Once again I’ve been having a “debate” with someone who is asserting that determinism and knowledge are incompatible. And once again I’ve been pointing out that all determinism means is that every event is causal, and that causality is actually a requirement for consistent and coherent thought and knowledge obtainment.
Most people who argue against determinism based on the thinking that people wouldn’t be able to think, learn, and obtain knowledge, never really seem to think deeply enough about what it takes to obtain these things.
In my book I thoroughly go over acausal events (events without a cause) as well as what they imply. And make no mistake about it, rejecting determinism is no different than saying “some events don’t have a cause” (which I have no problem with such being considered “possible” by the way). The problem is that many don’t recognize this. They seem to think there is some middle ground between an event having causes and an event not having causes. Perhaps such is based on a misunderstanding about quantum mechanics (where terms such as “probability wave” causes confusions). Or perhaps they have misunderstandings about what the word “determinism” means. Or perhaps they’ve just never given much thought about the fact that X having a cause and X not having a cause are in opposition. That means if one is false, the other is true, and vice versa. Continue reading »
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