Or, more likely, he doesn't think there's any evidence for such a being.

"(Careful readers will note that in the previous chapter, Carroll aimed that causality was a feature of fundamental reality. But here he aims to prove causal determinism, that prior states cause future states. Carroll either doesn't notice or doesn't worry about the apparent contradiction.)"

What does "aimed that causality was a feature of fundamental reality." mean?

How does trying to convince someone else that determinism is true undermine? Obviously a determinist will accept that if they accept this or not is also determined. That doesn't refute determinism (or prove it).

Thanks Paul. I'd be very interested to take this up again in the future, but it seems we are both a bit short on time now, so I'm happy to defer if you would like. I'll offer my summary of where things currently stand.

I am saying that by the time we have started using causal language, we have already capitulated to an ontology in which many soon-to-be-counterfactual future realities actually do exist, i.e. we have already conceded that the future that will actually come to pass is not the only future that exists.

You are saying that any sufficient explanation for a particular future state that actually comes to pass will necessarily rule out alternative states that we might conceive of.

It would be interesting to see if it is possible to reconcile those two ideas. Perhaps a contingent future reality could be a sufficient cause of a present event?

Let's discuss ... in the certain or uncertain future :-)

Catch you later. --Jim

I will try to find time for a more detailed reply, but the essence is that, if there is an explanation for why X instead of Y, and the explanation is sufficient, then the explanation also explains why Y cannot happen. If theres a sufficient explanation for everything, then any alternative is necessarily ruled out by those explanations.

But I cant help but try. My trying may be part of the explanation for why he changes his mind, but regardless, his mind changing and my arguing cannot come about any other way.

So you are taking the position that in perfectly identical circumstances sometimes an outcome will be at the peak and sometimes it will be a tail?

It doesn't seem problematic to you that you have adopted a way of thinking and speaking which makes the theist's discussion of God appear ridiculous?

No, not at all.

I see no necessity to why you must understand determinism as you have. But if you deploy it, you will appear to win arguments by definition, not by rationality.

The word “determinism” is just the label I use for a certain concept that I believe to be true. I have believed in that concept for most of my life. You are not the first person with whom I have argued about its truth, but you are the first to accuse me of winning the argument by definition, and I’m not a bit surprised that it never occurred to any of the others to make that accusation.

I’m not committed to time’s having any ontological status.

That wasn't my point. Instead, it is that you appear to have presupposed one metaphysical position over against alternatives.

The only metaphysical presupposition I make is what Alvin Plantinga once called “ontological penury.”

If you have reasoned to that position, you certainly haven't explicated that reasoning.

My reasoning is that if I don’t need something to exist in order to explain everything I know to be a fact, then I don’t need to affirm its existence. Now, I’m not claiming to know all the facts there are, but until I know a fact, I don’t need to explain it.

I take that your argument is: Determinism is false because it is unfalsifiable. Am I understanding you correctly?

No.

In that case, I haven’t the foggiest notion what your argument is.

LB: There's also a fun paradox, that if an experimenter is not free to choose what to study, then there is no guarantee that what is studied properly covers all the phenomena.

A paradox, by definition, is an apparent contradiction, but I don’t see even an apparent contradiction there.

Could scientists be determined to:

(A) never try certain key hypotheses
(B) never run certain key experiments
(C) never explore certain domains of reality

To all three: Yes, they could. But I’m still not seeing a contradiction.

Let's recall that the scientist has long insisted on freedom from 'constraint' by anyone and anything other than 'the evidence' and his/her own rationality.

There are probably several million scientists in the entire world. No two of them are just alike, and not one of them is “the scientist.”

I’m an atheist. If God makes my thinking ridiculous, I don’t see how that becomes a problem for me.

It doesn't seem problematic to you that you have adopted a way of thinking and speaking which makes the theist's discussion of God appear ridiculous? I see no necessity to why you must understand determinism as you have. But if you deploy it, you will appear to win arguments by definition, not by rationality.

I’m not committed to time’s having any ontological status.

That wasn't my point. Instead, it is that you appear to have presupposed one metaphysical position over against alternatives. (The concepts of a block universe and a growing block universe differ more than just in how time is understood.) If you have reasoned to that position, you certainly haven't explicated that reasoning.

I take that your argument is: Determinism is false because it is unfalsifiable. Am I understanding you correctly?

No. You may well have presupposed what I have called 'LoN-determinis[m]'. But perhaps you think you have reasoned to it, instead. In that case, you may want to re-think your stance, if it is an unfalsifiable stance.

A paradox, by definition, is an apparent contradiction, but I don’t see even an apparent contradiction there. It asserts “If A then B,” but I see no inconsistency between the A and the B.

Could scientists be determined to:

     (A) never try certain key hypotheses
     (B) never run certain key experiments
     (C) never explore certain domains of reality

? Let's recall that the scientist has long insisted on freedom from 'constraint' by anyone and anything other than 'the evidence' and his/her own rationality.

but this seems to lead to an absurd result. If God, who is outside the universe, can causally impinge on the universe, then what he does is (i) caused, while being (ii) not determined. Isn't it ridiculous that something can be caused but not determined?

I’m an atheist. If God makes my thinking ridiculous, I don’t see how that becomes a problem for me.

The notion of 'determinism' you're advancing seems to philosophically commit itself to the metaphysic of a block universe, over against alternatives such as a growing block universe. Why is it legitimate for the term 'determinism' to be entangled with such a massive metaphysical presupposition?

You’ll have to ask the metaphysicians about that. I’m not committed to time’s having any ontological status.

And yet, from those who say “determinism is false,” I have yet to see an argument with which I can agree.

Oh that's easy: demonstrate that your notion of 'determinism', which does not entail predictability, is falsifiable.

I take that your argument is: Determinism is false because it is unfalsifiable. Am I understanding you correctly?

perhaps you'd like to respond to the following:

LB: There's also a fun paradox, that if an experimenter is not free to choose what to study, then there is no guarantee that what is studied properly covers all the phenomena.

A paradox, by definition, is an apparent contradiction, but I don’t see even an apparent contradiction there. It asserts “If A then B,” but I see no inconsistency between the A and the B.

I reject the jump you made from water drops making no decisions to brains comprised of billions of drops making decisions.

As well you should, if I had said that the brain was made of billions of water drops. But I said no such thing.

It is true that a whole system can do things that some of its components can´t do, but in this situation there is no reason to accept (and plenty to reject) that these systems are not making decisions at all.

I didn’t say that the brain is not making decisions. I asserted the contrary.

It is possible that we have a different definition of the word ¨decision¨.

That is beginning to look like a possibility.

For instance, I would not say computers make decisions while I see that this is something you might say.

It depends. If you want to say that decisions can be made only by sentient or self-aware beings, I’ll stipulate that.

Why would someone need to falsify something that 1) has not been shown to be true and 2) cannot be shown to be true because if you accept that a) no single thought could have been different and b) every thought is a result of a closed neurochemical causal chain, then at what point in the causal chain can a determinist claim that their neurochemical state was true and the indeterminist´s state was false?

I can’t answer because I lost your logic in your syntax. But you’re the one who brought falsification into the discussion, and I was just trying to respond to what you said about it.

Determinism should be rejected because it undermines our ability to falsify or defend anything, including determinism.

If you have presented a cogent reason to think so, I missed it.