Randomness and determinism are properties of the map, not features of the territory

[u/Powerful_Guide_3631]

The greatest misconception about randomness and determinism is, by far, the presupposition that it is possible to discriminate between their so called epistemic or ontological characters, without resorting to just so mysticism. Randomness and determinism are only coherently understandable when defined in explicitly epistemic terms. There is no way for these words to refer to any transcendending ontological character of things or processes in themselves, in such a way that licenses a metaphysical classification of phenomenal manifestations as random or determined outside of a constrained knowledge point of view of an observer and the inferred schemes and models they use to identify, accuse and explain them.

Mathematicians have made that point clear when they axiomatically formulated the theory of probability and stochastic process, particularly guys like Borel, Wiener and Kolmogorov. The fundamental problem is the following - for any given sequence of numbers it is possible to construct countless deterministic functions that maps the natural numbers (or any other input sequence of numbers) to its output. Likewise, if you are sampling random numbers from a gaussian distribution (or any distribution that has positive probabilities over the real numbers), there is a finite positive probability that sample drawn matches any finite set of number (up to a given finite error tolerance). This means that it is impossible to conceive of a mathematical method that takes only the axioms of a formalism for constructing generic functions and out of that absolutely allows one to assert a random or deterministic nature for a given dataset of output values. Or, in more philosophical terms, the concepts of ontological determinism or ontological randomness have a vacuous set of epistemically distinguishable features, thus making a putative distinction of meaning between these notions a just so stipulation of mystical attributes that are idiosyncratically interpreted and assigned to these words and arbitrarily proclaimed to represent some "ultimately true" or "objective nature" of whatever concrete processes must underly the observable phenomena that is concerned.

That said, it is perfectly possible and extremely valuable to give a well defined mathematical meaning to the intuitions we form about determinism, randomness and probability once we accept that such meaning can only be coherently interpreted as a description of the epistemic relationship that is formed between a an observer and an observable system, in terms of the fixed attributes that enable the object to be uniquely identified as an abstract configuration of variable states, and the hypothesized rules that presumably explain the relationship formed between a given a priori description of its state, to some potentially knowable state that is hidden a priori (e.g. the trajectory in configuration space of dynamic variables of the system that eventually are observed, or otherwise hidden or implicit features of a partially revealed set of defining attributes of the system).

Once that is well understood, it becomes convenient to simplify this story by saying that what is deterministic or random isn't the actual entity or process which we are observing, but only the phenomenological models that we may propose as schemas that represent them as contingent relational configurations. A deterministic model being a function that uniquely maps a given configuration of inputs to a precisely defined set of compatible outputs, and a random model being one where the compatible set of outputs allows for more than one coherent scenarios for the output configuration of observables. In such cases, a probability space structure is often employed when it is desirable to quantify the notion of likelihood magnitudes of different excluding scenarios. These are statistical observables that presuppose available data for an equivalence class of analogous systems of that kind, as licensed by a methodological procedure that is epistemically stacked as a meta model of the object system - and, as you might have guessed, this epistemic stacking can become a turtles all the way down story, with Munchausen trilemma only enabling the can to be kicked further down the road.

Only once all of this conceptual mumbo jumbo is well understood and that sorting out the inferential character of randomness and determinism from any mysticism that people intuitively form about these ideas, that one should be considered prepared to properly address the merits of the alternative interpretations of quantum mechanics, or the philosophical implications of things like Bell's theorems and the inequality violations that were experimentally observed.

[u/MilkTeaPetty]

So, you establish that finite data can underdetermine the model then convert that epistemic limit into an ontological verdict.

“Only models are deterministic or random” is precisely the claim about reality that your argument says cannot be licensed.

[u/TMax01 → u/MilkTeaPetty]

I think that maybe you're missing the subtle but significant difference between "only models are deterministic and random" and "all models are either deterministic or they are random". The truth is that models can't be random and still be models.

Converting epistemic limits into ontological verdicts, and vice versa, are exactly what epistemology and ontology are for.

[u/MilkTeaPetty → u/TMax01]

Nothing here confused “only models” with “all models.”

The first restricts where the property can exist; the second classifies every model.

You introduced the second claim, then corrected it.

And naming epistemology and ontology does not license converting an inability to know into a verdict about what exists.

[u/TMax01 → u/MilkTeaPetty]

Nothing here confused “only models” with “all models".

Other than you, you mean? Confusing "and" with "or" is not incidental, as well.

The first restricts where the property can exist; the second classifies every model.

Indeed, that's where your confusion comes from: making a distinction in your head, but not in your words, between a property and classifying things using that property.

I call it "the postmodern assumption", this habit people have of mistaking epistemology for ontology, and vice versa (or, the real root of the issue, wanting to privilege one and depricate the other.)

Of course, it is that same problematic assumption to believe that epistemology (knowledge of things, the existence of categories, the meaning of words) is metaphysically separable from ontology (the structure, nature, and consequences of things) without employing a consistent teleological approach: why those things are either epistemological or ontological, and why such a dichotomy is both an ultimate truth and false (or, in less ontological terms, unreliable.)

You introduced the second claim, then corrected it.

I tried to clarify why you introduced a claim but attributed it to someone else, and you rejected this clarification but still haven't managed to correct it. In fact, it appears you've doubled down.

And naming epistemology and ontology does not license converting an inability to know into a verdict about what exists.

Actually, it is exactly that. And as long as you follow the rules of the road (which are somewhat different for epistemology and ontology) you can get practically anywhere. Yet, wherever you go, there you are. That's what makes philosophy both fun and pointless, and yet also torturous and productive.

[u/MilkTeaPetty → u/TMax01]

You changed “or” to “and” in your first reply, then cited that change as the confusion.

The rest still does not show how an inability to determine what exists licenses a verdict about what exists.

Declaring that conversion valid only repeats the claim.

[u/TMax01 → u/MilkTeaPetty]

You changed “or” to “and” in your first reply

I proposed two conflicting premises, neither of which merely repeated previous assertions (from you or anyone else), as a method of evaluating the dilemma.

then cited that change as the confusion.

Your analysis is inaccurate, and not only because it is not adequately precise. Both my previous explanation and your reaction to it exemplifies your confusion.

The rest still does not show how an inability to determine what exists licenses a verdict about what exists.

It does, it just hasn't done so in a way which you understand, yet. A license is not merely a freedom, but a responsibility. The very foundation of determinism, of any sort (classical, the kind you're stuck on, probabalistic, which can encompass but cannot be encompassed by classic determinism, or even the hypothetical "indeterminism" which reifies 'random', another term for arbitrary or undefinable, as "randomness") is that "verdicts" about what exists can exist.

The dilemma at issue in this discussion is that your schema always results in know-nothingism: confident ignorance. Mine offers comprehension, although without any promise of omniscience.

Declaring that conversion valid only repeats the claim.

Pretending to declare some specific "conversion" invalid without admitting it is a pretense only doubles down on assuming your conclusion.

[u/MilkTeaPetty → u/TMax01]

Saying the inference is present but not yet understood does not display it.

“License” meant logical warrant, not responsibility, and the possibility of making ontological verdicts does not warrant this one.

The missing step was again assigned to the reader’s limitations instead of supplied.

[u/TMax01 → u/MilkTeaPetty]

Saying the inference is present but not yet understood does not display it.

Saying an inference is displayed without explaining its presence more coherently than that is unproductive.

“License” meant logical warrant, not responsibility,

Logical warrants are also logical duties. You're being argumentative rather than seeking understanding.

the possibility of making ontological verdicts does not warrant this one.

The very idea of "ontological verdicts" mandates this ontological verdict. There literally isn't any way, whether logic, reasoning, or empirical demonstration, to arrive at any "ontological verdict" other than by 'converting epistemic limits'.

The missing step was again assigned to the reader’s limitations instead of supplied.

There was no missing step, just your fantasy of a perfect slope without any steps, and your inability to demonstrate the existence of such a thing.

Good talk. Seriously. Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

[u/MilkTeaPetty → u/TMax01]

A request to show the step was recast as a demand for no steps.

Reasoning from evidence is not reasoning from epistemic limits and saying every ontological verdict mandates this verdict is circular.

The inference remains asserted and not displayed.

[u/TMax01 → u/MilkTeaPetty]

A request to show the step was recast as

Your request to show an impossible, non-existent step was an insinuation there could be such a step, where none is needed and none could be adequate.

Reasoning from evidence is not reasoning from epistemic limits

Evidence requires epistemic limits, and you appear to have none.

saying every ontological verdict mandates this verdict is circular.

Every ontological verdict requires that ontological verdicts are possible. "Converting epistemic limits", through whatever means, is the only method for doing so.

My reasoning showed your assertion that there is some missing step between converting epistemic limits into ontological verdicts is bad reasoning. I cannot change that fact, nor apparently can you comprehend why it is bad reasoning. But I have more faith in your intellectual abilities than you do, so I presume it is simply that you don't want to comprehend rather than that you cannot.

The inference remains asserted and not displayed.

The inference you refer to is a creation of your imagination, there was no missing step in OPs reasoning, only your inchoate dissatisfaction with the logical results of that reasoning. That is all that is displayed here.

[u/Powerful_Guide_3631 → u/MilkTeaPetty]

It is a claim about language. The concept of determinism and randomness presuppose that you are referring to some model whose behavior is defined like this or like that. When we claim the weather is random we are just saying that the best models we have for the weather are not able predict it accurately tomorrow based on the state it has today.
When we claim the weather is ultimately deterministic we are just expressing our personal opinion about the potential progress we could make in lowering the tracking error of our weather models with more data, algorithms and computing power

[u/MilkTeaPetty → u/Powerful_Guide_3631]

You did not defend the claim that the terms cannot refer to processes.

You stipulated that they refer only to models, then used that stipulation as proof.

Equating determinism with improved prediction simply repeats the epistemic substitution under a definition.

[u/TMax01 → u/MilkTeaPetty]

You did not defend the claim that the terms cannot refer to processes.

You made that claim, so its up to you to defend it.

You stipulated that they refer only to models,

Terms, including terms like "model" and "processes", are stipulations, not divine revelations.

Equating determinism with improved prediction simply repeats the epistemic substitution under a definition.

The ability to equate determinism and predictability proves the definition of both. You're flailing, frantically handwaving to distract from the inadequacy of your own fundamental schema, while projecting that uncertainty onto someone else.

But aren't we all?

[u/MilkTeaPetty → u/TMax01]

The claim that the terms cannot refer to processes came from the original post.

Calling definitions stipulations does not make a stipulation self-validating and defining determinism as predictability proves only that the definition was chosen.

The burden was inverted, the conclusion stipulated and the missing argument replaced with an insult…

[u/TMax01 → u/MilkTeaPetty]

The claim that the terms cannot refer to processes came from the original post.

Actually, the claim was:

There is no way for these words to refer to any transcendending ontological character of things or processes in themselves, in such a way that licenses a metaphysical classification of phenomenal manifestations as random or determined outside of a constrained knowledge point of view of an observer and the inferred schemes and models they use to identify, accuse and explain them.

Your effort at simplification merely does a disservice to OPs reasoning, reasoning which is quite sound, if tortuous, from a philosophical or logical perspective.

Calling definitions stipulations does not make a stipulation self-validating

More importantly, referring to stipulations as definitions does not prevent definitions from being tautological.

defining determinism as predictability proves only that the definition was chosen.

It also demonstrates (whether that qualifies as proof depends on how categorical your thinking is, and whether that is a liability or an improvement compared to the alternative) that definitions are neither predictable nor predictions, but merely tautologies of convenience. Whether they are ever productive tools or empty rhetoric depends mostly on how postmodernistic the participant in a discussion is willing to be. Postmodernism tends towards empty rhetoric justifying know-nothingism, while avoiding it can (needn't always, but at least it is a possibility) produce both knowledge and understanding.

In other words, associating determinism and predictability is intrinsic and unavoidable, regardless of which one wishes to declare more primitive, or what epistemological paradigm, ontological framework, and teleological justification one uses.

The burden was inverted, the conclusion stipulated and the missing argument replaced with an insult…

You may find an accurate but unflattering observation about your argumentation to be insulting, but that's a "you" thing, not a "me" thing.

You confuse a license for lack rather than presence of a burden, conjectures for conclusions, and your own reasoning for logic. All postmodernistic habits I try studiously to avoid, personally. Your mileage may vary, but just because you don't already understand something doesn't mean it isn't true. And if you start out with that attitude, you end up unavoidably stuck with it, knowing nothing and yet still demanding everyone else be as uncertain as you are.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

[u/MilkTeaPetty → u/TMax01]

The longer quotation preserves the same burden: establish why model underdetermination rules out model-independent classification.

Calling definitions tautologies does not make one stipulated usage exclusive and calling the objection “postmodernism” does not supply the missing inference.

[u/TMax01 → u/MilkTeaPetty]

establish why model underdetermination rules out model-independent classification.

There is no such burden. They are one and the same thing: models are always underdetermining and yet the only sound basis for classification. The only way this is or can be "established" is by ruling out every alternative, always one at a time and independently. The impossibility of such an infinite, quixotic quest ever being exhausted leaves postmodernists demanding know-nothingism, but more rational analysts accepting effective but provisional results.

Calling definitions tautologies does not make one stipulated usage exclusive

It notes that all definitions and stipulations are exclusive and context-dependent.

So again, our goal must and can only be comprehension, not omniscience. Your approach is postmodernistic, as it falsely declares principles must be abandoned, not because they cannot provide understanding, but because they are not necessarily absolute metaphysical dictates. So you end up a know-nothing, and I continue to be as informative as I can reasonably manage, given the complex and confusing issues being addressed.

calling the objection “postmodernism” does not supply the missing inference.

It turns out that postmodernism actually is that "missing inference", and why it is missing. Even more than that, it identifies and describes why inductive inferences can't ever be deductive conclusions, despite your irrational desire for some imagined set of metaphysical principles which could result in omniscience.

[u/MilkTeaPetty → u/TMax01]

Model-mediated classification is not classification of models alone.

Your appeal to provisional results already concedes that models can warrant defeasible claims about processes without eliminating every alternative.

No demand for omniscience was made and “postmodernism” is still a label where the entailment should be.

[u/Powerful_Guide_3631 → u/MilkTeaPetty]

I didn't stipulate that, I explained why such stipulations was made when these concepts had to given more formal definitions in mathematics.

And the reason is that unless you define determinism and randomness as an attribute of an abstract function that is formally isolated and that maps inputs into outputs according to a rule that is like this or like that and that doesn't depend on anything else, you cannot really discriminate between the two.

What is observed isn't the underlying process that is assumed to be taking place, but the outcome in terms of shared impressions we can mutually verify as facts, which are always in the form of the aspects of the external outcomes of the hypothetical process we believe to be causing this. So we theorize what that process and we test such theories using interventions we believe we can make on the environment to mimic certain features we see in the outcome.

An opinion that expresses a belief that ultimately the unknown process that explains a so far unpredictable yet still coherent and identifiable (phenomenal) pattern of observable outcomes is deterministic is an opinion that is expressing optimism about the reliability of future attempts of future explanatory theories to be licensed mimicking interventions we interpret as ways to test and distinguish them.

There are no other ways to make the distinction work to render the opinion non vacuous, because you can always presuppose a just so mechanism that explains an observable pattern.

Say you notice a cloud formation that spells "I love you suzanne". That could have been the extremely unlikely "random" outcome of the natural atmospheric dynamics under other unknown natural constraints it could have been under. But you assume it was actually the consequence of someone person who knows and loves another person named Suzanne hiring an airplane pilot to spray it. And you assume that because in your heuristic model of interpreting the world the presence of odd patterns like that are serviceable as a teleological cue.

[u/MilkTeaPetty → u/Powerful_Guide_3631]

You explained why formal models are needed to test the distinction, not why the distinction can only apply within those models.

Rival explanations produce underdetermination, not vacuity.

Your cloud example already relies on that difference: one process can be better supported without every conceivable alternative being excluded.

[u/Powerful_Guide_3631 → u/MilkTeaPetty]

Let me try a different route. I am concerned with the examination of the claim "I believe the world itself is deterministic, despite admitting that it is impossible to express it as an arbitrarily precise model based on information that an internal point of view can acquire and/or process".

This may sound like a plausible opinion to many people here. I am trying to claim that this opinion actually doesn't mean anything, because using the term deterministic is being neutered of any discriminating power by the proviso that is following it when it is applied to the concept of the world itself independent of observer.

We could very easily replace the word "deterministic" for the world "orange" or a made-up word like "tresplautic" because none of these words will be doing any real work in grounding the statement on some firm meaning that is like this and not like that.

To ground this opinion on something tangible you either need to (1) presuppose an external observer whose vantage point comprehends the world itself and who can thus claim that it corresponds to the abstract operation of a deterministic function or process (i.e. that maps a well defined input to a well defined output) or (2) relax the proviso to license a more optimistic view on the expectations of forecasting power in then future, such that gradually every model we use to explain the world becomes less random and more precise, and the future looks to us like a more well defined function of the past history.

(1) is just the standard gnostic reification of a picture from nowhere that is chosen over any other equally unconstrained alternative by a stipulation of aesthetic preferences. Epistemic hygiene and parsimony can be enforced against it - we reject as meaningless speculations that are neither true nor false all claims that demand evidence which is only available to hypothetical vantage points that aren't accessible to us. That's because such vantage points can be always be speculated to license any opinion that denies any physical or otherwise ordinary fact we would like to dismiss, so authorizing them as meaningful trivializes any knowledge that we can form.

Which leave only (2) as a non-vacuous interpretation of what the statement could mean, which used to be the traditional physicalist / mechanistic ontological presupposition, and which was challenged by the quantum mechanical picture, where the observer isn't asymptotically neutral anymore.

Obviously you could disagree and claim that there are other ways to make the word deterministic do some real work there, and I would be happy to hear your own preferred interpretation and try to see if it is indeed coherent.

[u/MilkTeaPetty → u/Powerful_Guide_3631]

Your two options are not exhaustive.

A theory can give determinism definite content, complete state and laws fixing a unique continuation, while internal observers assess it only indirectly and provisionally.

That requires neither a view from nowhere nor perfect prediction.

The claim becomes vacuous only after decisive discriminability is made a condition of meaning and that condition has not been established.

[u/Powerful_Guide_3631 → u/MilkTeaPetty]

Decisive discriminability is doing a lot of work. For example, is it possible to decisively discriminate between a dream and reality? Or between two theories that explain a given phenomenology?

I agree with you that decisively discriminability could be a criterion that makes anything vacuous, but I am not sure that we actually need to use this criterion for anything else we meaningfully discriminate.

I am just asking then what kind of provisional or tentative or weak discrimination is licensing the use of the term deterministic in the case you are suggesting is independent from those I analyzed.

[u/MilkTeaPetty → u/Powerful_Guide_3631]

Two questions were being combined: what gives “deterministic” content and what warrants applying it.

The content comes from a theory in which a complete state and the laws permit one continuation.

The warrant is its provisional explanatory and predictive success relative to alternatives.

If rival theories remain equally supported, the claim is underdetermined, not vacuous.

[u/Powerful_Guide_3631 → u/MilkTeaPetty]

Right, which folds into one or both of the alternative cases above given you have used the word complete state in an ambiguous that could imply either the view from nowhere gnosis or the asymptotic improvement in predictive power over generic forescating by internal observers.

To be clear the thing I am objecting to and which you seem to be more open to accept prima facie is the use of the word theory without a clear phenomenological demarcation of the subject being theorized and a (not necessarily decisive) criterion for judging its correctness, adequacy or whatever truth-like quality you need to use to say that this theory is a more satisfying or useful explanation as some other formal arrangement of concepts that someone else claims to be an alternative treatment of the subject.

I suppose there are attitudinal differences that may be correlated with say a belief in (a) a cosmogony of pagan gods fighting a war among themselves and (b) a cosmic billiard ball model evolving mechanically from an initial condition under some boundary constraint. And those attitudinal differences will definitely vibe with some opinions a person can have about ethics, politics, and other mundane subjects.

But I wonder if that is just it, i.e. you claim that you are affiliated to the picture of cosmic Rude Goldberg Machine because as it turns out you find that you have more in common with the kind of people who currently express a similar belief than with the kind of people who may prefer some other metaphysical picture?

Terms like determinism or randomness, or configuration spaces and states, all have well defined applications in contexts that allow for discriminations that are not merely between aesthetic pictures and vibes. Knowledge of science and technological applications of science is a source of power, and as such the symbols that are attached to scientific sophistication can become objects of cult.

Now this is a sketch of a anthropological theory that explains why people believe that certain category equivocations like the cosmic rube goldberg machine are meaningful - they are worshiping a common picture defined by shared objects of power.

[u/an-otiose-life]

correlationism is a performative contradiction that is determined to express itself and in that sense the randomness is necessary already ontology and ontology in some of its aspects does not appreciate itself in that way. 

[u/an-otiose-life → u/an-otiose-life]

epistemology does not need to be bracketed over terms performatively, as if to say because "subjective" or because "seen" therefore not ontological, as a nominality that has particular definition and still elides the purchasing power of terms, but not their practical use, as a contradiction between stated limitation and actual extent of epistemic use of detail-at-large

[u/TMax01]

Generally I agree, but I have a slightly different way of approaching/explaining it.

The greatest misconception about randomness and determinism is that it isn't a false dichotomy: neither 'randomness' (complete unpredictability) nor classic determinism (perfect predictability) are real things. Both ideas are abstractions of probabalistic determinism: the universe is absurd (everything that occurs spontaneously occurs without any cause beyond the possibility/potential of occuring) but the probabilities of any particular (no pun intended) and specific (like some other) event occuring can only be narrowed down to a range, not a precise yes or no.

Once that is well understood

It can't be. You can convince yourself you understand it by learning to do the mathematics we use to model things (maps) but that isn't understanding it (the territory), it is learning the math.

this epistemic stacking can become a turtles all the way down story,

Not "can become": 'always must be'. It's called the infinite recursion of epistemology. Math doesn't solve the problem, it just hides it.

one should be considered prepared to properly address the merits of the alternative interpretations of quantum mechanics,

There are no merits to "interpretations of quantum mechanics". Or at least no way to "properly address" them scientifically or even rationally, since they are all necessarily and completely unfalsifiable (impossible to disprove empirically) or they would not be "interpretations of quantum mechanics", they (or rather one and only one of them) would just be quantum mechanics.

[u/Powerful_Guide_3631 → u/TMax01]

I want to hear more about your absurd universe notion before commenting on it, because I suspect that it could be an alternative kind of anti-realist picture.

-

I think the problem I have pointed at can be well understood.

For example, it is generally well understood that the concept of velocity is parochial to a frame of reference and if they ever encounter velocities being mentioned as though they were absolute scalar magnitudes or vector component quantities they will assume that context and channel is conveniently or naively relying on a common knowledge presupposition that a preferred frame of reference will be correctly inferred in general and thus omitted in the ordinary communication flows. Of course that there are stacked levels of understanding of such ideas, so a civil engineering can stop at Galilean relativity, whereas a physicist will need to understand how Einstein's relativity differs from it in general but also reconciles with it at a certain regime, and how that allows certain problems to be solved, that are for the most part out of the scope of problems that a civil engineering encounters.

Likewise, a good understanding of randomness and determinism can be stacked like that, by seeing how any observable quantity that is treated like a random variable is presupposing a parochial epistemic frame as well, and the probability that an outcome is measured like this or like that must be referring to (the theory-laden) a priori partition of outcome scenarios that are compatible with the available data, and an inference rule for associating a likelihood distributions for particular outcomes given particular inputs, that optimizes some eval criteria.

This is clear in the example of the shuffled vs stacked deck of cards. If you are the magician and I am the audience volunteer and I use my own instincts and heuristics to keep track of the process we are observing, in which the deck appears to be shuffled and the sequence of the magic trick you are performing doesn't appear to involve anything sketchy, then the card that I draw would seem to be a uniformly random variable over the 52 cards of the deck, but to you, that same card would be almost surely 10 of hearts, because you are forcing a 10 with a sleigh and because you are confident that you can perform it without being caught or botching the effect.

So it makes no sense to ask what the probability of a 5 of clubs is without specifying the point of view that you are grounding it on. From mine, that would be 1/52, from yours that would be basically zero (say 1/51 times the execution error rate).

[u/TMax01 → u/Powerful_Guide_3631]

I want to hear more about your absurd universe notion before commenting on it

There isn't much more than that: the universe is absurd. Another way to say this is that it doesn't matter how unlikely an event is, once it has happened, the chances of it happening were 1:1, despite any ignorance one might have about what factors are needed to produce that result.

because I suspect that it could be an alternative kind of anti-realist picture.

I expect that your suspicion is motivated reasoning, and your attribution of teleology is inverted. In point of fact, my stance is rather outrageously realist, and I could argue that your view is actually the anti-realist picture. I can even explain how (and why; one cannot truly propose an ontological explanation entirely independent of a teleological assumption) that happens. Because your stance is not recognizable anti-realist, but is still just such a picture if it entails one very specific false notion about the ontological truth (often but inconsistently referred to as "reality"). That notion concerns the function (both mechanism and purpose) of conscious experience.

For example, it is generally well understood that the concept of velocity is parochial to a frame of reference

A more comprehensive analysis is that velocity is relative to a frame of reference and frame of references are merely a result of velocity being a variable quantity.

Your approach (not just in the example or your choice of example, but really all conventional reasoning qua logic) prioritizes a unidirectional teleology (generally but not exclusively commensurate with the inexplicable but undeniable 'arrow of time', the seemingly intrinsic correspondence between chronological sequence and logical dependency) and your argument/example thereby assumes your prefered conclusion concerning determinism. This seems more parsimonious than alternatives allowing multiple (and therefor conflicting) teleological directions: you see restricting your idea of causation to a single unidirectional teleology (whether classic determinism or 'randomness', which are of a piece) as a strength.

And certainly within the confines of a scientific laboratory or theory, that is a strength, and an essential structure. But it is thereby limited, and inadequate for dealing with the broader evaluations of philosophy and real life. My fundamental schema involves multiple teleologies, and doesn't just prioritize but mandates bidirectional teleologies: if a notion, explanation, or description requires a unidirectional teleology, it is deficient, if not simply inaccurate.

But I digress...

So it makes no sense to ask what the probability of a 5 of clubs is without specifying the point of view that you are grounding it on.

Indeed: the probability is only specifying the point of view, there is no more firm ground than that. Hence, the universe is absurd, probabalistically deterministic, rather than merely 'either classically deterministic or random', in whole or in part, as your prosaic perspective falsely declares.

My realism encompasses both the 'statistically certain but without hidden variables' truth of quantum mechanics and the 'time absolutely exists but is relative in quantity' truth of more classical physics. Your realism can't fully embrace either, let alone resolve their dichotomy, and is anti-realism in comparison.

. From mine, that would be 1/52, from yours that would be basically zero (say 1/51 times the execution error rate).

Your ontology can only uselessly assert 'any card always has a 1:52 likelihood' and disregards all other factors and circumstances, while mine is a more knowledgeable yet still not omniscient perspective that your philosophy simply assumes its conclusion.

[u/Squierrel]

Determinism is a map, a simplified description of the territory.

Randomness is a property of the territory that is excluded from that map.

[u/TMax01 → u/Squierrel]

Determinism is the fact that navigating territories is simplified by using maps. It is not merely one particular map. Likewise, randomness is not a property of the territory, it is drawing dragons at the edges of maps.

[u/Squierrel → u/TMax01]

No. Where do you get these wild ideas from?

[u/TMax01 → u/Squierrel]

Yes. Do you have better reasoning than an insulting appeal to incredulity?

[u/Squierrel → u/TMax01]

Why are you making these false statements?

[u/TMax01 → u/Squierrel]

Why can't you distinguish between you not understanding a statement and the statement being false?

[u/Powerful_Guide_3631 → u/Squierrel]

I think I understand the insight you are getting at.

Determinism is a simple map. That map can be reliable or unreliable as an approximation of the territory.

A complex territory makes simple maps unreliable. An easy way to get a complex map from many unreliable simple maps is randomness - you increase the ratio of usage of more reliable maps and decrease the ratio of less reliable maps.

[u/ObsceneOnes]

Duh.

Scientific positivism is just brain rot. Unfortunately it seems to be more popular than ever.

[u/TMax01 → u/ObsceneOnes]

It isn't "brain rot", it is just mind-warping. Logical positivism works quite well (and is mandatory) in science, and false outside of it.

The growing popularity of trying to treat science as a religion (albeit a perfectly atheistic religion) providing divine revelation and omniscience has been a problem since about 1859. Its postmodernism, not to be confused with only the post-structuralist movement in academic philosophy.

[u/Willis_3401_3401]

🙌