What is Determinism?

No Room to Move

Most profoundly your current present awareness and thoughts are determined. Your environment and your stream of conscious thinking appear without you doing anything. Thinking does change, but thinking cannot change thinking. The environment and the world do change but you cannot change the world or environment. Your actions and physical interactions with the world or environment are determined. The whole scene is determined. It's the determined interacting with the determined, in a determined way. There is no freedom or room to move, but the feeling that there is, is also determined. You can be determined to feel as free as a bird, to do anything you want, but you will only do what is determined, because all matter is determined, and there is only physical matter in the universe. The one concept to grasp is that in our universe, determined particle behaviour has been the physical law from the beginning until now. Physical law determines everything.

First

First you need to understand and accept evolution by natural selection, and the mechanical nature of life and matter.

Then you need to realize the brain/mind evolved and operates in the same physical way.

Then see that everything in the universe is also behaving in the same way - totally determined by previous circumstances.

The ramifications are:

Everything is determined.

Your thoughts are determined.

Your actions are determined. 

Your environment is determined including other people, conversations and the weather.

Also the Mind

It's easy enough to believe and understand that the body and all bodies have been built by evolution and natural selection, but the hurdle for humans is to get the idea that the mind has been built by the same process. Especially when the thing that is thinking ( as me) has to realize that it itself is the product of evolution . And especially when that product has evolved and been selected to believe it is creative, subjective, able to freely ponder, make choices and have an effect on the material world, not just be a product of it. The mind feels and believes it has those qualities, but it doesn't. 

Determinism, Predeterminism, Fatalism

Determinism is true, even though we can't work out what will happen in the future. It's too complicated. And if determinism is true then so is predeterminism because that is simply determinism operating in the future. Predeterminism is our belief that cause and effect will continue to occur as it always has.

Fatalism is much the same as predeterminism but sounds more negative and restrictive to humans. 

If everything is determined we can say it makes no difference because we ourselves don't know what has been determined, and we are free to feel we make choices.

If we call it fatalism it suggests we are bound to a path of (usually negative) consequences and even if we struggle to avoid them, they will still overpower us.

Yet fatalism simply means what will be will be, and all fundamental particles agree with that.

Our appearance and enjoyment of freedom is in not knowing what is fated.

Consequences of Determinism

Philosophers, and even scientists so often talk about determinism in terms of right and wrong and reward and punishment and moral responsibility, as if that is the most important aspect.

But what about even more dramatic consequences. What about determinism in terms of your next action, or your next thought, or in terms of this thought you are thinking now.

You ponder the effects of determinism as if it they aren't affecting you now.

Unfolding Perfectly

The hard determinists put up a good fight, but it's still an unpopular truth. Great efforts are made by brilliant minds. But those brilliant minds forget that they themselves and other opposing minds are also determined, and that in the end, everything is equal and equally determined so that nothing needs to be done or said, or even realized because any realizing or not realizing is also totally determined. 

All is already unfolding perfectly before any improvements can be made. You can't improve on determinism

Blame, Hate and Fighting

Determinists suggest that once "no free will" catches on people will not blame each other anymore and will solve differences peacefully.

However, the truth is, "no free will" and determinism have always been the case. So blame, hate and fighting have always been determined.

If people do move to an understanding of determinism and no free will it probably would lead to less blame and hate but that would also have to be determined.

We are all puppets and our strings are being pulled all the time, every time. When we do suggest a better way or when we say "don't  bother" that's what has already been determined.

You can't break the laws of the universe.

Determined to Know

It has to be decided, or thought out, or discovered by evidence whether determinism is true.

If determinism is true then everything that has happened or evolved, or been thought about has occurred for no reason other than due to the laws of nature. At no point has any supernatural force or self directed, subjective mind taken control of, and changed any aspect of the world. Everything that has happened has been the result of what came before.

There is only cause and effect. What exists now is the effect of the previous cause. Going all the way back to the one original cause.

The easy bit is to understand how cells, bodies and brains evolved to produce the variety of creatures and plants that have existed over time. The short answer is self copying molecules becoming DNA becoming plants and animals by the process of natural selection and the hard bit to understand is how consciousness and particularly subjective consciousness came into being with its ability to communicate with others, think thoughts, produce artifacts and discover the laws of nature governing itself and the rest of the universe. The answer is that that also happened due to evolution of the material organism via the process of natural selection.

Pulling Back

There is a change of perception which can occur during the day. A pulling back and seeing the world as a flow of interacting objects and events.

Humans can be seen silently, automatically interacting with objects, machines and each other. A silent movie. This aware detachment can come and go, and can be invited and encouraged as the knowledge I'm seeking.

You couldn't even begin to ask how that action could be determined. But it must be. 

Blame and Forgiveness

After the realisation of determinism you might get on with your life quietly. Determinism allows forgiveness for all actions and all people as everything was determined. Yet how is this reconciled with horrors like slavery, torture, child sex trafficking etc.

It doesn't mean pick one or the other approaches, ie blame or forgiveness. It means pick both, somehow. Yet no!!! it doesn't mean that. It means (determinism means) that every thought, loving or hateful, every action, wonderful or horrific, every single event in the universe is determined, already.

Determinism is it!

Determinism is it!

Once you realize that, it’s over. You know that your very next thought and action are determined. 

It’s over before you can begin to ponder and think it over, or discuss it or write about it.

Those things, like pondering, do happen, but not because your subjective free will is exploring at your command. It’s because your thinking and pondering and writing are determined, exactly as they appear.

Particles, molecules, bodies and brains always were determined, and nothing other than the laws of physics ever influenced the process. Nothing else came about or stepped in to take over control of any of the interactions in the universe. Even evolution is not an independent process, it is simply the result of how particles behave in the natural world. Natural selection is a molecular process

Determinism is all you need for this universe to exist as it is.

An interesting fantasy

Determinism can be described as things happening for a reason. Physics, biology, and evolution are determinism.

The brain is determinism.

It's not so much that everything is determined, it's more that determinism is everything. 

Determinism comes first. If you're going to explore the laws of the universe and the meaning of life, even that exploration is already what is determined.

The problem arises when the mind thinks it has room to move, to make changes and to think for itself, and to influence the future.

It does do these things but only in the way that has been determined at the beginning of time and thus in the present moment.

The mind’s mistaken belief that it chooses freely and makes decisions and acts autonomously is also totally determined by the laws of physics. 

The mind’s illusion of choosing and doing is what makes life so interesting.

It's an interesting fantasy but our programming makes us determined to believe it.

Right or Wrong - the Same Determinism

Scientists and philosophers talk about determinism and evolution, and mind being matter and no free will or free thoughts, but when you read or listen to them talking they all just talk like everyone else - as though they are individual entities with desires, preferences, prejudices, contradictions, and free will. That's because they are living life through their own illusory selves. An educated, self-aware, truth promoting self is still just a self.    

 It wants to understand the true meaning of life as well as wanting to marry and have children. Any talking about determinism is tainted with their own preference for their own stance. It is a stab at selflessness by a self. In actual fact (says me) the uneducated wrong way of viewing life and the universe, is determined by the same determinism that determines the true and right view. As soon as anyone opens their mouth they are the determined expression of the universe full stop, without right or wrong!

Determined to Enjoy (or not)    

In describing life and human beings, including how the body and brain function, there is a huge amount of detail. The chemical reactions, evolution, embryology, nervous system, cultural development and behaviour to name a few.

These areas of knowledge are usually explored and described in compartmentalised fields. Neuroscience for example, or DNA coding, or  mating rituals of butterflies.

Mankind builds up a jigsaw puzzle of information that can fit together to give a true picture of the universe. This picture is very precise and extremely convincing. Nothing else compares, and nothing supernatural is required.

Life and the universe are revealed to be a logical process of physical and biochemical reactions that can be discovered and interpreted by science.

Another approach, or a complementary approach is to ask - “ are the behaviors of particles in the universe determined? Does cause and effect apply? Is every current event caused by the chain of previous events?

Science says yes! The particles and thus the universe are determined by physical laws. This means that everything is determined. It's a shortcut to the physical and philosophical truth about the universe.

There is no known way of describing the movement of uncountable particles even though they are determined, but the fact that they are determined reveals what is going on. This sentence is determined, this thought is determined, it's not me choosing or creating but determined events occurring. My feeling I have free will to choose is also determined.

 I may want to look into this further to see where it leads and what Insights I may gain - but that would also be determined. Once it's realised determinism is true, then it's realized that determination always was true. Determinism came first and has always existed.We are the results of determinism.

Our wonderful Illusion of freedom is the work of determinism and we are determined to enjoy ourselves (or not), in the illusion of free will and choice.

Just Look Around

If you want to know what a determined world would look like - just look around.

This is it!

Instantly!

Instantly, in this moment, when you begin to think about determinism, it whips everything out from under you.

To think determinism is to think, ‘I am determined. I have no ability to think anything except determined thoughts.’ And even that thought, or any other ‘wrong’ thought, you may have, is totally  100% determined to be, and totally perfect.

How can I be freely pondering the workings of existence like I think I am?

This Thought is Perfect

You can be going about your daily business in a focused and energetic way and the thought can arise: “What am I really doing this for? What am I? What is existence?”

Having already discovered determinism, you can immediately shift to: “Perfect, this thought is also determined.” You can shift to that. You may not but you can. “This thought is perfect.”

Anything and everything that happens with or without your approval can now come under the umbrella of determinism. It’s all determined. What you are doing? What you are thinking? Your own resistance or acceptance of what you are doing or thinking. All of that is determined.

You can’t step back at all to get an objective view or a different perspective. That itself would also need to be determined in order to happen.

Determinism masquerading as subjective free will is what’s always happening.

Ping Pong Balls

Given determinism , and given our feelings of free will, and given the seemingly successful acquirement of knowledge and the vast network of communication between people. How do determinism and these other qualities of life fit together?

Determinism simply says that particles, like ping pong balls, bounce around obeying the physical rules of the universe, but have no purpose nor abilities to influence their environment.

This means that what appears to be a vast, free and meaningful society of people is really a robot world that came together automatically.

The communication between people, looking so personal and spontaneously produced, is actually a complicated result of material particles having undergone a long process of evolved development.

The feelings of subjective awareness of a human being are the same.

Helpless Robots

Doing the work, reading the science and philosophy, and deeply considering everything. Doing all that, you realise that the real mechanism behind life (on the one hand), and the resultant human pursuits and beliefs (on the other), are nowhere near each other. Life appears to be one thing to us, but it is an entirely fifferent thing in truth.

We experience life in terms of feelings, relationships, desires,and fears and even beliefs  about scientific theories of what we are and why we are here. And even though science proves determinism and disproves free will, we live in a totally illusory existence dominated by human focussed prejudices, created by evolutionary adaptation.

We are determined to do this, even though false. It is so engrained in us that we can't see it. We are helpless robots doing exactly as directed.

Only Now!

Everything exists and happens only now! The present moment with it's inherent human awareness is all there ever is.

Seen as a universe, the whole gigantic thing is unfolding only now, with awareness being part of it.

From a galaxy to a thought, it's the same thing.

The same physical laws apply, and what causes a supernova to explode is what causes me to think.

It's physical particles obeying physical laws.

Question and Answer

Particles are determined, so thoughts are determined. Language is determined, and enquiry and discussion must also be determined. Question and answer must be determined.

When you imagine or observe a discussion between two  people, you take it that each person hears the other, then thinks and formulates a relevant reply. But if conversation is determined then the statement heard must trigger the determined response, which triggers the following determined response, and so on. There does not seem to be any room in this for discovery, or collaboration or advancing scientific research. Or any genuine personal communication at all. Not even continuation of a personal train of thought.

Yet the world is buzzing with information sharing and social chatter and collaborative research and education.

In what form does this operate given a determined world? 

It had to Happen

You can live a very successful life without an enquiring mind, without finding out what you really are, or without searching for the truth of things.

The physical laws of the universe and evolution have no requirement that you understand anything. Reproduction is the only currency that the evolution of life values, and even then that "reproductive goal" is not held by mother nature. Everything is achieved without it being known  or planned by anything separate.

Life, consciousness and your subjective experience have evolved as genetic adaptations leading to greater fitness and increased reproduction, in a blind determined process.

This is not a plan or a design, but simply a result of the physical laws of matter. You and I are a result of things, not a cause and life is not a miracle. It is compulsory given the conditions.

It had to happen, and it could have happened no other way. Not one feather or molecule is out of place.

Every particle is obeying its fundamental laws, ending up in strange conglomerations that believe they think and choose according to their own free will.

Self-Refuting

Yes, the scientific philosophy known as "determinism" is self-refuting. It agrees that the person arguing for determinism believes it, not because of a free will choice, but because their belief was determined.

Determinism ultimately refutes the idea that minds are choosing their arguments or discussing with or influencing each other.

All communication is input/output and automatic, not spontaneous as it appears or feels. This feeling and appearance of spontaneity is good because we can carry on with our "free will" lives. But in truth all is determined and something else entirely is going on.

Even language, communication, and thought must be some sort of randomly evolved system that may bear little resemblance to any sort of truth or foundation of meaning. But we are all determined to do it, and feel we know what we're doing.

What basis in truth does my thought process have? Or my belief in your thought process. Or human thought processes as a whole. Which means all human (homo sapiens) communication. How different to other primate communication is it in terms of expressing truths.  Even in the scientific field.

What can you do?

The very next word or thought or sound is totally determined. So what can you do?

You can carry on searching - if that and only if that's what’s determined, or you can give up for now, or forever because there appears to be no point, but only if giving up is what’s determined.

Weighing things up, arguing for or against, searching, or giving up the search, are all determined. As is your choice of believing that or not.

All is determined before your next move - so there is no  move for you to make. It is already made for you.

You thinking and feeling that you are involved and making choices is also determined so you can't let go of that either.

Logically you can't carry on, and you can't give up.  The you (the me) is caught in it’s illusion. There's nothing to do or say that makes sense. Yet this thinking, writing, searching is happening in a way that feels subjective and personally satisfying so I’m happy to go with the illusion. How could I not be?

Already the Case

Determinism is already the case.

There is no need to adjust to a belief in a determined world. Any adjustment is already determined. You might be determined to believe in reincarnation next week.

A determined world is simply a world that moves according to the laws of nature. It is this world.

When you discover that the world is actually determined, that discovery  itself is determined. If all is determined, everything has to be as it is. There is no right or wrong except as determined in human judgments, and they are also determined judgments. 

The Whole Thing

Say a human person is determined by physical laws. And the person is talking to a friend while drinking a wine.

It seems that the visual scene and their actions and the meanings of their conversation are the important things to consider as being determined. But what about each breath, each pump of the heart, each blink of an eyelid and each photon revealing the color of the wine. You can't possibly take it bit by bit. You have to bite the bullet and visualise the whole scene, the whole room, the country, and the whole universe moving in continuous lock step with itself. every moment.

The Continuous Chain

The beginning and the end of the whole thing is that all physical matter and energy are determined by physical laws. Anything that exists in our universe is determined. Nothing has free movement or free will

No particles can withdraw from the continuous chain of cause and effect to make their own rules or have their own power.

Everything we see about us is the result of past events, one before the other, going back to the beginning of time.

Our own bodies, brains and minds, have a similar history and thus no free will of their own. 

Anything said or thought, or philosophised or discovered, are also determined in the same way.

So there is no need to go any further than to understand that all the things that make up the universe and ourselves are determined. The trick is to understand the workings of that one principle.

The trick is to understand that deeply. To override our instinctive habit of experiencing a world of free world and choice.

It's irrelevant of course whether we do or don't understand that, because all understanding is still determined in a determined universe.

This is where you have to do some deep thinking if you're lucky enough. “Is it possible?” you may ask. 

Is determinism so self-refuting that I can't even begin to think about it, or the consequences? Do I give up before I start?

That will also be determined.

It’s Omnipotent

Determinism is about more than just your decision to have chocolate or vanilla being determined.

It’s about each wavering thought in deciding being determined.

It’s about your lip and tongue movements asking for the icecream being determined.

And it’s you reaching out to receive it with your left hand being determined.

And all that as each determined heartbeat pumps your blood to the determined contractions of your muscle cells.

While around you every molecule of air or wood or glass is moving or staying still, exactly as determined.

Determinism is omnipresent, omnipotent and all powerful.

Yet it’s just this, because it has no competition.

Living Determinism

Just because you can’t live determinism and feel determinism doesn’t mean it’s not true. In fact you do live and feel determinism because it is true.

Determinism causes you to have the feeling of free will and self autonomy, which is determined by evolution, which in turn is determined by chemical reactions which are determined by physical particle behaviour.

Determinism (the law of nature) has created the overwhelming feeling of free will and illusion of subjective experience and introspection.

Longest and Shortest

The long and difficult path: 

Big bang

Particles

Expanding universe

Atoms

Elements

Molecules

Life

Nervous systems

Brains

Language

Thought

Subjective awareness

Writing 

Information

Scientific discoveries

Artifacts

Philosophies

The shortest and most devastating path:

Particles + physical laws = everything as it is (always)

Beating Round the Bush

You can read scientists and philosophers, study the cosmos, delve into free-will compatibilism and hard determinism, but once you have determinism, it turns out everything is determined. You are beating round the bush.

Every subatomic movement and every thought and decision and even every attempt to understand are already decided.

The secret would be to know how particles arrive at making music, and hold that understanding while experiencing life.

What’s the Point?

With determinism, everything is determined, so I could say:

 “Well, if everything is determined I won’t even bother to do what I want or what I decide because it’s all determined.”

But this thought , and this approach too, are also determined. So if I say anything at all, it’s already not a choice. And if I sit down and refuse to do anything because it’s all determined, then that too is determined. It was not an idea or action chosen by me.

So then, what's the point of writing about it if it’s already determined and not a genuine search into the philosophy of determinism?

The point is, that the writing and the search are determined already and nothing is up for negotiation.

So if that’s the case then what do I do? What will I do? And the answer is that you do exactly what you do because that’s what has been determined. And whether you are enjoying what you do or not enjoying it is also determined.

100% it

Every little daily detail is a continuation of what happened yesterday, or one second ago.

Every cause of tomorrow is a result of yesterday and “now” is the timeless transition we experience as life. 

Not a single thing can deviate from this unfolding truth. Not even doubts, confusion or disbelief. The unfolding truth occurs exactly as it does, all the time.

Even if you say “no, that can’t be it” or “yes, I can see that’s it now, that’s 100% it by just being, just happening.

The Initial Movement

No matter what complicated 

Worldly social event

You are attending

Your life at any moment

Can be explained

Totally

By chemistry

By physics 

By the initial movement

Of the

Big Bang

Chain of Cause and Effect

Not only are all actions and events in the world determined, but also all reactions and responses to those events.

It's one long continuous cause and effect chain of happenings. The original cause was at the beginning of time and the present cause is the state of the universe now in this moment.

Why Anger or Praise?

To live determinism is to live as though emotions are an illusion.

It's true, emotions are an illusion, but we are programmed to believe in them and be motivated by them, and that's the only way we can live. 

Anger - Why would you be angry at someone you knew could not help doing what they did?

Praise - Why praise someone whose actions were not chosen, but determined?

Hope - how can you hope for a good outcome when the outcome is determined?

You do live by the above emotions and others, and you might think they are not warranted in the grand scheme of things. But you have no choice.

Whatever you experience is determined. Even your decision to rise above praise and blame, or not. Or even to try.