Thoughts on Determinism

[Skepsis]

Well, hard determinism is also the kind of determinism I was talking about.

I still see determinism and fatalism as different concepts, though. As far as I understood it, both pretty much say that everyone's life will proceed in one specific way which can not be changed.

The difference is causality. For determinists, causality is the one and only reason why things are the way they are. The sum of all past events determines the future (and thus, the future is predefined because there is only one way the events can unfold). For fatalists, the crucial element is not causality, but the fate, which is predetermined by god(s) or some unspecific powers.

A determinists belives that the laws of nature are the only factors which control their lives (and may reject the idea that life has an inherent purpose or meaning), whereas fatalists believe in some kind of "instance" which is also responsible for giving life its meaning.

If a person looks back on their life and sees how every attempt to improve it was a failure, it can appear logical for a fatalist to regard it as the personal fate (that's what I meant by "born unlucky"). If you believe that a god decided upon your fate, you might believe that god does not "want" you to have a good life. This extrapolation, however, is illogical to a determinist (no matter if they believe in hard or soft determinism). Determinists will say that the universe is too complex to accurately predict most things, let alone what happens in their lives.

The difference between hard and soft determinism is the question if free will is compatible with it or not. Hard determinists are incompatibilists, soft determinists compatibilists. I think this is largely a matter of interpretation.

I do think they could very well be different concepts, but they could also be different shades of the same concept. There seems to be some trouble in defining what exactly what the two are, and how they are different, as there seems to be some overlap that muddies the definitions some.

For instance, when I think of hard determinism, I think of it as very similar, if not identical to predeterminism, in which all current events originate to a single cause. If every current incident is the result of a long chain of prior events, then all future occurrences are an extension of that chain of events. So while the future is known, it could be predicted if every single variable was taken into consideration.

While fatalism is in a sense exactly as you said, a consignment of fate to an individual by some conscious being, it's relationship to determinism is at least analogous in that the future is unavoidable by a chain of events outside one's control. But, it is not necessarily confined to a conscious agent. It is often just the feeling that what has happened, or will happen is "destiny" whether it is by naturalistic or supernaturalistic means.

One way of looking at it is that determinism is fatalism without a god and/or without applying a meaning, and is often more philosophically naturalistic, but I see them as two concepts that are both the same, yet different.

[Pa3s]

One way of looking at it is that determinism is fatalism without a god and/or without applying a meaning, and is often more philosophically naturalistic, but I see them as two concepts that are both the same, yet different.

I think that's fair to say. Fatalism is deterministic by nature, but causal determinism is not identical to fatalism.

Another thing: I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned that yet, but if I'm not mistaken a fatalist may actually believe in free will as much as any indeterminist. But there's a catch, because it wouldn't matter anyway since the fate is already determined. An incompatibilist determinist, however, would say that free will is an illusion/not even possible (according to its common definition).

[Esaman]

Events without objective cause or causal relationship are referred to as random, while the events of a chaotic system
can not be predicted even with absolute knowledge. Both concepts are incompatible with the principle of determinism, according to which the universe resembles a perfect machine, which works incessantly by rigid laws and produces results which have no alternatives. These, in turn, form the basis and cause of subsequent events.

Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including meteorology, sociology, physics, engineering, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions—a response popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for such dynamical systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general.[1] This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved.[2] In other words, the deterministic nature of these systems does not make them predictable.

In laziness I assume that for that last part in wiki it is talked about "not practically predictable" because theoretically with god powers you could make absolute copy of the universe and run it forward to get the prediction.(if the world was chaotically deterministic)

Will be reading forward.

[Pa3s]

In laziness I assume that for that last part in wiki it is talked about "not practically predictable" because theoretically with god powers you could make absolute copy of the universe and run it forward to get the prediction.(if the world was chaotically deterministic)

Will be reading forward.

Yes, I agree. Otherwise, these statements would contradict each other. Laplace's Demon is also about theoretical predictability since it wouldn't be practically possible in any case.

[Esaman]

Yes, I agree. Otherwise, these statements would contradict each other. Laplace's Demon is also about theoretical predictability since it wouldn't be practically possible in any case.

Do you agree that chaotic system is compatible with determinism?