Determinism Between Philosophy and Science

Determinism Between Philosophy and Science *Note: This article is from the book (Cominion: Beyond the Nature of Information) for more please see the book. But meditative thinking leads many people to challenge it, in fact suggesting that things happened for a reason, and that if the cause is known, things cannot be otherwise, and therefore introspection draws us to inevitability. Probable events (the idea that mutually exclusive probabilities can occur, and that none is inevitable) are incompatible with determinism, and according to determinism if there is a pre-determined state of x e.g., provided that if it is followed by a zuma, this cause-effect relationship may be logical or causal, and what makes it deterministic is to say that there is no deviation.[1] Therefore, determinism is a local situation, which appears when looking at a certain circumstance, and asking about the previous circumstance, we make this particular circumstance inevitable, as determinism as a relationship between cause and effect tries in each case to find a previous situation (certainly) cause. But what is past in one investigation will be the result of another, and so determinism, as a major metaphysical theory, is not about one case being classified as deterministic, but about all states of things, and since determinism is defined by the concept of cause and effect, what is required for an all-encompassing determinism is that all states of things are entangled in this way, so that each case is necessitated by a prior case. Inevitability thus entails reversion to the question of what the supposed state is, then the question of what it is, and so on, but where does it stop? If one is a believer and deterministic (such as the Calvinist Augustinist tradition) the reversion ends at the act of divine creation, but materialism, on the contrary, has nothing to go beyond material nature, it must remain within material nature, and then become an accident. If, as Carl Sagan claims, the universe is "all there is, all that has been, all that will be"[2] and inevitably nothing explains why the recoil takes this earlier form, any explanation will presuppose an extra-natural possibility, which materialism does not permit. The inevitability confirms that when we open this folded universe, every case is inevitably given by the cases of the previous things that led to it, but why do we end up with these cases in total and not others? We live in a universe in which Obama inevitably won Romney in the 2012 US presidential election, but why do we end up with this universe in the first place? These questions, even when posed within a metaphysical deterministic perspective, reveal that the question of probabilistic events will never be eliminated. We return to probabilistic events that have been ruled out locally because they are states defined by previous states again at the cosmic level, by asking about the world as a whole, why are all states of things entangled in cause-and-effect relationships, and taking shape over another? The first option is not entirely satisfactory, and is an invitation to the other two to do their utmost to defend a real possibility or universal determinism. Historically, materialism has been more compatible with universal determinism, usually justifying universal determinism by making the universe much larger than it appears. Epicurean materialism, for example, posited an infinite temporal and materialistic universe, in which everything becomes possible virtually infinitely possible, because all combinations of matter have been transformed somewhere in the universe, for once. We see this motivation also in modern cosmology, where the actual universe is taken to be much larger than the known physical universe, this part of the universe that we know may seem small and very probable, but when this part is treated in the light of all other parts of the universe our history becomes inevitable. Inflationary cosmology tends in this direction through bubble universes, according to which the known universe is only one bubble, but the most striking contemporary example of this motivation in the multi-quantistic worlds, where anything is possible. In the multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics, the known universe is but one of many infinite branches, all together draining the entire range of possible physical possibilities and forming the multiverse. The fundamental physical response to probabilistic events (both in antiquity and up to the present) eliminates probability by making all probabilities equal in their realism (whether by expanding the universe to exceed all verifiable limits, or by imposing the eternal repetition of a cycled universe through all probabilities, or a combination of the two). But to declare that all possibilities are real as a metaphysical thing is not impressive, supposes that the attraction to materialism in this age to be an overwhelming support of science, does not want materialism to be an object of faith, but wants to be based on a hard and sober calculation, and this metaphysical thing does not have any convincing justification but provides a more comfortable situation for materialism. Why do the laws governing the universe show subtle, intelligent tuning? Why does life seem to be loaded with the fingerprints of intelligence? Declaring that all possible possibilities are equally real means that all of these questions can be rejected, just by pointing out that anything else can actually happen, and just happen to happen to us, just us here, and that's the end of the story. In our experience, the occurrence of something means closing the door to the occurrence of other things, but materialism, which in our time is supposed to be scientific materialism, seeks science to justify materialism, but science is a comprehensive experimental project, and then when an indicator here indicates such and such does not indicate what there is that may indicate another conclusion, science depends on the basis - as an experimental project - observation, and acknowledges the observation with one possibility excludes others, in other words: observation presupposes possible events, and delivers information. Contrary to universal determinism which denies all possible events open forever, not as a matter of practical reason, but as a metaphysical principle (whether atheistic or religious), just as solipsism can avoid logical contradiction so that possible events can be denied by the abundance of realized possibilities, but the absence of logical contradiction is very limited evidence of truth when it comes to such broad metaphysical choices. When the witness says, “I definitely saw the accused,” and the lawyer says, “No, you definitely saw a stranger in good disguise,” the conflict here would be palpable even if it didn’t make sense. After all, we feel certain that the universe we live in can be different, and that in many practical circumstances we desperately want to know why circumstances are not different (e.g., a businessman goes bankrupt, a man suffers an injury that ends his job, or even a metaphysical professor rejects his position. Thus, Frederick Tennant wrote of Spinoza that he "assumes that the order and connection of pure ideas are identical with the order and relation of things in proportion, and hence it is natural for the representatives of the school of rationality to assert laws concerning reality that are of logical necessity". F.R. Tennant, Miracle and Its Philosophical Presuppositions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925), 10. [2] Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980), 1. Epicurean materialism (as much as Epicurus himself seemed to be its founder) allows for probabilistic events, since Epicurian atoms were given a deviation that would allow them to act spontaneously in multiple mutually exclusive ways, and now offers this now famous deviation to preserve free will, but Epicurus' followers who adhered to his program of systematically eliminating any supernatural influences were happy to leave this deviation to be neglected. To learn a useful history of Epicurean materialism address these points: see: Wiker, Moral Darwinism, chs. 1 and 2. [4] For an interesting historical exposition of the doctrine of eternal repetition (also known as eternal rectitude) see: Ned Lukacher, Time–Fetishes: The Secret History of Eternal Recurrence (Durham,N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998). [5] For the quantum multiverse hypothesis see: David Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes—and Its Implications (New York: Penguin, 1997). For an explanation of the bloated universe of the known physical universe see: Alan Guth, The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins (Reading, Mass.: Addison–Wesley,1997). [6] John Leslie, Universes (London: Routledge, 1989), ch. 4. - Dr. William Dembski - Translated by Khalil Zidane — Source: Brahin Center website - Published 2019-06-19 (archived at the Internet Archive) https://braheen.com/articles/philosophy/الحتمية-بين-الفلسفة-والعلم