Friday, November 9, 2012

Determinism sucks (by anon)


Determinism is that every belief and action you have or do is caused to happen by the physical universe, and I find this thought infuriating to put it lightly.  Thinking that everything we will do is already determined, which completely kills the notion of Free Will and making our own choices, is absurd.   I have some belief in fate, but never to the extreme that determinism takes it.  Determinism, if true, takes away everything from humans, all power, all responsibility, and basically makes us puppets in some play.

With determinism, never will somebody be blamed for their actions, for they were "determined" to do what they did, and "had no choice."  On the flip side, somebody's successes can never be attributed to their work either, for they were "determined" to achieve whatever they achieved.  Just think if somebody took everything you accomplished, which you take pride in, and basically said you had nothing to do with any of them, that they basically were just handed to you, wouldn't that piss you off?  Determinism is just a huge excuse to take all blame off of humankind, which to me is bullshit.

Determinism also interferes with religious beliefs.  Some of the common beliefs of God are that of an All-Loving God, and possibly some notion of Heaven and Hell to name a couple.  Now if your religious beliefs fall into these categories, determinism, in my opinion tears these down.  If there is a Heaven and Hell, and determinism is true, wouldn't that mean that God determined us to go to either one of the other once we die?  This defeats the belief of an All-Loving God, because an All-Loving God would not condemn us to Hell since before we were born.  So if God is All-Loving and determinism exists, that would mean everybody goes to Heaven (which goes against many beliefs,) there is no Heaven or Hell (which makes everybody's "afterlife" equal,) or the most drastic, there is no God (or at least no All-Loving one.)  All of this added up to me makes determinism horrible to even consider, and I refuse to believe in it.

6 comments:

  1. 1) Determinism needs a constant EXACT chain of cause and effect to be true. (Regardless if we know what said causes are)
    2) In quantum physics/mechanics there are only the probability of said results. (It’s not random, it's probability and probability is constantly seen on the macro scale for human behavior)
    3) Quantum physics and determinism are incompatible.
    4) Quantum physics exists and is true.
    5) Thus determinism does not exist and is false.

    An objective argument against determinism.
    You’re welcome

    Side note, you can go into string theory or multiple universes and where in theory determinism could be true in this array of universes, but that’s a little out of my league at the moment to get into.

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  2. BUt, i believe that determinism isn't as black and white as you make it out to be. It isn't that we are determined to do something since were are born and we walk into that path from then on. i see it as an opportunity to explain why some people do things. For example, going to college, it isn't predetermined since birth. More likely, through all the experiences we have gone through and the thoughts we have fancied, We found being in college as a very reasonable thing, and therefore chose to go. it's not that life chose it for us, it's that we chose it because we wanted the possible consequences for what happened. Going to college can equal a very stable life, and who doesn't want to live life and be happy?

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  3. I'm fairly anti-deterministic myself but for sake of argument:

    In response to the first comment, I agree that our current and accepted understanding of physics (Quantum Physics) gives an argument against Determinism but that accepted theory is just a theory we have adopted as being the best explanation of things, but I would not be surprised to see Quantum physics be tossed out for a better theory, who knows maybe one that isn't so favorable to free will.

    In regards to the second comment, I agree that determinism as a whole isn't so black and white. I believe the original poster was targeting Hard Determinism, which would in fact remove actual "choice" but instead give perhaps the illusion of choice. You began by defending Determinism but almost the entirety of your post is an argument against it. You talk in terms of Determinism with an example of a person choosing to go to college. Now while the illusion of choice could still remain, as in the feeling that we are choosing, in a deterministic viewpoint that choice is just that, an illusion of what was going to happen all along.

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  4. So let me get this straight your argument against my argument (physics one) is skepticism... You basically you said I'm right but one day, regardless if anyone every sees this day, I could be wrong. If your going to deny the current state of affairs for science then all science must go, otherwise your just cherry picking which sciences your accepting and which ones your rejecting. Without science determinism falls apart because the strongest argument for determinism is science ie: laws of cause and effect. So with your argument or mine determinism can't hold up as a reasonable understanding of the world.

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  5. You are begging the question that God exists. God doesn't exist, in case you did not know this.

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  6. And you know that God doesnt exist? You are just as clueless as the theists, if you deny this you are full of yourself.

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