Determinism: Philosophy Forums

Determinism

hockey999
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Posted 12/06/08 - 09:32 PM: Subject: Determinism	#1
Can anyone explain to me what determinism is and how exactly it works. I don't really understand how it applies, some help would be great thx.

swstephe
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Posted 12/06/08 - 09:49 PM:	#2
Determinism is simply the idea that every event has a preceding cause. If something happens, then something else caused it to happen. I guess, since this is posted under "Philosophy of Religion", you are more interested on how this contrasts with free will. I think that early religious philosophers confused "cause" with "coercion", and thought that it would be unjust for someone to be blamed for their actions since all their actions would have preceding causes. So liberalism came along to say that our choices are independent of any preceding cause, so we couldn't pass blame for our choices to someone else and would deserve whatever punishment or reward we receive.
Ethics is the measuring of morality. Morality is the measuring of good. Good is the measuring of benefit. Benefit is the measure of values.

Tisthammerw
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Posted 12/07/08 - 07:49 PM:	#3
swstephe wrote: Determinism is simply the idea that every event has a preceding cause. There's one additional criterion: each cause determines the effect. Modern interpretations of quantum mechanics suggest that on the subatomic level causes are probabilistic, rather than deterministic. Still, in the macro world of chemical reactions, causes are for all practical purposes deterministic. How can that be? Flip a coin a trillion times in a row. It's a near-certainty that each side coming up 50% will be an extremely close approximation to what actually happens; a kind of near-determinism results. Similarly, probabilities tend to "cancel out" in this way as we go from the subatomic world to the larger everyday world.
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reincarnated
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Posted 12/08/08 - 02:05 AM:	#4
swstephe wrote: I guess, since this is posted under "Philosophy of Religion", you are more interested on how this contrasts with free will. I think that early religious philosophers confused "cause" with "coercion", and thought that it would be unjust for someone to be blamed for their actions since all their actions would have preceding causes. So liberalism came along to say that our choices are independent of any preceding cause, so we couldn't pass blame for our choices to someone else and would deserve whatever punishment or reward we receive. Except that the metaphysical libertarian concept of free will is incoherent. To be ultimately responsible for one’s actions it follows that one’s actions must be under the control of (caused by) one’s prior mental/physiological states – but this also entails that one’s prior mental/physiological states must also be under the control of (caused by) even earlier mental/physiological states – which ultimately leads to infinite regress.
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hockey999
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Posted 12/08/08 - 04:37 PM:	#5
swstephe wrote: Determinism is simply the idea that every event has a preceding cause. If something happens, then something else caused it to happen. I guess, since this is posted under "Philosophy of Religion", you are more interested on how this contrasts with free will. I think that early religious philosophers confused "cause" with "coercion", and thought that it would be unjust for someone to be blamed for their actions since all their actions would have preceding causes. So liberalism came along to say that our choices are independent of any preceding cause, so we couldn't pass blame for our choices to someone else and would deserve whatever punishment or reward we receive. So liberalism is free will, but with determinism things are already determined?

swstephe
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Posted 12/08/08 - 04:53 PM:	#6
hockey999 wrote: So liberalism is free will, but with determinism things are already determined? No, I would say that there is a difference between "determinism", (that everything flows from a preceding cause), and "predeterminism", (a metaphysical concept).
Ethics is the measuring of morality. Morality is the measuring of good. Good is the measuring of benefit. Benefit is the measure of values.

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