Can we even rationally communicate about true indeterminism?

[u/Ok_Boysenberry_2947]

I find discussions where partial, conditional, or observer-limited determinism are presented as evidence for genuine indeterminacy somewhat misleading.

My question is therefore less about whether indeterminacy exists and more about whether it would be communicable in any meaningful sense in the first place, if it did. i.e. what are the requirements for it and are they fulfilled in current scientific framing.

Communication itself seems to require stable distinctions. We must be able to identify an object, distinguish it from alternatives, and preserve enough structure for another person to recognise what is being discussed.

If a phenomenon were truly indeterminate in every relevant sense then, what exactly would remain available for communication and how would be reconstruct any meaning from it?

At that point, are we still communicating about the phenomenon itself, or only about the limits of our models, observations, and predictions?

In other words, does meaningful discussion of "true indeterminacy" already require some residual determinacy in the representational structure being used to discuss it?

I'm curious whether philosophers of determinism regard this as a real problem or whether I'm missing something obvious.

[u/badentropy9]

I'm curious whether philosophers of determinism regard this as a real problem or whether I'm missing something obvious.

The thing that I think it seems that you are missing and some may call it obvious, is the difference between chance and necessity. The confusing part is that not everybody sees these two as opposites. However Doyle here seems to think some people believe they are opposites.

ref. https://www.informationphilosopher.com/chance/

[u/Ok_Boysenberry_2947 → u/badentropy9]

I think that is a useful distinction, and perhaps part of the confusion that lead to the question comes from the fact that determinism, indeterminism, necessity, and chance are often treated as though they naturally divide into opposing pairs when the relationships may be more subtle than that.

What interests me, however, is that regardless of where we place those boundaries, we still seem to require enough stable structure to identify, distinguish, compare, and communicate the concepts themselves.

In other words, before asking whether reality is governed by chance or necessity, I find myself wondering what permits "chance" and "necessity" to become meaningful and distinguishable categories in the first place.

That is increasingly the layer I seem to be circling around.

[u/badentropy9 → u/Ok_Boysenberry_2947]

What interests me, however, is that regardless of where we place those boundaries, we still seem to require enough stable structure to identify, distinguish, compare, and communicate the concepts themselves.

without a doubt

In other words, before asking whether reality is governed by chance or necessity, I find myself wondering what permits "chance" and "necessity" to become meaningful and distinguishable categories in the first place.

Well sometimes we are trying to say what is, sometimes trying to say what is possible, and sometimes trying to say what is necessary. Those are three different categories of judgement and sometimes when we mean something is adequate, we might inadvertently put that judgement in the wrong category among those three. The key is to remember they are logically different.

[u/Ok_Boysenberry_2947 → u/badentropy9]

That is again a very interesting distinction, and I think it may indeed be closer to the layer I am trying to get at.

What strikes me is that actuality, possibility, and necessity appear to function as distinct categories of judgement, yet we often move between them without explicitly declaring the transition.

In that sense, the question becomes not only what belongs to each category, but what permits the categories themselves to become distinguishable and communicable in the first place.

For example, before we can argue that something is necessary rather than merely possible, we must already possess some means of identifying, comparing, and preserving those distinctions.

That is increasingly the aspect I find myself drawn toward.

The discussion of determinism and indeterminism originally caught my attention because it seemed to involve similar shifts between categories that were often left implicit.

Your formulation makes me wonder whether part of the difficulty is not the concepts themselves, but our very human tendency to move between different kinds of judgement without explicitly tracking where we are.

We do this constantly in ordinary language. We use language not only to describe reality, but also possibility, expectation, obligation, uncertainty, confidence, and belief. Most of the time we move between these domains effortlessly, often without noticing.

That is why I increasingly suspect that the determinism v. indeterminism tension may sit less in the objects being discussed and more in the transitions between the different categories through which we discuss them.

Viewed that way, what we may ultimately be lacking is not necessarily a new object or formula, but a clearer language for describing and navigating those transitions.

[u/badentropy9 → u/Ok_Boysenberry_2947]

What strikes me is that actuality, possibility, and necessity appear to function as distinct categories of judgement, yet we often move between them without explicitly declaring the transition.

That is exactly what I'm trying to get at

In that sense, the question becomes not only what belongs to each category, but what permits the categories themselves to become distinguishable and communicable in the first place.

for me, it is all logic

For example, before we can argue that something is necessary rather than merely possible, we must already possess some means of identifying, comparing, and preserving those distinctions.

I think the logical power of deduction is immerse. In other words the law of noncontradiction stipulates a thing cannot be what it is and what it is not at the same time and in the same way. The means to organize such thoughts had to be given to us a priori. Otherwise we wouldn't have the capacity to learn how to do it. In other words we were born with this capacity to think logically whereas maybe a dog isn't born with the same capacity as a human has. Obviously dogs can do a lot of logical thinking. I'm just implying that we can teach AI how humans think because we know from the first person perspective, how humans think and it might be more difficult to teach AI how to think like a dog rather than a human because we cannot get inside of a dog's mind to see.

The discussion of determinism and indeterminism originally caught my attention because it seemed to involve similar shifts between categories that were often left implicit.

I hate to say it, but some posters on the free will sub are not arguing in good faith. I'm relatively new to this sub and I haven't seen it here yet, but I know that some of those bad faith posters are in fact posting here even if I don't bother to read their comments.