The argument against determinism
Hello Rabbi,
In the book The Science of Freedom, you wrote that determinism cuts off the branch on which it sits: if there is deterministic causality for our cognition as well, then it does not necessarily reflect the truth, and thus this conclusion itself is not necessarily true.
And I didn’t understand: Even according to the libertarian method, how come the conclusions of reason reflect the true reality? But, a rational discussion deals with what is within the limits of reason, and not what is beyond it. So also with regard to determinism, it doesn’t matter what the “correct” reality is, in a discussion conducted through reason, only what reason forces is relevant, and as long as reason deduces the deterministic position, there will be no problem with that (I will emphasize that despite the somewhat decisive tone in the last lines, I am writing them only as a question)
I would appreciate the Rabbi’s response.
With thanks
The concept of discretion includes reflection. The claim is that our mind is not a closed-system computer, but rather has the ability to consider whether it is itself right (a person can understand that he or she was wrong or not. A computer cannot). You can of course doubt the existence of this ability, but this is the libertarian’s assumption. For the determinist, this is not just an assumption, but there is no other possibility.
The questioner could not post his response, so here it is:
I did not quite understand the Rabbi's answer, does the Rabbi mean that the intellect's ability to consider whether it itself is right (in the libertarian picture) guarantees that it will truly be right?
This is the opportunity to thank you for the wonderful book (Sciences of Freedom) that I have been captivated by for several days.
My response:
It does not guarantee that I am right but rather makes it possible. Assuming that there is reflection, it is possible to trust the system. In a deterministic framework, there is no such logical possibility.
Why can't a deterministic system recognize that it is wrong? In principle, it is possible to create a completely deterministic computer program that can recognize its own mistakes through feedback of all kinds, such as comparison with data from other sources, etc.
First, such a system does not reveal that it is wrong. It simply does another calculation. A computer does not reveal anything and is neither wrong nor right. It simply calculates. The person who sees it understands whether he is wrong or right, and understands that he is now discovering or correcting errors. Beyond that, the error detection system was introduced to it by the person using it. The computer does not discover errors. And finally, the error detection system itself is part of the computer. The question is whether it can discover that all of this is an error (for example, that there is an error in the error detection system).
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