Why Determinism could never be disproven or shown to be unlikely

Kriminal99 · 02-11-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by ughaibu

Could you try to make your posts short and to the point please. It seems to me that you're now accepting the "ought implies can" principle. All this principle states is that it is meaningless to suggest that a person ought to do or have done a thing that they could not do or have done.
I dont understand how your third paragraph illustrates the case of a person who ought to believe in determinism being incapable of doing so. The final sentence appears to rely on a determinist viewpoint.

um. I make my posts to answer questions not to adhere to some arbitrary length requirement. Considering that people who disagree often gloss over their opponents arguments it is necessary to find different ways to say the same thing, so that you hit on at least one the opponent will actually think about.

No I did not accept "ought implies can". I showed that "ought" does not imply "can". You can say someone ought to have done something, when they couldn't have done it, with the sole purpose of motivating them to do it next time. That is what every above example shows. Is that simple enough for you?

The person in the third paragraph is incapable of believing in determinism because he does not have the motivation to believe in it, nor the understanding of the determinist viewpoint that is necessary to believe it. He ought to seek out more information that might allow him to be able to understand and believe in the determinist viewpoint. Any statement that he "ought to believe in determinism" should be interpreted as such - as opposed to that he should already believe it without understanding it. That makes no sense.

ughaibu · 02-11-2007

The "ought implies can" principle is not concerned with concepts other than ought, implies and can. Motivation is irrelevant, it is a red herring, also advice to teachers on how to communicate with students is irrelevant.

ughaibu · 02-12-2007

Here's a thorough defense of "ought implies can": http://www.public.iastate.edu/~vrana...papers/OIC.pdf If you read it, I suspect you'll find it interesting. The author considers a determinist argument in section 5.2 In any case, if you persist in rejecting "ought implies can", I'm not getting further involved in that, I'll leave defense of that premise to others.
You now need objections for Erasmus00, Buffy, NP-completeness, the default status of non-determinism in any theory of truth and the infinite regress (post 42).
Have fun, as DoctorDick puts it.

Kriminal99 · 02-12-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by ughaibu

The "ought implies can" principle is not concerned with concepts other than ought, implies and can. Motivation is irrelevant, it is a red herring, also advice to teachers on how to communicate with students is irrelevant.

It is not a concept other than "ought implies can" it is a direct counter example to "ought implies can". Motivation is not irrelevant, rather you are not understanding the deterministic viewpoint of HOW it is the case that a student in fact COULD NOT have done what one may have stated he "should" have done. If you did understand it then we wouldn't be here.

He COULD NOT have done it, because there is no reason he would have done it because he had no reason to believe he should do it. A person does not do things for no reason. Do you just drive to mexico on a random wednesday for no apparent reason? If someone asked you why you did something don't you always have a reason why you thought what you did was a good idea at the time?

The point of bringing up that the correct type of statement to make in this case is to say "Ok, but if your car breaks down again make sure you take the bus to school or it will be unexcused" was to make a connection between the most advanced way of dealing with the situation (Which is known to be such apart from arguments related to determinism - set a clear line as well as the penalties for crossing it rather than punishing after the fact) and a determinist belief set which clearly shows WHY it is the correct way to deal with the situation.

ughaibu · 02-12-2007

Not at all. In your situation the "ought" doesn't apply to an impossible action, it amounts to 'in future you ought to make sure it's possible for you to do as you ought'.