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Determinism
If you already understand that determinism is not
predeterminiation, not programming, not
predestination, and absolutely not anything that is different
from simple nonrandomness, you can read and work on the
material below. If, however, you find yourself using words like
"predetermined" or "predestined" when you think of determinism, you should
read determinisnt.htm to find out why it
is absolutely wrong to think things like "determinism means that
your actions are predetermined." (Which is wrong, wrong, wrong
WRONG!)
Answer the big type, bold and underlined question below.
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 ordering it again, because your
memories would be exactly the same as they were just before the first
time.)
Indeterminism 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
"system", 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.
Free Will is the condition in which what you actually do is
determined by a process operating in your own brain that you identify as
being your will, (or an expression of your self.) People and most animals
can have free will, because they have developed brains that can process
information. Cars, trees and rocks can't have it because they can't
process information. Some computers might someday have it, but it won't be
any time soon. In some situations we are given our own choice of what to
do, and the choice of what action we take is the result of our own
decision making process, not of some outside coercion. These actions are
done of our own free will. If such actions ever happen, then free will
exists.
Coercion is the condition of acting against your free
will. People don't always act in free will, because some of the things we
do are things we are forced to do by things outside of our own minds, such
as falling boulders, rising flood waters, high winds and traffic
policemen.
Things that interfere with our free will may be deterministic in
themselves, but they are completely random with respect to our
own thinking processes. Similarly, if our own thinking processes ever
become random, we will lose the ability to determine our thoughts and
actions, and our free will vanishes. Actions that are not determined wthin
us are not done of our own free will because we would act differently if
we could, but we don't act differently because we are not given the choice
to do what we decide to do. Free will always dissapears whenever a
person's actions are not determined by his own thinking process.
For example, imagine you are in a room with three exits. One exit leads to
a gift shop, one to an extremely hungry and irritable tiger and the other
to a modern art gallery. If you take the time to decide "mmmm, gift shop?
tiger? gallery? What do I feel like doing," and then pick a door and go
through that door because you chose it, then you went
through that door of your own free will. If, however, something forces
you to go through a door you didn't choose, then you wouldn't
be going through that door of your own free will.
Also, in order for any of your actions to count as an instance of free
will, it must have been possible for you to have done something other than
what you chose to do, if you had made up your mind to do that other thing
instead. If you had no choice about what to do, then you didn't have free
will.
So, if there's only one door, and something is forcing you out of the
room, (say rising flood waters, or they're about to tape an episode of Jerry
Springer), then you don't really go through that door of your own
free will, because you could not do otherwise.
Now, if determinism is true, you were determined to go through whatever
door you went through. Some people think that being determined
to do something means it wasn't free will. Other people think
that it can't be free will if you weren't dtermined to do it!
Which side is right, and why?
If determinism is true, and all human decision
making processes are deterministic, does that give us a good reason
to think that free will is false? Why or why not?
For determinism to imply that free will doesn't exist, it must imply that
we are never in any situation in which we have any real choice of what to
do, or that we never ourselves actually decide what to do. So if you think
that determinism excludes the possibility of free will, you must also
think one of the following:
1. No matter what we choose in any situation, there is actually only one
option physically open to us. The other options only seem to be open to
us. Say in the door with three rooms story you decided to visit the tiger.
So determinism must imply that, if you had decided to visit the gift shop
instead, something (a stuck door, a mysterious stranger, a herd of rhinos)
would have happened to keep you out. Of course, if you believe this, you
will have to explain how determinism would imply that we never notice that
every situation we ever find ourselves in has only one possible option,
and why a door that would have been struck for us will open easily for
someone else.
2. We never actually decide to do anything. Say in the room with three
doors you go through the door that leads to the gallery, and say to
yourself afterwards "I did this because I had an impulse and decided to
yield to it." Or you go to the gift shop, and explain this action by
saying "I need to buy a present for the tiger, and decide to see if the
gift shop had anything suitable." Determinism must then imply that you
didn't decide anything at all! You were in the room, and then your body
mysteriously and without any decision on your part went into the gift shop
and then you made up this explanation after the fact even though you knew
full well that you hadn't decided anything. Of course, if you believe
this, you must explain where your actions would come from if determinism
is true, since they wouldn't come from you!
Finally, if you think that determinism would imply that we have no free
will, you have to account for the fact that we have every reason to think
that determinism is true, at least as far as our brains, (or any thinking
process) is concerned. (In fact, if determinism isn't true as far as our
minds are concerned, then we have no free will. See
indeterminism.htm.) So if you think determinism implies we have no
free will, you have to explain why we experience ourselves as making
decisions and acting on them even though, by your logic,
that would mean that we don't have free will.
If you think that determinism does imply that free will is false, you
should be able to explain how it does so. Remember that free will
exists if there are any situations in which which what someone does is
decided by that person, so you have to show that determinism implies that
everyone's decisions are always coerced, and that no-one ever has any
choice about what he or she is going to do.
Also consider the opposite question. If determinism isn't true,
could we have free will? If our actions were random with respect to our
own thinking process, how could they possibly be our actions?
If you look at the case for incompatibilism, and it turns out that, as far as you can tell, the incompatibilists have not given any good reason to think that determinism rules out free will, you should make "determinism does not rule out free will" into your thesis, and write a paper explaining all the thinking you did as you came to this conclusion.
Remember that you must answer this question without changing the
definitions of any of the words used here. If you think my definition of
free will or my definition of determinism is wrong, you can write about
why you think it should be different, but don't change the meanings of
words like "choice" and "coercion."
For hints about the logical consequences of failing to find a way that
determinism implies a denial of free will, see burden.htm
You may add any other comments or questions you happen to think of.
Copyright © 2005 by Martin C. Young