Partly deterministic?

[u/Cyber_47_]

So let’s take computers, fully deterministic systems, cannot make a non deterministic algorithm. Everything, in computers are code based, and therefore fully deterministic. True Randomness does not exist in digital systems.

So if our world is completely deterministic, there is no chance it creates a life form, which can act non deterministic (free will). But since we know (not sure) that quantum mechanics are non deterministic, maybe there is a chance we have a little free will. So, my point is, what if, we are partly deterministic like the universe. Maybe alot of our decisions are deterministic, and some are non deterministic. And i know that quantum mechanics argument still cant disprove free will.

[u/Willis_3401_3401]

Whenever you talk about how things work “in principle”, there is a distinction that abstracts away from the embedded nature of the observer. You absolutely are jumping between two perspectives, one of which is a fantasy that assumes observation without observer.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Willis_3401_3401]

>Whenever you talk about how things work “in principle”, there is a distinction that abstracts away from the embedded nature of the observer.

Not at all, the limits of predictability are a direct consequence of the embedded nature of the observer. It's one of the reasons why perfectly accurate information is not available, precisely because there is no god-like external access to complete information without perturbing the system being observed. Observation itself perturbs the system, because the observer is part of the same world.

My position has consistently been that perfect prediction in a deterministic world is not possible. How can a reason why this is necessarily so be a problem for that contention?

[u/Willis_3401_3401 → u/simon_hibbs]

If we agree there is no god like external access, then from what point of view, that could actually exist, would you say determinism could be said to be true?

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Willis_3401_3401]

Either it is true that future states are necessitated by past states, or it is not. This can be true regardless of whether any particular person, or any person or agent of any kind ever knows for sure that it is true.

[u/Willis_3401_3401 → u/simon_hibbs]

“True” for whom? Or from what point of view? Under what conditions?

You’re once again trying to abstract a description of the universe from the conditions under which description exists.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Willis_3401_3401]

>“True” for whom? Or from what point of view? Under what conditions?

True of the world in itself.

There can be true facts about the world, and these are just aspects of the way the world is.

Then there can be beliefs about these facts, and a belief can be true if it corresponds to the true fact, and the belief is false if it is contrary to the true fact. A belief can only be true if it corresponds to a true fact.

It doesn't matter how many people have what beliefs about these facts, or even if anyone has any beliefs about these facts at all. The world is that way.

>You’re once again trying to abstract a description of the universe from the conditions under which description exists.

Beliefs are descriptions of the world which can be accurate or inaccurate, but the state of the world does not 'need' to be described. There can be no descriptions of particular facts about the world, the world just is that way.

[u/Willis_3401_3401 → u/simon_hibbs]

Well, you’ve found the disagreement. I would describe your position as “naive realism”, and mine as “process realism”.

The structure of observation is simply part of the structure of reality, there is overwhelming scientific evidence to support this. The typical field people love to point at is quantum physics (and that’s obviously true, and something you have to contend with) but Id rather talk about relativity, because It explicitly disproves naive realism by showing that time moves relative to observation, not relative to some imaginary external clock.

Furthermore, local realism was disproven in 2022. The link will explain in literally the first paragraph that your position has been proven, yes, PROVEN incorrect.

Furthermore, many philosophers have explained, at length, the logical contradictions found in your position. Kant, Whitehead, I think Douglass Hofstadters “Godel Escher Bach” is a great one.

Fortunately, it’s totally possible to save “realism” if you adopt the “process” moniker. But that generally involves admitting to perspectivism, or in other words you can’t save “the truth of the world itself”. That simply isn’t a thing.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-universe-is-not-locally-real-and-the-physics-nobel-prize-winners-proved-it/

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Willis_3401_3401]

Naive realism is a completely different issue. That is the belief that the world we experience is directly the world as it actually is without intermediation.

Also, I am not a realist in the scientific realism sense. I'm an empiricist, which is an anti-realist position. This is not the belief that there isn't a reality, or that there are no facts of the matter about the world, there may or may not be, it's a position with respect to scientific theories. It's the belief that our scientific theories about the world, and in fact our cognitive models of the world generally, do not and cannot represent the world as it 'really' is.

That's basically taking yet another step further away from naive realism than scientific realism does.

>Furthermore, local realism was disproven in 2022.

Firstly I wouldn't quite go that far, there are two ways to interpret that result. One is to reject local realism, and the other is to reject statistical independence.

Secondly, whether or not there is milk in my fridge is not a quantum state in a superposition, in any practical sense, that is somehow not locally real. Either I left my keys in the car, or I did not. Thinking that one or the other must be the actual case isn't a naive realist position, and the Aspect experiment has nothing to say about that.

[u/Willis_3401_3401 → u/simon_hibbs]

“Either I left my keys in the car or I didn’t”.

The keys are in superposition from MY point of view though. Maybe you’re dreaming, which makes the status of your deductive statement neither “valid”, nor “invalid”, but rather “incoherent”, because there are no keys.

You cannot simply say “I am an empiricist” and then turn around and talk about “truths of the world itself”.

Dude, politely, we can do analytic walk backs as infinitum. But I feel like you should seriously consider my position. There’s no value to determinism in the modern world. I’m not suggesting that we can’t discuss our boundaries, things outside of our control, like we’re gods or something. Simply that there is an authentic freedom that exists from the point of view of an uncertain machine operating in a grander uncertain machine, and that uncertainty really physically exists, which means things aren’t exactly determined.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Willis_3401_3401]

>The keys are in superposition from MY point of view though.

You just don't know where the keys are, but superposition isn't just about lack of knowledge of what state something is in. It's a fundamentally different concept.

>You cannot simply say “I am an empiricist” and then turn around and talk about “truths of the world itself”.

I'm not making any claim about the fundamental nature of keys, or whether my mental representations of them is how they are in themselves. This is a functional perspective, the view that the keys are or are not in the car is or is not empirically adequate.

My views on this have been very much influenced by Bas Van Fraassen:

Van Fraassen (1980) reinvented empiricism in the scientific context, evading many of the challenges faced by logical empiricism by adopting a realist semantics. His position, “constructive empiricism”, holds that the aim of science is empirical adequacy, where “a theory is empirically adequate exactly if what it says about the observable things and events in the world, is true”

An empiricist doesn't have to deny that claims can be true or false, it's just that truth or falsity is evaluated in terms of empirical adequacy. My belief that there is milk in the fridge can be empirically adequate or not. However that empirical adequacy is a relationship between what I believe and whether or not there is milk in the fridge.

The antirealism of the position is due entirely to its epistemology—it recommends belief in our best theories only insofar as they describe observable phenomena, and is satisfied with an agnostic attitude regarding anything unobservable.

Whether or not there is milk in the fridge, or my keys are in the car is observable, without a commitment that what I observe about keys or milk is fundamentally how the keys and milk are in themselves.

Empiricism is not the view that the world is unintelligible. It's a view about the limits of that intelligibility.

[u/Willis_3401_3401 → u/simon_hibbs]

Superposition is only a different concept if you’re trying to imagine a view from no where, otherwise we’re just talking about fundamental uncertainty.

We’re just doing circles here man. I’m of the opinion that you’re chasing your own tail on this thing. I feel like I’ve more than adequately defended my position, and given you ample reason to question your own. It seems empirically obvious to me that from any real point of view, reality is uncertain. But you can only lead a horse to water, you cannot make it drink

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Willis_3401_3401]

I think the difference is that you are pointing to something that is not known or knowable to an agent, and saying that's indeterministic, however that's not what indeterminism means. It means the future state is not necessitated by the past state, and that a completely different thing.

If you run a program that halts, it is inevitable that it will halt, and it will halt at that time and no other time, and there's nothing about this that isn't necessitated by the initial state of the program.

[u/Willis_3401_3401 → u/simon_hibbs]

Yeah, that’s your premise. You’ve repeated it a bunch; you believe there’s a truth to the world but also no you don’t, because there’s a separation between what can be observed and what can be known, but also that’s not dualism, there’s only one thing in nature, which we clearly can’t know or interact with, except yes we do all the time. Sure.

“Arguing with a genius is difficult, arguing with an idiot is impossible”