The Determinist Fallacy
Normally when someone uses the phrase “Determinist Fallacy” they mean “Retrospective Determinism”, it is also known as the Determination Fallacy (but as Determinism is an ism the fallacy is one held by those who believe in that ism, and thus we use Determinist)
In our case we mean the form of determinism describable as “all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable” this idea may still be found among some people, or lingering on in various parts of the culture due to the memes that relate to that philosophy lingering on.
It was a philosophical stance that flourished in the late 19th century America well into the 20th century.
This expression of Determinism can be seen in such works as Mark Twain’s What is Man
quote 1 — Man is a machine
Man the machine — man the impersonal engine. Whatsoever a man is, is due to his MAKE, and to the INFLUENCES brought to bear upon it by his heredities, his habitat, his associations. He is moved, directed, COMMANDED, by EXTERIOR influences — SOLELY. He ORIGINATES nothing, not even a thought.
quote 2 — any thought in human mind is result of process from without
PERSONALLY you did not create even the smallest microscopic fragment of the materials out of which your opinion is made; and personally you cannot claim even the slender merit of PUTTING THE BORROWED MATERIALS TOGETHER. That was done AUTOMATICALLY — by your mental machinery, in strict accordance with the law of that machinery’s construction. And you not only did not make that machinery yourself, but you have NOT EVEN ANY COMMAND OVER IT.
The inevitability of determinism suggests that when a coin is flipped the outcome of that flip is actually inevitable and would be knowable if all the various mathematical factors that went into the coin flip could be calculated, wind speed, force of the finger that flipped the coin, weight of the coin and any deformities it might have, distance to ground, how it bounces and so on and so forth.
OK, preliminary argument step 1 is completed. Second step — retrospective determinism as a fallacy, coined by Henri Bergson. I will quote from Wikipedia
When he declared himself dictator of the Roman Republic, Julius Caesar was bound to be assassinated.
Were this an argument, it would give no rational grounds on which to conclude that Caesar’s assassination was the only possible outcome, or even the most likely outcome under the circumstances.
If determinism were correct while becoming dictator of the Roman Republic might not have been sufficient to have him assassinated, or that he might have been assassinated for other reasons it would nonetheless be a requirement that Caesar’s assassination was the only possible outcome of some unknowably vast collection of variables because the definition of Determinism is “all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable”
In some level Caesar’s assassination was the only possible outcome according to Determinism.
it was not only bound to happen, but will in fact always happen given those circumstances. For example:
Caesar was assassinated when he declared himself dictator. Sic semper tyrannis: this goes to show that all dictators will eventually be assassinated.
Not only is this irrational, it is factually false.
According to determinism as every outcome is inevitable there is some number of combined causes that will be enough to always cause the result — but this means that Retrospective Determinism can only be a fallacy from the point that Determinism says everything is inevitable from a certain set of inputs, but not that the same result could not happen from a different set of inputs.
But Determinism has various other problems that limit its utility as a tool of thought.
Determinism says that results are inevitable, but it does not say what number of causes are needed to get these inevitable results. Given that becoming a dictator does not always lead to one being assassinated it would seem that there needs to be more inputs than that to result in Caesar’s death, as discussed before. But we do not know what inputs are needed, in any discussion of human results such as Twain’s What is Man whenever any comment is made regarding some number of inputs not being enough to make some result inevitable the Determinist takes a step back and assumes that there were some prior or other inputs that made the result inevitable. There is no end to how far back or how many inputs can be added as it seems every event that has ever happened in existence can be brought in to define the inevitable and unchangeable deterministic machine that is the universe.
It is similar to the common arguments for the existence of God that try to make room for science, how did humans get created, well they evolved from earlier primates, where did the primates come from, well they evolved from lower mammals… etc. etc. etc. and where did the fish come, well they evolved from lower life forms… etc. etc. and where did the first life come from, chemical interactions and so on and so forth all the way back to the big bang and before the big bang — we don’t know? Oh well that is where God comes in then.
Determinism when it gets assigned an argument against it just jumps further back in time and gathers up more causes from the infinite array of causes available to them and never allows for a method of disproving its theory.
That there is no possible way to disprove an argument should always make that argument suspect. It suggests the argument has been constructed unfairly.
As this is very similar to the arguments for God that are never disproved, at least to the believers of God, I can’t help but feel the popularity of Determinism among educated peoples in the late 19th — early 20th century was due their youthful indoctrination in one unprovable answer to everything, as it probably was attractive to replace a single universal explanation that did not bare logical analysis with another explanation possessing the same attributes, but ruefully I must admit I cannot prove this feeling on my part is true.
Another issue that counts against Determinism is that, in its quasi-scientific and quasi- mathematical lingo it assumes some supreme computer going over all the variables applying from the beginning of the universe to the present day and proving by calculating all those variables together that your cat is going to be run over by a yellow taxi that day, and you will choke on some toast.
The rhetoric of Determinism is that the universe is calculable and inevitable, but with all its bowing to math without providing any real math to back its claims, there is no way of handling either Gödelian paradoxes or randomization.
That is to say the theories of Math which Determinism likes to imply would support its case allow or paradox and random values. But Determinism does not allow for random values because it implies every value is determinable and inevitable. And Determinism does not allow for paradoxes because everything is perfectly calculable and knowable.
In conclusion Determinism is a land of contrasts, on the one hand it has no mathematical support but likes to imply it does, on the other hand it likes to look smart and scientific, but on yet the other hand it looks like a zealot who must always bring more arguments to the fight and keep going forever.
Determinism sure has a lot of hands, and all of them are empty.
