Forums → WEPR → Causal Determinism
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I've had some info about this on my profile for a while now. But if I were to post all of that, too many people would be scared off by the teal deer (tl;dr) and the thread would die.
So I'll keep it short.
Causal determinism is not regular determinism; it has nothing to do with deism or an omniscient being. Or rather, it does not require any kind of god.
Basically, causal determism dictates that everything reacts with everything else in a certain way. Which, given an initial condition, means that only one event can follow. What has happened is the only thing that could have happened. The future is similarly determined.
Questions to consider:
1) Is there a set of "rules" that the universe MUST follow?
(why or why not?)
2) If yes, does this necesarily prove causal determinism? If no, how do things happens? IE what determins whether a coin flip comes up heads or tails?
I have several follow up questions, which I shall release depending on the success of the thread, and if there is a general consensus on whether or not our universe is causaly determined.
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The presence of an 'immovable mover' is counter to causal determinism no matter how you look at it.
It may have this consequence if we accept the definition you provided, that:
"EVERYTHING has a preceding cause, and predictable outcomes of stimuli."
But philosophers don't like the word "everything" and for good reason - it's just far too vague. Everything that exists? Everything that is logically conceivable? Everything that has been actualized in this world?
Really, the Causal Determinist (CD) must only accept a much weaker proposition: that every event has a sufficient cause with a necessary outcome. The CD also doesn't need to accept that the events can be predicted. CDs must accept simply that the outcome of a particular event is necessarily so. But whether or not we can predict that outcome is a different, and ultimately unrelated matter. As I explained in my earlier post, whether or not we can predict particular events doesn't give up much support for anything other than a fairly trivial conclusion.
With this understanding, however, we can see how an unmoved mover may not need a cause, since it isn't an event. You could argue here that the unmoved mover's creation itself was an event and, as such, must have a cause. But doesn't this beg the question against the proponent of an unmoved mover?
Philosophy on a VG forum!
This is so out of place, yet so interesting to read!
From what I understood, we have a problem with point A: it cannot start the chain of evencts, because it can't be started by itself.
Then this theory is wrong. Or am I missing something?
From what I understood, we have a problem with point A: it cannot start the chain of evencts, because it can't be started by itself.
Then this theory is wrong. Or am I missing something?
I may be misunderstanding you, but it sounds like your problem with CD is the same as mine. If we accept the theory rigidly, we force ourselves into a infinite regress of causation. Of the ways out of this regress, we have several live options, but I was hoping to direct the discussion by simply assuming an unmoved mover (UM from now on(.
This UM could be anything at all - a deity of some kind, the energy that was transferred into matter at the beginning of the Big Bang - whatever you like.
So if we can grant, just for fun, that a UM of some kind exists, what does that say about CD? It doesn't look to me like we can get a theory of CD with just a premise about an UM. So what, if any, additional premises would we need? Does the UM need to have intelligence? Is the necessary order and outcome of the universe (as attested by CD theories) a product of intelligence?
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