Tuesday, November 03 2009: Philosophical Poop
I've started reading Daniel Dennett's "Freedom Evolves" and I'm having a hard time getting into it. The first several chapters are devoted to a discussion of determinism. He's started out "unpacking" the concept of determinism and how that relates to "inevitability", presumably so he can shoehorn in "free" will (scare quotes of disparagement are mine) at some point down the line.
The problem I'm having is that Dennett has defined determinism as "at any point in time there is one possible future". It's a well known fact (to anyone that has read a science book published after 1925) that this concept of determinism has nothing whatsoever to do with the universe we happen to be living in. As such, I don't see the point of discussing this determinism. I suspect that Dennett has done this on purpose so that he can construct a straw man that he can beat down and (as I mentioned above) shoehorn in "free" will at some point down the line. We know that at any given point in time on the quantum level there are any number of possible futures and that our familiar concept of cause-effect (much like our intuitive concept that matter is hard) is a statistical phenomenon that results from the averaging out of numerous indeterminate quantum events.
I still hold to the concept of determinism, but I view it slightly differently than Dennett. As I see it, determinism has nothing to do with the future and everything to do with the past. We can call a universe deterministic if all events at some time T are the result of naturally occurring, antecedent events at time T - 1. In other words, natural events have natural precursors - so god isn't coming down and sticking his fingers in shit between time frames. So, we can observe nature and see it behaving in reliable ways and consequently formulate theories even though at a quantum level the universe is "playing dice". However, it feels like there is a hole in my reasoning and I can't tell if my view of determinism is some wonky faith-based thing that I cling to because I don't like what mystics have to say about indeterminant systems.
The problem I'm having is that Dennett has defined determinism as "at any point in time there is one possible future". It's a well known fact (to anyone that has read a science book published after 1925) that this concept of determinism has nothing whatsoever to do with the universe we happen to be living in. As such, I don't see the point of discussing this determinism. I suspect that Dennett has done this on purpose so that he can construct a straw man that he can beat down and (as I mentioned above) shoehorn in "free" will at some point down the line. We know that at any given point in time on the quantum level there are any number of possible futures and that our familiar concept of cause-effect (much like our intuitive concept that matter is hard) is a statistical phenomenon that results from the averaging out of numerous indeterminate quantum events.
I still hold to the concept of determinism, but I view it slightly differently than Dennett. As I see it, determinism has nothing to do with the future and everything to do with the past. We can call a universe deterministic if all events at some time T are the result of naturally occurring, antecedent events at time T - 1. In other words, natural events have natural precursors - so god isn't coming down and sticking his fingers in shit between time frames. So, we can observe nature and see it behaving in reliable ways and consequently formulate theories even though at a quantum level the universe is "playing dice". However, it feels like there is a hole in my reasoning and I can't tell if my view of determinism is some wonky faith-based thing that I cling to because I don't like what mystics have to say about indeterminant systems.
