I understand what you are saying, and what I posted was not really supposed to be directed at a nitty philosopher audience. Boyd actually does a very good job at what you are talking about, which is why all of his more scholarly books are a 500 page minimum read.

I still don't understand how he is equivocating in that one, as I don't understand the difference between "causally precedes" and "temporally precedes" and why the distinction is important in this discussion.

What does 'could' mean, as compared to - could?

it draws emphasis...what's your point?

Initially, just clarification that it didn't have a special definition I missed.

Do we not need some verification that they could? If they never do, what is the evidence that they could? What is it that allows us to determine that they won't?

Something like, " they could, but they never do because... " otherwise aren't we just in a "they never have" situation?

It's really just probabilistic. In a free will universe one could accurately predict the future. In other words if you were to predict action X, since it is in the range of possibilities, your prediction can be correct.

Which means that one could predict the future with 100% accuracy in a non-deterministic universe. So it follows that predictability is not a sufficient condition to show determinism. Correct me if I am wrong Durka.

We're talking about logical possibility. Something is logically possible if it isn't logically impossible. Something is logically impossible if it's a contradiction.

It's not a contradiction to suppose that possibility; therefore, it's logically possible.

I don't need to verify that it actually happened that way or would happen that way; that's not what we're concerned with.

This appears to be correct.

Perhaps it is possible, but I don't see it.

OK, there is the possibility of a set sequence instead of just bagel. I don't think it matters though. "Bagels on Tuesday, toast on Wednesdays" = "bagels every day" as far as this argument goes.

The problem is with the first occurrence still holds though. The first occurrence of bagel or bagel day could not be a priori predicted. That is enough for a lack of perfect predictability.

Determinism is a universal statement: Every event is fully the result of antecedent states.[/quote]

100% agreed that this is my definition. I would add "and totally" after fully just for emphasis.

There are other definitions, but this is an accurate depiction of my view.

I don't think that the universe uses heuristics irl. An individual effect is the result of potentially numerous causes. The plurality is necessary. Causes can be additive, subtractive, etc. However, the individual event is caused, however complicatedly, by the net effect of all of the causes.

In other words, an individual effect could be calculated, given perfect knowledge of all of the subcauses and perfect knowledge of their relationships and perfect computing power.

The result of the impossible calculation = the effect.

Determinism is the case in which this is all there is. In other words, perfect cause and effect for all cases leads to determinism.

In and of itself, no.

In and of itself, no.

More to the point (the one I think you are trying to make), I don't think that Bart is only constrained by one thing more than Lisa. Dumbassedness.

Random means not due to previous states. Basically, an completely unpredictable (Laplace's demon goes poof) event.

But it has nothing to do with prediction at all.

The possibility that there is a possibility that I will predict the sequence of all the cards in the deck does not equal I know the cards in the deck before they are laid out.

Lottery fallicy itt

We are, fortunate or not, in this thread. Durka has not read the author, and does not reject his ideas out of hand, but has not seen the counterarguments.

I think I previously stated (at least my understanding) the difference between cause and time precidence.

I understand. I didn't really take his statements as an attack, I am just kinda a Boyd fanboy so I was a little over defensive.

I am still struggling to understand the equivocation. You will have to bare with me as I am just a lowly car salesman

Heh. I manage sales people irl.

"I just do sales and am confused" arguments do not work on me. Stop acting as if you can't understand stuff.

Just sell the crap we have and stop whining we don't have helicopters, you idiotic harpie.

Also, go read "who moved my cheese."

Ahhhh... I meant cause and effect is a heuristic *FOR US.* The universe does what it does for whatever reasons it chooses (pun). The universe is not constrained by our knowing or not knowing, nor is it even constrained by what we deem to be "laws."

"Cause and effect" is merely our attempt to make sense of that which the universe actually does.

Would it be fair to say that your definition of "cause" in "cause and effect" is really the entire state of the universe preceding the effect? To put it another way, there is no way to assert *THE* cause of an effect, but rather you need to assert the *CAUSES* of the effect, where the list includes *ALL* of the pieces that go into the impossible calculation.

I was responding directly to the following:

Bart would make the same choice every time, given the exact same circumstances. So would Lisa. But is it fair to call this determinism?

I can accept that as the definition we use as we move forward. However, as an advanced warning, this is probably a poor word to use. The example with Bart and Lisa is very telling. Unless you view Bart as "determined" to pick rock, this definition of "random" may cause problems.

If Bart is "not determined", then his choice is NOT "fully and totally the result of antecedent states." Then by definition, you would say that Bart's decision is "random." This is somewhat in conflict of the usual concept of random. While it is possible to make sense of a "random distribution" in which there is only one outcome, this is usually not what people intend to mean by "random."

So it's not wrong, but it can become sticky and problematic. I think it would be safer to proceed simply using "not determined" instead of "random."

Just for fun...

Wow. We weren't talking about the same thing at all. Your meaning for cause and effect + my posts = seriously crazy

I would add to your first paragraph "but it is constrained completely by Laws."


No, it would just be relevant conditions{set of conditions} x Laws{set of Physical Laws} -> effect(specific effect included in this set).*

The entire state of the universe is not required.

Relevant Condition(s)+Law(s) = cause -> effect.*

You can assert it easily (see misunderstanding above between human cause and effect and actual cause and effect).

Individual effects are oftentimes calculable. For instance, I can set up a pretty easy experiment with conditions(specific mass1, specific mass2, specific distance) x law(gravity) -> 3 seconds until the ball hits the ground.*

You could be a big old meanie and put a fountain under my little experiment, which would change the results, but that just means I have oversimplified my calculations, not that the ball doesn't follow physical Laws.

I fixed my previous statement. I should not have had the word "don't" in there. Also, changed my punctuation.

You are setting up a straw man here, but it is fair. It does not rule out freedom elsewhere though.

I have to think about this part more...

*I am being sloppy with the math part on purpose. I do not intend (or have the ability) to prove what the a specific relationship between the conditions and the laws are. I am saying that it is more complicated than a one to one cause -> effect.

At least we're starting to converge!

These "Laws" are what I was referring to by

No, I don't believe that the physical laws that we have discovered actually constrain the universe in any way. The universe is "self-constrained" in the sense that nothing will happen in the universe that cannot happen in the universe, but that is merely a tautological definition that brings no added value to the position.

This is why I want to make a clear distinction above. Our models of the universe are not the universe itself. The Laws of the universe are not necessarily knowable to us, nor do they necessarily exist in the form that our current (highly mathematical) understanding is leading us to believe.

In a very real way, the idea that the universe even has "Physical Laws" is assuming a piece of the determinists' conclusion, that there are some sort of rigid constraints on how the universe must behave.

Calculable, but only up to a certain precision. Did you take into effect the sun's gravitational pull? The moon's? Pluto's? Alpha Centauri's? These things (according to the theory of UNIVERSAL gravitation) should impact the path that the ball takes on its way to the ground, and therefore should also impact the time it takes to hit the ground.

Here's where we get some nuts and bolts. Since you are saying "oversimplified" you are admitting that there is a certain level of "simplifying" that happens even without the presence of my fountain. This is what I was writing about above.

Calculating *THE* result is different from calculating a simplified result. So in your formula above:

How do know what the "relevant" conditions are, and what conditions are "irrelevant"? Would you accept the idea that there are aspects of our universe that we do yet not understand, and potentially even things of which we are totally ignorant? How do we have any ground to assert that those things are "irrelevant" if we don't even know what they are?

I'm not really setting up an argument (yet). I want to make sure that we understand the implications of the given definitions. Bart's situation falls under determinism even though there is an understanding in which Bart *could* do something other than pick rock. He is only self-constrained to pick rock, not constrained in the sense that the universe is conspiring for him to only pick rock. And Lisa is only self-constrained to pick paper, because she has decided to play to win. She could easily have chosen to tie, or even throw the game, but she is playing to win, and this is not something forced upon her by the universe.

No worries. As you can tell, I'm not really sold that we can actually prove all the specific relationships anyway, or even know for certain that such relationships are sufficient to describe the universe.

As a philosophical/historical aside, ancient astrology was guided by a sense of determinism that has the same sense that you are talking about. If you knew all the "relevant" conditions and you knew the right thing to "calculate" then you can determine the future (to some extent).

Your sense of "cause and effect" is the same sense of "cause and effect" as in astrology. It's worth considering as part of a historical understanding because you know that you'll need to add information and assumptions in the future to move your position away from that one and towards the modern view.

Where we diverge is that I believe that there are Laws of some sort or other. This isn't an argument, just a statement.

We both share this understanding.

Heathen! Of course it is math.

I think you have it backwards. The assumption of physical laws and the rejection of probabilism leads to the conclusion of determinism, not the other way around.

Newton finds some possible laws. They work pretty darn consistently. Other dudes extend Newton's laws through empirical study to more events. Other dudes find other possible laws in other fields that work consistently. ->
(1) This physical law thing seems to be working for more and more stuff.

Add in that error in that the expected results keeps decreasing as we figure things out. -> (2)It seems likely that if our understanding were better that our error in expected results would fall to zero.

(1)+(2) -> "it seems more likely than not that there are some sort of universal Laws behind all of this and that where we find error, it is due to law not quite being Law"

->"Determinism seems pretty likely."

(Perhaps this is not the only possible conclusion, even given the assumptions, but it is "better" than the alternatives)

[quote]Calculable, but only up to a certain precision. Did you take into effect the sun's gravitational pull?

...

Calculating *THE* result is different from calculating a simplified result. So in your formula above:

How do know what the "relevant" conditions are?

...
[quote]

I think we both agree that we:

1. currently can't predict the future (i.e. we don't know the current state well enough, and we also don't understand the Laws well enough)

2. are not the ones who get to make the Laws. They exist independently of our noticing them.

3. It is likely that 1. will persist as true.

I believe there are "Laws of some sort or another." But where we diverge is the relative closeness of the "laws" that we have to these actual "Laws." You are holding to the picture of the mechanical universe (which started with Newton, I think). With this as your fundamental understanding on the universe, there's a very well-lit path to determinism.

I reject that the universe is strictly mechanical. I don't think the universe is some gigantic machine where all the little cogs inside our heads and all the gigantic cogs in the cosmos are just spinning along as they were set up to do from the beginning of time.

I have no idea what "probabilism" is. But what I think you're meaning by it is once again trotting down the dangerous path of "random == not determined" where equivocation of thought is likely to be found.

Why does it seem "pretty likely"? To me, this is an unjustified claim.

This is a common complaint I have regarding various forms of scientism (the superiority of science to explain everything, and that science is the only truly reliable means of obtaining knowledge).

The likelihood that the claim "Determinism is true" is true depends on what the space of "events" looks like. That is, if we represented all of the events in the universe by a collection of dots, and we colored all of the "determined" dots black and all of the "non-determined" dots white, your claim is that there are a whole lot more black dots than white dots.

Besides the utter inability to quantify that situation in a reasonable way, we also have the difficulty that our knowledge does not always allow us to know what color the dot actually is. That is, instead of being black and white, it's really a bunch of shades of gray.

Furthermore, the scientism perspective simply does not allow one to ever affirm the white-ness of dots. Rather, it can only be used to assert the black-ness of dots. So there is a systematic blindness to white that skews your perception even more.

We both agree on these three points.

Either maintained or encoded - all of the information needs to be present.

[/quote]Is there something special about the n that you started with?[/quote]

I'm treating "n" as whatever arbitrary number of elements is necessary to contain the information of a particular state of the universe (or in discussion whatever arbitrary number of elements is relevant).

I've been using "n-tuple" to reference "tuples" in general, so a 4-tuple is an n-tuple, and a 3-tuple is an n-tuple, and so on.

I don't need to. It's a simple metaphysical position that has been around for thousands of years (in some form or another) and has adherents today. You are calling it an absurdity, and that's the relevant claim right now.

I'm not about to agree to any terminology that I don't have defined. I'm not sure what you mean by "finite collection." If it's finite in the sense that it contains finite information, then that information can also be contained by an n-tuple.

Again, I've been using n-tuple as a general reference. I wasn't aware that "n-tuple" described a tuple with some specific, defined number of elements. It seemed like "n" could scale and that a 3-tuple, a 4-tuple, or a G-tuple (where G is Graham's number) should all qualify as "n-tuples" of varying n-values.

If that's not how the word "n-tuple" is used, then I can be more specific. Though I'm not convinced that I need to even so, as an arbitrarily large quantity of information should be containable within a single rational number, given the right encoding system.

madnak -

The conversation has no value moving forward. I believe I have shown quite clearly that you don't know what you're talking about. Whether you recognize it or not, it really doesn't matter.

It seems quite clear that you've dug in your heels on this concept of an n-tuple, apparently without even bothering to look up what the word means. The fact that you want some sort of variable n in your n-tuple is problematic for your Turing machine concept (which you may or may not have jettisoned at this point).

It's impossible to know what you mean by anything anymore, since you continue to insist that you have the freedom to continuously redefine the terms you use. That you're worried about what a "finite collection" means because "you haven't defined it" and the fact that you do not understand that you cannot contain any finite collection of information in an n-tuple unless you allow n to become infinitely large is extremely troublesome from the perspective of basic mathematical knowledge and intuition.

Am I right in that you are rejecting this due to some consequence of this line of thinking?

You have reduced any opposition to your position as Universal Mechanism. I call straw man fallacy.


(this is exactly how I point at people irl when they make a straw man fallacy)

Rejection of probabilism is the rejection of the idea that there is no certain answer.

It "seems pretty likely" is not really a particularly strong claim of certainty. Ask a better question.

Start a new thread if you want to go down this road. Question though, it "is a common complaint" you have? You actually commonly make this complaint?

That is not my claim at all. I don't see any relevance.

Still trying to get the relevance...

Yep. Don't get it at all. Either you are really bad at making analogies or... Hmmm. Nope, it is you

It was kind of nice closing my eyes and imagining the black and white dots slowly becoming various shades of gray. I did feel a little panic when I came down with a bad case of systematic blindness to white. Then I totally panicked when I started skewing because I had a really bad experience with a Skew-Hermitian matrix once. NEVER IMAGINE THAT YOU ARE THE SKEW-HERMITIAN MATRIX!


YAY!

You were the one who decided on the n-tuple, because you were the one who needed the math.

However, we are now discussing the question of whether a process can be an n-tuple. You seem totally incapable of managing conversation threads and maintaining context. We haven't been discussing the Turing machine since you took us on this tangent about . The way it works in most conversation is that if you go off on some tangential subtopic, first that subtopic is resolved and then we return to the main topic.

But instead you keep jumping from one discussion ("what is a mathematical definition of determinism") to another discussion ("is it possible for a process to be an n-tuple") to another discussion ("is a universe in which the foundational ontology is based on information vacuous") to another discussion ("how does the claim that everything is information relate to the claim that a process can be an n-tuple").

But you can't seem to keep them straight or pay any attention to which topic we're actually on. Nor can you keep words or claims straight - I define a universe as a series of vectors. You say no, that won't do, it needs to be a series of n-tuples. I say "fine." Then you arbitrarily start describing it as a single n-tuple. And I go along with you. And then you criticize me for using n-tuples.

Similar issue with word use. You are never able to use the same words that I use, or to use the same words yourself consistently. You switch from a process existing within n-tuples to a process being an n-tuple, and back again. And as I follow your usage, you then criticize me for equivocating! Repeat ad nauseum, you change the terms of the debate and I follow along with you, and then you attack me for following you.

Or when I say any finite arrangement of information, you turn it into "all finite information." And this time, I don't follow you - because "all" and "any" mean completely different things - and you again accuse me of equivocating (because I don't let you change the words of my own claims, seriously?).

You've got one thing right - my attempt to follow you on this has only led to increasing convolution. And at this point I imagine the reason is because you've been leading me through the mud this entire time.

This is completely bull****. I may not know much math, but I know the difference between "arbitrarily large" and "infinitely large." And the former is all I need here (and is quite finite). You do not ever need an infinitely large data structure to store a finite information set. Your suggestion to the contrary has nothing to do with mathematical knowledge and intuition, and everything to do with dishonest rhetorical tactics.

As far as "finite collection" goes, here we've been talking about "finite arrangement" and "finite set" and you feel the need to bring yet another new word into the mix. Well, every time I accept that you either change the word on me (and accuse me of equivocation when I switch to match your terminology) or tell me I'm using the word wrong (when you are the one who introduces a new term, the best I can do is try to match your use - which I suspect you realize, no matter how I use the word you can claim you "meant it" in a different way).

Regardless, I have never redefined any of my terms except "determinism" and "choice," and then only as a response to objections (specifically your objection to my original determinism definition, Matt R.'s criticism of cognition, and durka's attempt to insert the supernatural form of possibility he invented).

I have equivocated on the terms you introduced into the discussion only insofar as you yourself have redefined them, switched them around, or started using them under completely different contexts.

Partially. There's a piece of my philosophy which simply stands in awe at the fact that we can "know" anything at all. That there is, in fact, some amount of regularity in the universe, that at some level everything seems rather simple and benign.

But in this gigantic universe in which we find ourselves, and our experiences which are basically contained in something like the width of a human hair relative to the size of the solar system (I just made that up -- I don't actually know how big the earth is relative to the observable universe), I simply believe that it seems very possible that there are bigger things out there, and I'm not at all convinced that the "Laws" that govern those things necessarily look anything remotely like the mathematical systems that we have established for discussing our puny little world of experiences.



It really depends on what you are going to assert about the nature of the "Laws." If you are going to assert some form of computability (in the mathematical sense that we currently understand it), then I don't think I'm being unfair in characterizing that conception of the universe as I have.

Nah. It's more of an RGT-type conversation that comes up. The atheist side asserts that they're not going to believe anything without "sufficient evidence" (while never really describing "sufficiency") and "evidence" is presented as scientism. But then when you push the question of "Why do you believe that this method is sufficient for determining the truthfulness of a particular claim" the retort is usually something like "It's the best that we have", but either without describing how one might attempt to measure the quality of various schemes of knowledge, or by defining it to be the best because it works so well at determining the things that the scientific methodologies confirm (which is simply being circular).

Epistemology is hard work. As I said before, it's amazing to think that we can actually know anything at all.

This whole section was related to your claim involving the phrase "pretty likely" and how one might take that claim. You said that you don't view it as a very strong claim, which is fine. But I responded that way because I interpreted it as a very strong claim. If you say "It's pretty likely that this student cheated" then you've made a very strong claim. It reads a lot differently from "It's not clear whether..." or "I don't know whether..." because your position plants you very firmly on one side.

But if you say that it's a weak claim, then I can accept that and move on.

madnak -

To go point by point with you again is a waste of my time. The lengths of your posts hide the fact that the content of your posts is actually very limited. You often branch off to points which are merely tangentially related to the discussion at hand, and this is why the path of the conversation winds around as it does.

Furthermore, I believe it is quite clear that you are the one who is skating from topic to topic, and I've tried very hard to keep you in one place. The claim regarding n-tuples arose because of your Turing-machine universe and the "EVERYTHING IS INFORMATION AND INFORMATION IS EVERYTHING" claim.

Multiple times, I have quoted back several posts to put the conversation back into context for you, but this strategy seems not to have been effective at keeping you in one place. I find that your accusation that I'm the one running around to be laughable.

I think it's a very reasonable thing to do to take a step back and really try to figure out what it is you are trying to accomplish at this point. From where I sit, it seems that you are simply intent on trying to be "right" and that the actual content of the conversation is meaningless. To me, that sounds a lot like you're the one who is trying to accomplish "ego-stroking."