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The weakness of the perfect determinism model is nothing would ever happen if it were true. The leap to bacteria to mitochondrion to humans was not pre-determin

The weakness of the perfect determinism model is nothing would ever happen if it were true. The leap to bacteria to mitochondrion to humans was not pre-determined, randomness is part of the equation. I could buy that will isn't free in an absolute sense, but neither is it entirely deterministic. The question is whether the confounding factor for the latter has anything to do with the individual, but you can't divorce it from nature. There's no meaningful difference between "you chose x" and "your brain chose x". There's also a socio-cultural reason I dislike pure determinism which is that it's used as bludgeon to absolve one of responsibility, justify inaction, bad behavior, or Socialism.

scott_w 4y ago
While I don't think the universe is deterministic, the existence of evolution isn't proof of this. It's possible that what we perceive as "randomness" is actually just the result of variables and things happening that we're not able to perceive. Take rolling a dice: which number comes up is determined by the starting conditions, the force you throw it with, what it lands on and any external forces acting during the throw. It's not random at all, just hard to predict.
- slothtrop 4y ago
  Well you can't conflate the banality of rolling dice with evolution. Based on what I've read, randomness has been a necessity for it's fruition, but of course this isn't my field.
  - scott_w 4y ago
    My point was we call both “random” but, when you think deeply about it, you know that rolling a dice isn’t really random, we just can’t reliably predict the outcome. There’s no reason the “random chance” in evolution is any different. It can just contain a million times more complexity in its determinism. To prove determinism one way or another, we need to prove the fundamental building blocks of the universe are deterministic (or not).

scott_w 4y ago

While I don't think the universe is deterministic, the existence of evolution isn't proof of this. It's possible that what we perceive as "randomness" is actually just the result of variables and things happening that we're not able to perceive. Take rolling a dice: which number comes up is determined by the starting conditions, the force you throw it with, what it lands on and any external forces acting during the throw. It's not random at all, just hard to predict.

slothtrop 4y ago
Well you can't conflate the banality of rolling dice with evolution. Based on what I've read, randomness has been a necessity for it's fruition, but of course this isn't my field.
- scott_w 4y ago
  My point was we call both “random” but, when you think deeply about it, you know that rolling a dice isn’t really random, we just can’t reliably predict the outcome. There’s no reason the “random chance” in evolution is any different. It can just contain a million times more complexity in its determinism. To prove determinism one way or another, we need to prove the fundamental building blocks of the universe are deterministic (or not).