Theme: Science

DEFINITION: CAUSAL DETERMINISM

Determinism in Philosophy vs Causal Determinism in Science.

In philosophy, determinism refers to predestination. It’s an extreme pretension. And philosophical determinism does not survive scrutiny because physical determinism does not survive scrutiny.

So what we have left once we eliminate philosophical determinism, is scientific determinism. Which we often distinguish using the clarification of ‘causal determinism’

Scientific determinism says that the universe operates by regular rules that we can discover, and that indeterminism arises out of complexity we cannot possess the information to measure, nor is there regularity to the universe in practical (actionable) terms, below and above certain levels.

For example, we can describe how gasses expand but we cannot determine where any given molecule will end up. A common example in simple physics is filling a barrel with numbered marbles, and tipping it over. Regardless of the initial position of the marbles, and assuming we do not ‘cheat’ by organizing them in some sort of structure, no matter how precisely we repeat the process of pouring the marbles on the floor, we will never predict the resulting position of an individual marble. Yet we will be able to define patterns of behavior. What we will do is determine the *limits* of our ability to describe where a given marble will end up. Hence our ability to create reasonably, but not quite believable, software simulations of such phenomenon.

It may be possible that we simply lack measurement tools and information stores and machines capable of measuring such things. But as far as we know at present, the universe is only probabilistic at the lowest level, not deterministic.

So in science, causal determinism refers to regularity within limits. And we use deterministic as a an adjective. Like ‘fast’: something can be slightly or highly deterministic.

If the universe was not deterministic we could not conduct science.

But it is, so we can.

This does not mean that there is no room for free will. And it does not mean that there are precisely determinable formula for everything.

It means only that we can define general rules to some degree of precision for all phenomenon. In other words “all general rules must specify a limit”.

For example, it is logical that raising the minimum wage increases unemployment. On the other hand it has proven incredibly difficult to prove one way or another. Same for the neutrality of money. In both these cases we cannot really state anything more precise than that in any meaningful way.

But it is this concept of limit – and its accompanying requirement for full accounting – that has been missing from our philosophical, scientific, economic, and political discourse.

Newtonian physics were not false. We use them every day. They are less precise than Einsteinian physics. And undoubtably, when we discover the theory of everything, it will be more precise than Einsteinian physics. Does that mean that Newtonian physics fails at human scale, or that Einsteinian Physics fails at observable-universe scale? No. Not at all.

It means that to some degree, all science requires that we discover our current limits, and seek solutions to those beyond them, extending the limits of our perception and understanding.

Does that mean we will not discover some greater but unfortunately unmeasurable regularity to the subatomic universe with the ‘theory of everything’? Perhaps, and perhaps not. I suspect that the problem of measurement will remain with us forever, and that our ability to ACT to change the course of the universe for our benefit will forever be a matter of energy and cost, not one of understanding.

And as is expected, if we cannot act upon it, then it is not material for human beings. We are bound by the same rules of the universe as is everything else in it.

Everything costs.

Curt Doolittle