Is Fatalism Worse or Equal to Religion?

[Lestat]

Anyone else think fatalism is an incredibly dangerous philosophy? I think it's dangerous (and pathetic), on so many levels.

Is this related to religion? Otherwise, if not God, what exactly is predeterming fate? What makes everything inevitable?

Until KathleenStand's post, It never dawned on me there are people in this world who take fatalism so literally. I can't imagine what it must be like to wake up every day thinking you have no control over what you do. Nothing matters. Everything's inevitable. Such a dangerous philosophy. Such a pathetic predicament. This is by far the most depressing viewpoint I've yet to read on SMP.

[hmkpoker]

KathleenStand is the first person I've ever seen describe her beliefs as "fatalistic" before "deterministic." I consider myself a determinist, but in no way do I find it depressing, hopeless, or nihilistic. I am not in any way exempt from responsibility...the whole purpose of responsibility is that it rewards the person for being responsible (albeit in an often indirect fashion), and I don't worry that everything I do was pre-determined. The illusion of free will exists regardless, and it can't be shaken, so why worry about it?

In fact, I find determinism empowering; one with the capability of realizing the nature of causality gains a tremendous level of influence over his environment and can shape it according to his will.

Kathleen is a terrible example of a determinist; please don't let her whining speak for the rest of us.

[Lestat]

Hopefully, you'll have some patience for my ignnorance on this subject. I have no problem with future events being a byproduct of antecedent events. In fact, this makes perfect sense to me. But...

Are you saying that all is predetermined? Now THAT is something I can't seem to get my mind around. I guess what we're really talking about is free will here. Can you elaborate a little further on deterministic philosophy?

If I contend I can do something I don't want to do, will you contend it was inevitable I was going to do that anyway? And if I say, "AHA! I will now do what I intended to do in the first place", will you say, "See? I told you so!".

This becomes very much like the same circular reasoning used by theists. Free will can never be proven, because all one has to do is say, every event and human action was inevitable after the fact. I'm not sure this is your view, but I have problems anytime circular reasoning needs to be deployed.

[hmkpoker]

It's simpler than that.

I think that to say things are "pre-determined" is misleading. I don't believe any conscious force (at least, nothing that would be comparable to our mind) created the world with the intent of me ending up here at my computer drinking a Dr. Pepper. Determinism is just a simple acknowledgement of causes and effects, and that although our conscious will is a major cause of many things, the desires, emotions and mechanics of it have causal roots.

Regardless, we can't predict what's going to happen perfectly. We just can't. We don't have the tools, and we probably never will. In fact, quantum physics makes an argument for chaos (I don't quite understand it, but I'm open to the possibility), so perfect prediction may be impossible even in theory.

Life is a lot like reading a book, imho. The ending may already be determined, but you don't know what it is, so what difference does it make? It's still packed with excitement and intrigue just the same.

I've just studied too much about psychology to believe that the interplay between neuron networks are somehow governed by a magical "force" that is somehow exempt from causality, and functions in a manner that is neither deterministic nor completely random. The existing model provides excellent reason to believe that the conscious result of the brain's deterministic function would create an effective, thinking ego that believes it to be exempt from causality. I see no reason to believe otherwise, and I see no reason why determinism should get someone down.

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I think that to say things are "pre-determined" is misleading. I don't believe any conscious force (at least, nothing that would be comparable to our mind) created the world with the intent of me ending up here at my computer drinking a Dr. Pepper. Determinism is just a simple acknowledgement of causes and effects, and that although our conscious will is a major cause of many things, the desires, emotions and mechanics of it have causal roots.


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I think this is a total mischaracterization of determinism. What would be the point of a philosophy that solely claims that there are causes and effects in the world? Is there a single legitimate viewpoint that disputes that there are causes and effects?

The very crux of determinism is that everything in the universe is predetermined. As my dear friends at Wikipedia put it:

Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. No mysterious miracles or wholly random events occur. If there has been even one indeterministic event since the beginning of time, then determinism is false.

[hmkpoker]

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Is there a single legitimate viewpoint that disputes that there are causes and effects?

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Well, if you consider the belief in free will legitimate...

The fact that everything is inevitable doesn't mean that you have no control over what you do. That's a common but blatant fallacy. Your control over what you do can be described in deterministic terms. How is that dangerous?

[peritonlogon]

This is one of the few fundamental philosophical discussions that science has actually had an impact on. Quantum Mechanics shows that events can be completly governed by cause and effect and still not be determined or determinable.

[Lestat]

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This is one of the few fundamental philosophical discussions that science has actually had an impact on. Quantum Mechanics shows that events can be completly governed by cause and effect and still not be determined or determinable.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hurray for science! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
Hopefully, you'll have some patience for my ignnorance on this subject. I have no problem with future events being a byproduct of antecedent events. In fact, this makes perfect sense to me. But...

Are you saying that all is predetermined? Now THAT is something I can't seem to get my mind around. I guess what we're really talking about is free will here. Can you elaborate a little further on deterministic philosophy?

If I contend I can do something I don't want to do, will you contend it was inevitable I was going to do that anyway? And if I say, "AHA! I will now do what I intended to do in the first place", will you say, "See? I told you so!".

This becomes very much like the same circular reasoning used by theists. Free will can never be proven, because all one has to do is say, every event and human action was inevitable after the fact. I'm not sure this is your view, but I have problems anytime circular reasoning needs to be deployed.

[/ QUOTE ]

When I was in college, my philosophy professor provided the following analogy to explain determinism: Suppose you have a pool table set up in the manner necessary for a traditonal game of 8-ball. The appropriate player strikes the cue ball for the break. If you were able to measure with 100% accuracy every force involved in this system(the force of the strike, friction of the felt, resiliency of the table endges, friction from air, etc.) you could theoretically predict the exact location of every ball after the break. This is because the laws of physics are immutable and they govern where the balls go, depending on all of the other factors. Furthermore, even if you can't measure everything accurately enough to predict the outcome, there should be no doubt that the final outcome was the only possible one after the cue ball was struck, because everything else is just the resulting chain of events that are governed by unchanging physical laws.

Determinism would then argue that the physical world in general behaves in the same way. Starting at the big bang, clearly there were forces and physical particles interacting. These interactions were governed by the laws of physics. And they kept on interacting according to immutable laws until they got to the present state of the universe.

As it applies to free will, a determinist would argue that your brain governs your actions and decisions. But your brain, while highly complex, is still made up of physical components. Those components, like any others, have to obey the laws of physics. Thus, there is no room for an individual to have free will.

There is some research in quantum mechanics that seems to debunk determinism pretty convincingly. I don't understand the field with any significant depth, but apparently their studies show that subatomic particles can behave in genuinely random ways. And if anything in the universe can be shown to be genuinely random, then determinism cannot be true. However, even assuming that this is true, it doesn't really affect the argument against free will. It may suggest the possibility that your actions are not predetermined, but are in part genuinely random. I doubt that anyone would find much solace in that, though.