# Is self determinism self refuting **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 8, 2004, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243 "2004-10-08T18:57:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![peterman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ebca7d/32.png) [@peterman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peterman)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2004, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/1 "2004-10-08T18:57:44Z")
We had this reading in our philosophy class that stated this… “our concpet of rational belief is linked with our concept of intellecutal freedom. Accordingly a world in which there was (or is) no intellectual freedom would be (or is) a world in which there is no rational belief. Therefore the belief that the world is totally determined cannot rationally claim to be a rational belief. Hence an argument for total determinism is necessarily self-refuting, or logically suicidal” The argument went like this 1.) if determinism is true, no one believes anything because they have a good reason for believing it. 2.) if no one believes anything because they have a good reason for believing it, no beliefs are rational 3.)therefore, if determinism is true, no beliefs are rational, including the belief that determinism is true Is this sort of argument convincing? ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2004, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/2 "2004-10-08T19:09:53Z")
> [@peterman](#): > > Is this sort of argument convincing? Not to me. Determinism relies on the idea that one is affected by past events. To not be affected by past events, one would need some sort of random generator inputting to your system. What’s so rational about free will if it exists only to the extent that it is generating random inputs into your personality? ---
**Author:** ![audiobottle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc8723/32.png) [@audiobottle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audiobottle)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2004, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/3 "2004-10-08T19:14:39Z")
This is more likely a Great Debates than a general question. I have a problem with the first statement. I don’t see that determinism automatically rules out any good reasons for believing in something. I’d say that if determinism is true, then that in and of itself is good enough reason to believe something since you already have to. But this is a bit circular in logic, so perhaps it doesn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2004, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/4 "2004-10-08T19:20:51Z")
There’s a huge difference between being “affected” and being “determined.” As far as we know, humans are the only species whose consciousness is continuously volitional. To claim otherwise is to negate the very meaning of reason. And if you abandon reason, by what means are you attempting to convince me that you’re right? And why should I even listen to your so-called arguments, if the contents of our minds has already been determined? ---
**Author:** ![peterman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ebca7d/32.png) [@peterman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peterman)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2004, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/5 "2004-10-08T19:21:17Z")
“the anti-vitaist says that there is no such thing as vital spirit” This claim is self refuting; the speaker can expect to be taken seriously only if his claim cannot. For if the claim is true, then the speaker does not have vital spirit, and must be dead. But since dead men tell no tales, they do not tell anti-vitalist ones either. One cannot reason with dead men." In this example, it is clear that the attempt to show that anti-vitalist was self-refuting was simply a non sequitur. The argument is non sequitar because life maybe explained by something other than vital spirit, for example by something physical, though the explanation may be much more intricate and complicated than anything envisaged at the time. Would you guys then tend to agree with that theory over the other? ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2004, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/6 "2004-10-08T20:30:52Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > And why should I even listen to your so-called arguments, if the contents of our minds has already been determined? Because you’re not going to fall back on irrelevant junk to evaluate an argument. Whether the argument was predetermined is moot. > [@](#): > > There’s a huge difference between being “affected” and being “determined.” Not that huge. If prior events aren’t determining one’s thoughts, personality, or actions, then something else is. I’m not going to bother with any supernatural hypotheses, so what’s left is something physical. You might argue something chaotic in the brain processes; but, chaotic systems are deterministic, we just can’t predict them. Not much left but something injecting randomness. > [@](#): > > As far as we know, humans are the only species whose consciousness is continuously volitional. To claim otherwise is to negate the very meaning of reason. Why is that? That is not at all obvious. > [@](#): > > As far as we know, humans are the only species whose consciousness is continuously volitional. I see no evidence backing the claim that human consciousness is continuously volitional. I see evidence that we think it is; but, that’s a big step away from actually being so. Daniel Wegner makes a very compelling argument that our conscious will is epiphenominal in nature and runs as a parallel process designed to signal authorship rather than generate behavior. _The Illusion of Conscious Will_ is an argument that will be difficult to counter, IMO. On the other end of the spectrum, if human consciousness is continuously volitional, I have no reason to assume that it isn’t for many other animals. Similar brains structures do similar jobs, and just because my cortex is more developed than an ape’s, it does not follow that it isn’t conscious in some sense similar to the way humans are. > [@](#): > > And if you abandon reason… I haven’t. You’ve committed a non sequitor in your move from the uniqueness of human volitional consciousness to the abandonment of reason. That was your leap, not mine. You are also propping up a strawman by trying to pin that leap on me when there is no apparent reason to think that the uniqueness of human continual conscious volition is the essence of reason. ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2004, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/7 "2004-10-08T20:45:12Z")
> [@peterman](#): > > Would you guys then tend to agree with that theory over the other? Which theory over what theory? Your analysis of the argument? Vitalism vs. non-vitalism? This > [@](#): > > “the anti-vitaist says that there is no such thing as vital spirit” This claim is self refuting; the speaker can expect to be taken seriously only if his claim cannot. For if the claim is true, then the speaker does not have vital spirit, and must be dead. seems to be a false dichotomy. Either one has a vital spirit or one is dead. He isn’t dead. Therefore he has a vital spirit. Of course, there are lots of possibilities that don’t involve vital spirits, so the argument is specious. The argument in the OP seems to be different inasmuch as it is committing a different fallacy. It assumes that “intellectual freedom” (free will, I guess) is sufficient for “rationality.” First off, this assumption needs to be defended. The argument seems to be begging the question with this assertion and the rest is just so much window dressing. Do you see how the author is using the assumption that free will is necessary to have rationality, and then uses that assumption to show that if a thought is deterministic, then it must not be rational? She’s just assuming her result, which isn’t rational at all, really, so I guess she has no free will. She needs to show _why_ free will is a necessary condition of rationality. She also needs to show why a rational mind needs to generate an argument for it to be compelling, another error on her part. If a machine proves a theorem, the theorem is proved. It doesn’t sit unproved until a person proves it. All she’s doing is asserting her belief and relying on sophistry to indimidate you into believing it. Don’t let sophists push you around. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Kentzel-Griffin)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2004, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/8 "2004-10-08T23:00:13Z")
Off to Great Debates. **DrMatrix** - GQ Moderator ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/9 "2004-10-09T12:48:18Z")
**js** presents the counter-argument well, as usual. If everything were deterministic, _ie._ determined by prior events, that doesn’t necessitate that everything is determin **able**. Those prior events might have a _random_ element, but that is still external to the “will” and “volition” (whatever _they_ are). “Rationality” is an arbitrary and ambiguous phrase to use when describing the process by which this biological computer outputs decisions based on prior inputs (be they from memory, sensory apparatus or “random” inputs from, say, some Uncertainty in neurotransmitters). We might say that a decision is “rational” if it conforms to some epistemology such as logic. However, the physicalist says that _even those epistemologies_ [supervene on the physical](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/), rather like a microchip’s configurations conforming to the logic of AND and NOR operations. Belief itself can be characterised as a configuration of “ascribing \>50% probability to a linguistic sentence”. None of this impugns the “rationality” of determinism and physicalism as premises. ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/10 "2004-10-09T20:28:42Z")
> [@peterman](#): > > The argument went like this > > 1.) if determinism is true, no one believes anything because they have a good reason for believing it. > > 2.) if no one believes anything because they have a good reason for believing it, no beliefs are rational > > 3.)therefore, if determinism is true, no beliefs are rational, including the belief that determinism is true > Is this sort of argument convincing? Then the argument that the above argument is convincing, is also irrational. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2004, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/11 "2004-10-10T04:12:30Z")
**1.) if determinism is true, no one believes anything because they have a good reason for believing it.** I find this premise to be quite junky. What is “good reason” supposed to mean here? But I can invalidate this premise even without a clarification of that term. For it may be fated that people think what they think, but that does not mean that, in every case, they think something to be true without justification. Suppose we grant that our universe is deterministic. Do the people performing mathematical proofs now appear to be arriving at their conclusions without “good reasons”? The notion is absurd. The invalidation of this premise alone is enough to explode the argument, but let’s take a look at the rest. **2.) if no one believes anything because they have a good reason for believing it, no beliefs are rational.** This premise seems true, since having some sort of “good reason” (i.e., justification) is a necessary condition of rationality. **3.)therefore, if determinism is true, no beliefs are rational, including the belief that determinism is true.** It’s a pretty simple syllogism and appears to be a validating argument. But the ambiguous first premise sinks it. I argued in a recent thread that both “determinism” and “free will” are void concepts. I offer this thought experiment: Universe A is deterministic. Universe B is not. What is the difference between the life of a person living in Universe A and Universe B? The answer is that we can think of no possible difference, as the concept of “determinism” is not developed enough for us to imagine one. On the other hand, if we agree that probabilistic quantum phenomena are sufficient reason to deny that the universe is deterministic (by virtue of the definition of the term “deterministic,” whether or not the implications of this definition have actualy been imagined), then the whole question is moot anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Joe\_Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Random)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2004, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/12 "2004-10-10T04:47:36Z")
**1.) if determinism is true, no one believes anything because they have a good reason for believing it.** Why not? Can’t someone have a good reason for believing something even if it is determined that they _must_ believe it? Also, isn’t believing something because it was determined that you must a good reason in and of itself? **2.) if no one believes anything because they have a good reason for believing it, no beliefs are rational** I won’t dispute that. **3.)therefore, if determinism is true, no beliefs are rational, including the belief that determinism is true** However, a believe need not be rational in order to be _correct_. I may believe that the earth orbits the sun because the static on the TV beamed the thought into my mind. That’s not a rational reason to believe something, but the belief is still correct. **Is this sort of argument convincing?** Not me. ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2004, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/13 "2004-10-10T23:24:09Z")
In recent news, new research [shows](http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041004/full/041004-17.html) that assuming causality and relativity, you can construct an universe like ours. This doesn’t show that the universe has to be deterministic, but it shows that it can be. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/14 "2004-10-11T10:40:57Z")
I’ve thought about this issue a lot, and my conclusion was yes, that argument is a convincing … data point at least, not necessarily _proof_, that determinism is incompatible with rationality. The whole argument rests on the concept of _cause_ - what does it mean when we say we think X “because of” Y? There are two possibilities: cause-effect “because” and ground-consequent “because”. Example of the first: “I like Vegemite because I ate it as a child” : cause-effect - the action of eating Vegemite as a child has produced physical changes in my brain/tasebuds/whatever, meaning that when I eat it, then sensation known as “enjoyment” is present in my conciousness. Example of the second: “I should eat more Vegemite because it’s good for me” : ground-consequence - my belief (“I should eat more Vegemite”) is a _logical consequence_, following the accepted rules of logic, of my initial assumption (“it is good for me”) If everything in the world - including our thoughts and opinions - can be accounted for by cause-effect “because”, then there is _no room_ for ground-consequent “because” … it becomes completely redundant. And if it’s redundant, if it might as well not be there, then, logically speaking, we have to say that it _is not_ there. The theory “there is such a thing as a logical argument” becomes a thery with no predictive power, because every single event in the universe can be accounted for without it, by simply viewing them as the results of non-logical physical processes (atoms knocking into other atoms) So, yeah. Full determinism:rational thought - not in the same universe as each other. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/15 "2004-10-11T11:02:35Z")
> [@](#): > > If everything in the world - including our thoughts and opinions - can be accounted for by cause-effect “because”, then there is no room for ground-consequent “because” … it becomes completely redundant. I disagree. Your experience and education to date configures your brain to what might be described as a series of **if…then…** statements to which it ascribes a \>50% probability of being true. New information, experiences or feedback loops might modify those probabilities. This still does not impugn “full” determinism as a “rational” premise. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/16 "2004-10-11T11:54:05Z")
“Your experience and education” … these are causes, right? Causes that are external to you? Inasmuch as your “experience” changes what you think and believe it changes it _away_ from being based on logical thought. (I’m using “logical” and “rational” here as synonyms … I find the word “logical” to make it clearer) “Logic” should work the same for everybody, otherwise it’s not logic. But “experience” is different for everyone, and different experiences lead to different opinions. So any opinion you have which is based mainly on your personal _experience_ is, to that extent, non-logical. “If-then” loops are a very software-oriented way of looking at the puzzle … I’m looking more at the hardware, myself. If the universe is _completely_ deterministic then, right at the bottom level, all you have are a bunch of atoms banging up against each other. “If-then loops” are a construct that you, as a conscious human entity, have superimposed on something that’s as mechanical as a car gearbox … they don’t exist except as an explanitory construct in your mind. The only reality is those bouncing atoms - and if you can’t find room for “logci” in a description of events at that level of detail, at what level can you find it? All the preceding argument, of course, predicated on the assumption of a totally deterministic universe. Which is not actually an assumption that I hold. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/17 "2004-10-11T12:15:03Z")
> [@](#): > > Inasmuch as your “experience” changes what you think and believe it changes it _away_ from being based on logical thought. Well, we seem to be encountering some confusion over what is a “logical thought” and what is not. I’m afraid I cannot see _any_ decision-making mechanism, _deterministic or not_, which makes a thought _necessarily_ “logical”. I contend that “I should eat more Vegemite because it’s good for me” is **caused** by precisely the same elements as those which caused “I like Vegemite because I ate it as a child”: The former merely incorporates _inductive_ inputs in the decision regarding _future_ output. Indeed, I’m not even sure that “logic” _is_ a relevant epistemology here: logic pertains solely to the _relationship_ between the entities “I”, “Vegemite”, “me in the past”, “me in the future” and the like: it can only tell us about the _logical_ truth of the statements (_ie._, it can only tell us whether the proofs derived therefrom are _valid_, not whether they are _sound_). In order to investigate whether the statement “Vegemite is good for me” is **true** is the domain of **science** , not logic. > [@](#): > > if you can’t find room for “logic” in a description of events at that level of detail, at what level can you find it? Why, a _higher_ one, just as I cannot find room for “snow” or “RAM” in a description at that level of detail, but _can_ when I propose a physical explanation for the weather or the device I am currently using. > [@](#): > > All the preceding argument, of course, predicated on the assumption of a totally deterministic universe. Which is not actually an assumption that I hold. If I may ask, what is your answer to **Aeschines’** question in blue? ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/18 "2004-10-11T13:59:53Z")
> [@peterman](#): > > 1.) if determinism is true, no one believes anything because they have a good reason for believing it. > > 2.) if no one believes anything because they have a good reason for believing it, no beliefs are rational > > 3.)therefore, if determinism is true, no beliefs are rational, including the belief that determinism is true > > Is this sort of argument convincing? It convinced me some time ago, though whether I had any choice in the matter remains to be seen. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/19 "2004-10-12T00:12:30Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > Well, we seem to be encountering some confusion over what is a “logical thought” and what is not. I’m afraid I cannot see _any_ decision-making mechanism, _deterministic or not_, which makes a thought _necessarily_ “logical”. I contend that “I should eat more Vegemite because it’s good for me” is **caused** by precisely the same elements as those which caused “I like Vegemite because I ate it as a child”: The former merely incorporates _inductive_ inputs in the decision regarding _future_ output. Hmmm…if no thought is necessarily logical/rational, that looks to me like you’re agreeing with statement 3 in the OP. How you get there, then, isn’t so important… I agree that it’s difficult to _find_ a mechanism which makes logic “work”. But isn’t that just because the only mechanism we know how to analyse is a causal one? That’s what science does, it analyses cause/effect relationships (Do X and then you get Y). If there is such a thing as rational beliefs, and they depend on something \* other\* than cause-and-effect, then naturally this will be very hard for us to figure out, working from a scientific cause/effect basis > [@](#): > > Indeed, I’m not even sure that “logic” _is_ a relevant epistemology here: logic pertains solely to the _relationship_ between the entities “I”, “Vegemite”, “me in the past”, “me in the future” and the like: it can only tell us about the _logical_ truth of the statements (_ie._, it can only tell us whether the proofs derived therefrom are _valid_, not whether they are _sound_). In order to investigate whether the statement “Vegemite is good for me” is **true** is the domain of **science** , not logic. That’s true in my example, because I tried to choose a nice simple concrete one. In the OPs example we’re much more in the realm of “pure” rational thought, rather than experimentation > [@](#): > > If I may ask, what is your answer to **Aeschines’** question in blue? I believe that in a wholly deterministic universe, while we might still be having this conversation, we wouldn’t necessarily know about it . I don’t believe that consciousness exists in a wholly deterministic universe, because I can find no “room” for it, just as I can find no room for “free will” or rational thought. To put it another way: no differences between those two universes from the POV of an _external_ observer. You can only tell the difference from the inside. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-self-determinism-self-refuting/268243/20 "2004-10-12T09:55:04Z")
> [@](#): > > no thought is necessarily logical/rational, that looks to me like you’re agreeing with statement 3 in the OP. Well then, _how can we tell_ if a thought is “rational”, and _why **can’t** _ such a thought have a _prior cause_? > [@](#): > > If there is such a thing as rational beliefs, and they depend on something other than cause-and-effect, then naturally this will be very hard for us to figure out, working from a scientific cause/effect basis True, but Ockham’s Razor tells us not to multiply entities unnecessarily. If cause/effect _is_ a logically consistent basis for “rational thought”, surely looking elsewhere is akin to looking for angels pushing the planets despite the explanation provided by universal gravitation? > [@](#): > > In the OPs example we’re much more in the realm of “pure” rational thought, rather than experimentation But experiments are _all we have_. I ask again, how is this “pure rational thought” distinguished from thoughts originating from prior causes? > [@](#): > > I believe that in a wholly deterministic universe, while we might still be having this conversation, we wouldn’t necessarily know about it . > I don’t believe that consciousness exists in a wholly deterministic universe, because I can find no “room” for it, just as I can find no room for “free will” or rational thought. Is that not simply because these terms are to some extent _illusions_ brought about by sensory input being sorted into different levels of memory, moderated by chemical emotion, thus providing a vast array of inputs to an incredibly complex decision process? I agree that not _all_ aspects of consciousness can yet be explained, but the same can be said of the weather and even some computational phenomena, and we don’t seek “other” explanations for _those_.