Determinism is self-defeating

I would like to begin by thanking Con for clarifying his remarks about a universal will" and his inclusion of a source about Schrodinger's cat. Since this is often the point in debates where structure begins to collapse and rigorous organization disappears, I will organize this post in to three sections. Section #1: The nature of debate. Con has stated that he would like to refrain from discussions of logic (which he erroneously refers to as linguistics [1] [2]"). This becomes problematic for two reasons. First, if an argument contains a logical fallacy, it is useless for demonstrating or proving anything. This is especially the case with circular reasoning (the fallacy we have been discussing), since, no matter how many premises you place between the point where the question is begged" and the conclusion, it will always end up saying nothing more meaningful than A, therefore A" since the conclusion is in the premises. Second, the topic of this debate (Determinism is Self-Defeating) is directly concerned with logic. What it means for a belief to be self-defeating is that one cannot hold that belief without also holding a contradiction. My burden of proof is to draw out the contradiction in believing that determinism is true; Con's burden of proof is to demonstrate that believing in determinism entails no such logical contradiction. However, the question before us is, in point of fact, a question of logic. If Con did not wish to discuss logic (which he did discuss in his previous post), he should not have accepted the debate. Section #2: Premises which are in question, and premises which are not. My original argument contained three premises and a conclusion which logically follows from the premises. That is to say, if the premises are true, the conclusion is logically unavoidable. My first premise was If determinism is true, then each person's beliefs have been pre-determined." Although Con originally argued that this was circular, he has dropped this point and has not given us any further reasons to believe that this is false, or does not logically follow from the definition of determinism. Therefore, this point still stands. My third premise (An argument for causal determinism presupposes rationality") has not been successfully refuted either; indeed, Con continues to bring up scientific evidence to support determinism, and I cannot imagine that he does so without thinking that he is being rational in his arguments. Section #3: What about premise 2? If a belief is pre-determined, it is not held rationally - that was premise #2. Does it still stand? I think it does, and for five reasons. 1) although con has presented several pieces of scientific evidence to support determinism, he has not provided anything like a rigorous proof that it is true. As stated in the video which he included, physicists have not found a unifying theory which would demonstrate that the behavior of all matter is pre-determined. Con has also argued that there are too many particles in the brain for free will, but he has presented no "unifying theory of the human brain" which would demonstrate causal determinism at the mental level. Whether such unifying theories will be discovered is not so much a scientific belief as a belief about what science will discover in the future - a realm which no one seems to have access too. 2) It is not enough for con to state "it is impossible for any notions of free will to exist and thus automatically makes determinism not self defeating." He must show precisely where my argument breaks down in its logical structure (or which of the premises is false) in order to prove that my conclusion is false. Otherwise, he would be left with the curious position of saying that the scientific evidence leads to a self-defeating conclusion. Con must resolve the logical contradiction. 3) His attempt to do so is circular. He attempts to show that rationality and determinism are compatible through evolutionary analysis of the human brain. However, any analysis of scientific evidence presupposes rationality. Thus, he is arguing that rationality is possible because we have more advanced brains developed through evolution, and he knows that we have more advanced brains because he has derived this from rationally evaluating evidence. "I know I am rational because my rational analysis of the evidence proves this is so." I am arguing here that the evolutionary theory is false or irrational. My point is that the question of rationality is logically prior to any evaluation of evidence, and therefore an attempt to argue rationality from evidence is circular. It gets much worse when con freely admits "There is no way to sufficiently or empirically prove that belief is held rationally if it is pre-determined. You can only simply view events in a historical sense, i.e. the allies won world war." But this means that mental events like the formation of beliefs can only be viewed in the historical sense, and that must logically include THAT belief as well as a belief in determinism (and even incredibly basic ones such as the logical validity of the Barbara syllogism), and thus cons arguments have become self-defeating; he is attempting to rationally argue that knowledge of rationality is impossible. 4) If P then Q, or the causal determinism forced me to think that P follows from Q? This is what the debate has come down to. We all know from experience that believing something just because events in the past have given one a predisposition to believe something is irrational. If I believe that democracy is fundamentally good just because I am predisposed to do so by virtue of my having grown up in America, my belief is not rationally founded. But if determinism is true, then every belief I have is held not just because of a predisposition but because I am forced to hold that belief because of antecedent causes. How then is rationality possible? It seems that logic and rationality depend not on a framework in which cause A necessitates effect B (the conclusion of an argument), but in which one can (at least in some cases) be free to see that Conclusion B follows logically from premise A. Reason must depend on something utterly different than causal determinism. This seems to be the only what to avoid the utterly self-defeating conclusion that "There is no way to sufficiently or empirically prove that belief is held rationally if it is pre-determined." I look forward to hearing Con's reply. [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com... [2] http://www.thefreedictionary.com...