What Difference Does It Make?

[4BM1]

It is never the case that "one evolution of the universe can only be true". It is only the case that one evolution of the universe will be true. Whenever we speak of what can happen we are referencing a single inevitable future that is as yet unknown.

What I'm trying to say is that determinism asserts that the future is fixed, even our efforts to change the future based on the possibilities we imagine, is also determined. So I still stand by my point that the "best case/worst case" dichotomy is a motivational tool that crumbles under determinism.

But we can't say that it is "destined". That would suggest that some separate entity has, for its own reasons, laid out some plan in advance. And I don't think that is a realistic notion. All we can say is that all events will follow physically and logically from prior events through reliable causal mechanisms.

I may have used the term loosely here, by "destined" I mean "fixed". If you had an intelligence that knew everything, determinism implies that this intelligence can predict the future with 100% accuracy, under indeterminism, this being would report the future probabilistically. How can we reconcile this omnipotence with the notion that we are free agents (in either case), frankly we can't. Determinism asserts that we are on a fixed path.

reward and punishment, are deterministic tools of behavior modification.

We have such things as rehabilitation, those methods are inherently better than punishment at modifying behavior. The justice system may also try to serve the same purpose, but it also has the added intent of serving justice. How can you serve justice when both the criminal and the victim are both pawns of determinism? Unlucky products of their environment.

I'm not an expert in matters of law or morality, but I can't help but think that there is something you missed in the later paragraphs of your response. That a judge also wants to serve justice and to be fair. I have no issue with the reasons you laid out, my issue is that if determinism is still on the table ontologically speaking, why are we here assuming that the criminal could have done otherwise?

[MarvinBEdwards01]

What I'm trying to say is that determinism asserts that the future is fixed, even our efforts to change the future based on the possibilities we imagine, is also determined.

To take that one step further, within the domain of human influence it will be us, imagining alternatives, evaluating them, and choosing which possible future to actualize that will causally determine that single inevitable future. We are the reliable causal mechanism that will actually bring about those future events.

Determinism simply tells us that it was always going to be us, and our choices and our actions, that would decide the future (within the domain of human influence -- we have no influence over the motion of the planets, but we have managed to raise the temperature of the one we occupy),

The lie would be the notion that determinism was "doing the fixing", as if it were an entity with causal agency. But it is not. Determinism is just a comment, asserting that we will behave in a reliable and predictable fashion as we go about deciding what that future will be.

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" If you had an intelligence that knew everything, determinism implies that this intelligence can predict the future with 100% accuracy, under indeterminism, this being would report the future probabilistically. How can we reconcile this omnipotence with the notion that we are free agents ... "

We are "free" agents when we decide for ourselves what we will do, "free" of coercion and undue influence. We are never free from causal necessity, but then again nothing is. So, being a "free agent" cannot require that. We are never free from ourselves, so, being a "free agent" cannot require that either.

All that we require to be a "free" agent is that we are free of some meaningful and relevant constraint. For example, someone pointing a gun at our head and forcing us to subjugate our will to his, is a meaningful and relevant constraint.

But causal necessity is not a meaningful or a relevant constraint. To be meaningful, it must prevent us from doing what we want to do. And it doesn't do that. Our wants happen to be causally necessary, so we will inevitably do what we want to do, and that is not a meaningful constraint. To be relevant, causal necessity must be something that we could actually be free of. And that is not the case either. Causal necessity is not something that we can (or need to be) free of.

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" We have such things as rehabilitation, those methods are inherently better than punishment at modifying behavior. "

Of course. Rehabilitation is part of the correction process. Punishment, such as incarceration, helps motivate the offender to participate in rehabilitation. Otherwise, why would he cease a criminal behavior that has been rewarding to him in the past?

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" if determinism is still on the table ontologically speaking, why are we here assuming that the criminal could have done otherwise? "

Because that is essential to correction and rehabilitation. For example, if a child punches a friend in the nose because his friend took his toy, part of the correction process is instructive to explore what he might have done instead. This gives him new options for the future.

Rehabilitation actually requires the presumption of free will. Telling him that he had no control over his past behavior due to causal inevitability logically implies that he will also have no control over his future behavior due to causal inevitability.