Determinism is true

Seeing as the BoP is on me, I'm going to present 3 arguments/contentions in favour of determinism. BehaviourismP1) If behaviorism works, then determinism is trueP2) Behaviourism worksC1) Therefore, behaviourism is trueBehaviourism is a psychological idea made at the forefront of psychology due to the works of Skinner and Watson. The idea is famous because of the work of Skinner, showing behaviourism to be true. To be true, there must be successful experiments based on its presupposition. Behaviourism rests on determinism because behaviourism is the idea that people can be artificially determined to act in a certain way. The experiments I will cite will show this.Firstly, the little albert experiment[1] by Watson showed that children, when shown certain images and colours and played horribly irritating noises, start reacting negatively to the images and colours, acting in fear. Of course, this is not surprising. But the interesting point is that, when the horrible noises were removed from the environment, then the child remains scared of these images and colours, and can only become "unscared" by the same treatment in reverse. Meaning, that we begin to become fearful of these images and colours because of association to these horrible noises. Rational thought held no value in comparison in determinism.Secondly, Classical Conditioning is so common that we should not be surprised that it works. The original experiment is Pavlov's Dogs[2] in which dogs were given food when a bell was rang. This meant the dogs started releasing salive when the bell was rang. When the bell was removed, they were conditioned, and so still emitted saliva when the bell rang. This is because they have been conditioned, or determined, to act in a certain way, due to external causes. This similarly has happened with human beings. Finally, The Milgram Experiment is a famous one because it shows how people react to authority. When people are commanded to do something by a man in a lab coat, essentially, they do it a lot more than if it was anyone else, even if it is something clearly immoral[3]. This is because, as a society, we have been conditioned to listen to authority (or as human beings we react to authority: the specific cause is debated). All three show behaviourism's suppositions that external influences hold a majority stake in what we do as accurate. Thus, from this we can conclude determinism.Neurology(Credit here goes to 000ike) Neurology Rapid growth in technology has led to startling neurological discoveries, all of which completely support the theory of Determinism. I will present them in the order of progressive significance. Libet’s Delay Benjamin Libet’s experiments in the late 20th Century measured the time lapse between decisions, consciousness, and actions. Using electrical stimulation and a clock face oscilloscope to determine the time of awareness, they found that there was a 500 millisecond delay between a neural event and the subject’s conscious awareness of it. This led to the conclusion that “the perceived time at which we make a decision must be subjectively referred back by 500 milliseconds. Unlikely as it seems, and contrary to our own impression, we must have made our decisions slightly before we actually became aware of them”(7) Study no. 1 Twelve right-handed subjects (aged 22-29) were tested using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in the University of Leipzig. They were placed in front of a screen, showing a descending cascade of letters. They were then to press either a button to the right or to the left at random, then report what letter was on the screen at the moment of their decision. This was the conclusion: “In summary, we could replicate the finding of Soon et al. [30] that motor intentions were encoded in frontopolar cortex up to seven seconds before participants were aware of their decisions. Using ultra-high field fMRI on a 7 Tesla scanner, we could show that these patterns became more stable with increasing temporal proximity to the conscious decision. These findings support the conclusion that frontopolar cortex is part of a network of brain regions that shape conscious decisions long before they reach conscious awareness.”(4) Study no. 2 An experiment conducted by neuroscientist, John-Dylan Haynes in 2008 modernized Libet’s experiment using fMRI. They were able to predict which button a patient would press (left or right) with 60% accuracy. (5) Study no. 3 As part of a surgical procedure conducted by surgeon and neurologist, Itzhak Fried, electrodes were implanted deep in the brains of the patients to precisely monitor their neuronal activity before pressing a button. It was found that their decisions could be predicted with 80% accuracy 700 milliseconds prior to the patient being aware that he had made a decision.(5) Impressive Results Professor Patrick Haggard from the London Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience goes even farther than the aforementioned studies. He proves that the human mind can be coerced by outside forces in the universe. He demonstrates “transcranial magnetic stimulation” using magnetic coils held over his head while simultaneously measuring electrical activity in his muscles. When his assistant presses a switch to activate the coil, his fingers twitch. “Christina controls Prof Haggard's fingers like a marionette. The mechanical nature of it is unsettling. A graph on a screen shows his muscle activity plotted by time; 20 milliseconds after she clicks the button, it depicts an elegant leap and drop, like a heartbeat on an ECG. That 20 milliseconds is how long it takes for the signal to travel down his nerves.”(6) The conclusion here is a definitive negation of the spiritual will. As Haggard explains, “We don't have free will, in the spiritual sense. What you're seeing is the last output stage of a machine. There are lots of things that happen before this stage – plans, goals, learning – and those are the reasons we do more interesting things than just waggle fingers. But there's no ghost in the machine. (6) Final argument P1 - No action is free if it must occur. P2 - For any event, there are multiple preceding causes of the eventP3 - If an event has causes, then it cannot cause the event to both happen and not happen. C - Thus, events must occur. C - Thus, No action is free. (Thus no free will, thus determinism) The argument is simple: an event can either happen or not happen. If an event has causes, then the cause causes the event to happen, and the causes cannot make the event not happen: that breaks the law of non-contradiction. Finally, an action is not free if it is necessary: you cannot choose to do something which must occur. Using Locke's analogy:"[suppose] a sleeping man is locked in a darkened room. On awakening he decides he will remain in the room, unaware that the room is locked. In reality the man has no freedom to choose, he cannot get out of the room. However, his ignorance of his true condition has led him to believe that he does have the freedom to choose to remain in the room."[8]ConclusionI have presented multiple reasons in favour of determinism. My opponent must show all of these to be false to promote libertarianism.Quickly rebutting my opponentMy opponent pleas to the Bible. However, the correct response is the most obvious one: it's wrong. Secondly, my opponent states that we are free as we are influenced, but we still have a choice. I have rebutted this point. Finally, free will removing meaning of life is an argument from convenience: it proves nothing.1 - http://psychology.about.com...;2 - http://www.nobelprize.org...;3 - http://psychology.about.com...4 - http://www.plosone.org......5 - http://www.nature.com......6 - http://www.telegraph.co.uk......7 - http://www.consciousentities.com...8 - http://tutor2u.net...