Philosophy: Determinism Accurately Describes Reality

= = = ========== The Microcosm ========== My opponent concurs by saying "What Bohm is referring to is that nothing could have evolved that base unit from itself; it is the base unit that all of matter is made up from. NO OTHER PARTICLE DETERMINES IT'S EXISTENCE AND ITS INITIAL BEHAVIORS." In other words, whatever the base unit or particle of the Universe is, it is self-determined. Thus, the deepest quantum level is self-determined, which was my point from the very beginning. There is no way of getting around it. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle has quantum particles moving in an unpredictable and indeterministic manner. And my opponent's counter argument of Bohm's Interpretation merely pointed out that a deeper field of quantum particles are determining that unpredictable behavior, but that, even this deeper field of quantum particles is SELF-DETERMINED. Again, as Bohm stated, [the very person she is using to argue against indeterminism]: "In principle, every new moment could be entirely unrelated to the previous one—it could be totally creative." - David Bohm It is an inevitable conclusion. The quantum world is indeterministic and self-determined. ========== Microcosm Pt.2 ========== {*Even if my opponent is implying that his indeterministic quantum state carries up to the macro, then he too is making a "composition error."*} This is not the case. That is why I explicitly separated the microcosm from the macrocosm into different sections. {*both determinism and indeterminism don't allow for free will*} Let me provide a syllogism to explain how indeterminism would in fact allow for, or support, free will. P1: Indeterminism is something that is not determined by an external agent or cause. P2: If it is not determined by anything else but itself, it is self-determined. P3: If it is self-determined, it is free. Now, you may object and say that indeterminism is random, not free. Well then, what is randomness? Randomness is something that doesn't conform to a pattern or adhere to a prior arrangement. [1] So what's the problem? If we observe a particle moving about randomly, we just assume that it's blind randomness because we don't understand why it is moving in such a way. We cannot predict its movement because it is not restricted by a pattern nor does it adhere to a prior arrangement. Therefore, that particle is self-determined and free. ========== The Macrocosm ========== Now here I am going to throw a curve ball, so get ready. We have been trying to answer this question of "free will vs. determinism" the wrong way. I am going to take a page from the philosophy of Alan Watts to answer this properly. The general perception and accepted paradigm of time and events is a continuous line of events caused by previous events. Where the present is driven by the past. However, this an improper way to look at things, and is only viewed that way so that our minds can comprehend time. Here's why: "The course of time is really, very much like the course of a ship in the ocean. Because here's the ship you see, and it leaves behind it, a wake. And the wake fades out and that tells us where the ship has been in just the same way the past, and our memory of the past, tells us what we have done. But as we go back into the past, and we go back and back to pre-history and we use all kinds of instruments and scientific method for detecting what happened, we eventually reach a point where all record of the past fades away in just the same way as the wake of the ship. ... THE WAKE DOESN'T DRIVE THE SHIP ANYMORE THAN THE TAIL WAGS THE DOG." - Alan Watts In other words, describing present events as the result of prior, antecedent events, is like saying the jet stream guides the plane. This of course is ludicrous, and the stream only tells us where the plane has been. Another example, you can record a person running and when you play back the video in slow motion, you will see a blur of himself behind him. You wouldn't say that the person made it to the finish line due to his prior position on the track. No, that blur behind him was the result of his current position. =========== Macrocosm Pt. 2 =========== So you see, the past doesn't drive the present, the past is the result of the present. It is only when you try to figure out what determined the present, do you come to a problem. When you do that, then you are voluntarily letting the past drive you. You are looking back at the trail left behind and telling yourself that your actions are the result of that [the past.] This then gets rid of such problems like the hungry person on a diet, because no longer do prior conditions matter by which a choice is determined, whether it be made freely or not. Every moment is a new and creative moment, and it is only when we look back to the past to figure out why something happened, that we feel like everything is determined. When we look back to see what determined us, we are looking at it backwards, from this present moment, to the previous moment. So we are really only tracing things backwards, but we don't realize that it's all just a trail left behind from the present. =========== Macrocosm Pt. 3 =========== I'd also like to point out that we tend to identify our drives as something separate from us, when really, that is who we are. When we get hungry, it's not an external agent determining us to eat, we are that hunger. The same can be said for everything: "If I define myself as the whole field of events, we'll say the "organism-environment field" which is the real me, then all the things that happen to me, may be called "my doing." - Alan Watts So when we say that we are driven by external agents, are they really separate from us? Or are they a part of us? Where do we draw the line between the person and the environment, the cell from the body, the atom from the cell. It's all interconnected. The water in the river is flowing together as one, yet we're trying to divide it into sections. It's all one movement, there are no separate events until we arbitrarily define them as such, and therefore, it is our own thinking that binds us to deterministic causes. When we finally come to this realization, it is only then that we become fully liberated from being a "puppet of the past." ======= Conclusion ======= Determinism has now been rendered irrelevant. I thank you all for reading and thanks to my opponent for participating in this intriguing debate. [1] http://dictionary.reference.com...