is not determined it will not be predictible. (Can you predict when a given Uranium atom will decay?)

Now I ask you, if an event is predictible, is it even remotely possible that that event happened at random?

If you agree with Donald Palmer, and think that predictiblity does not imply determinism, you have to come up with a provably predictible event that is provably not determined. (That is, you have to prove the event was predictible, and you have to prove (not just assume) that it happened at random.

Remember that determinism is not the same as coercion. If an event was not coerced, that doesn't mean it wasn't determined, so proving that no coercion was involved is utterly irrelevant for the question of whether or not the event was determined.

Self Test

If you've properly studied the above materials, the following questions should be easy to answer.

After studying the assigned reading in the light of the following material, you should be able to give complete and logically precise answers to the following questions.

Give a complete and precise definition of determinism, and how it is different from coercion? How is a situation that involves coercion different from one that merely involves determinism?

Give a complete and precise definition of determinism, and how it is different from programming? How is a situation that involves programming different from one that merely involves determinism?

Give a complete and precise definition of determinism, and how it is different from predestination? How is a situation involving predestination different from one that merely involves determinism?

Give a complete and precise definition of determinism, and how it is different from predetermination? How is a situation that involves predetermination different from one that merely involves determinism?

Give complete and precise definitions of “necessity” and “randomness,” and explain exactly how they are related to each other. Can both be true of the same thing at the same time? Can both be false of the same thing at the same time? Explain precisely why or why not.

Explain the logical strengths and weaknesses of LaPlace’s conjecture that if we had a certain kind of knowledge we could do a certain thing. What knowledge would we need? What thing could we do? Can we actually do this thing? If not, why not? If not, does the reason why not mean there’s anything wrong with LaPlace’s logic? Why or why not?

Explain and analyze the precise logical relationship between determinism and predictability. What is “determinism?” What is “predictability?” If an event is determined, does that mean it has to be predictable? If it was predictable, does that mean it had to be determined? (You can discuss the Tacoma Narrows Bridge if that helps.)

How To Make Up Quizzes
If for some reason, (illness, family emergency, conflicting academic obligation, sudden discovery that you have superpowers coupled with the need to save the Earth from a hurtling asteroid that only you can deflect), you miss one of my delightful quizzes, you can make up the lost points by writing up a clear, precise, and deeply insightful answer to one of the potential exam questions and turning the results in as "make-up quiz." Illustrations are not absolutely necessary, but would add a nice touch.

Potential questions for Quiz 1. What was the first thing that Laplace thought he needed in order to predict the future? 2. What was the other thing? 3. Explain the doctrine of determinism in your own words 4. What claim did Baron D'Holbach make about the brain? 5. How is determinism different from coercion? 6. Is determinism done by people? 7. Does determinism say that things are already determined? 8. How is determinism different from programming? 9. How is determinism different from predestination? 10. How is determinism different from predetermination? 11. How is determinism different from nofreewillism? 12. How is randomness different from unpredictibility? 13. How is indeterminism different from freedom? 14. How is determinism related to nonrandomness? 15. How is determinism related to necessity? 16. How is indeterminism related to randomness? 17. How is indeterminism related to predictibility? 18. How is indeterminism related to control?

Potential Exam Questions

Explain the concept of "determinism" clearly and completely by contrasting it with the different concepts that are most commonly mistaken for determinism. A good answer will explain the precise relationship between determinism and randomness, and will say exactly how determinism is different from predestination, from predetermination and programming.

Compare and contrast the concept of "determinism" with the concept of "nofreewillism". A good answer will define both determinism and nofreewillism, and will say exactly how determinism is different from the exact condition it is that actually, in real life, makes some humans act without free will. Most importantly, a good answer will explain exactly why determinism is vastly different from nofreewillism.

Explain and Analyze Laplace's analysis of determinism and predictability. A good answer will explain the concepts of determinism and predictability, and will explain LaPlace's idea precisely, in a way that will not make him to be saying anything he actually did not say. In particular, a good answer will pay close attention to the size of Laplace's "IF," and lay out precisely what his theory means about our ability, or inability, to predict the future based on our understandings of the present.

Explain and Analyze D'Holbach's analysis of determinism, materialism and human action, and relate it to Laplace's big "IF." . A good answer will define "determinism" and "materialism," and will explain exactly how these concepts can be combined with D'Holbach's insight on the human brain and Laplace's big "IF into an analysis of human behavior.

Explain and analyze the precise relationship between determinism and predictability. Explain materialist determinism in your own words. Explain the concept of "predictability" in detail, making sure you cover the difference between practical, and theoretical "in principle" predictability. Using clear examples, explain the relationships between these concepts as clearly and precisely as you can. If we know that a system is deterministic, does that mean that it is predictible? Why or why not? If we know that a system is predictible, does that mean that it is deterministic? Why or why not?

Clearly and completely explain the logical consequences of saying that an event did not happen "out of necessity." If the thing that was going to happen next was not determined, and therefore not "out of necessity," what could we say about this up comining event? If we knew absolutely everything about the present situation what, if anything, could we say about this upcoming event that was going to happen not out necessity? If we knew that the next thing to happen was going to happen not out of necessity, how much control would we be able to exert over that next, not out of necessity event? Explain your answer.

Clearly and completely explain the concept and implications of Volitional Determinism. Explain volitional determinism, say how it's different from volitional indeterminism, and relate both concepts to the ideas of predictabiliy and control. If your actions are governed by volitional indeterminism, how well will you be able to predict what you will do next? If your actions are governed by volitional indeterminism, how well will you be able to control what you will do next? Explain your answer.

Any exam answer can be enhanced by addition of any comments that occur to you. The more you think about a topic, the more likely you are to come up with something that can earn you a little more credit for your answer. I never deduct points, so it can't hurt to add your own thoughts.

Copyright © 2010 by Martin C. Young

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