#determinismus

Der Determinismus ist die einzige Weise, sich die Welt vorzustellen. Und der Indeterminismus die einzige Weise, in ihr zu eixistieren.

“First of all, this is not a construct, it's a concept, honey. If you ask me, I'd even say it's not a concept but it's the truth”, she cuddled into the couch they were sitting on, “You see, everything you do you do for a reason. That reason might sometimes be unknown to you but there is ALWAYS a reason behind your actions, even behind your thoughts and wishes”, she emphasized the word 'always', “Everything in this world is enmeshed into a huge net of causality. Therefore if you knew the beginnings of these single strings and if you knew the factors that determine how you will behave – because of the fact that you do everything for a reason we know that these factors do determine your behavior-, you'd be able to calculate what exactly you will do. Sure, it's simply impossible to actually know all of these tiny factors, especially because the knowledge about your future will be one of them, but this only shows us that what we do and will do is in fact determined. Because everything you choose you choose for a reason. The choosing itself is also an action that is affected by those factors.” Alex took a glance at her girlfriend. She searched for some affirmation in her expression and in fact this time she could tell Vera understood her explanation. “I don't understand how you live with these thoughts though. Doesn't it make you feel unimportant? Don't you loose the will to work for something, because in the end if it's your destiny to get it you will end up getting it anyways?” “That's the thing why calculating the future wouldn't actually work: if I knew my future I would most probably change my behavior but my behavior right now is one of the factors that even determine that my future will look that way. Therefore the knowledge about my future would be another factor, one that would always change because it would always make my future change”, a huge smile grew on her face when she was fully absorbed into her own explanation, “You see, determinism is not something you should use to decide what to do. If you do it will only always leave you with the thought that no matter what you do you always do the right thing because you do it for a reason and it therefore can not be a wrong decision, only your destiny -” “So determinism shall not excuse murderers?”, Vera interrupted. “No of course not. Just as gravity doesn't excuse murderers killing someone by dropping a stone onto their head. Determinism just is another law of nature. It shall not be used to decide what to do, like I was saying, for those questions we have the concept of morals. Determinism just exists, it is like gravity, it exists and if you want it can help you accept the past. That's what I use it for. I just live my life the way I want and I honestly don't care much about why I want what I want as long as those wishes are not harmful to anyone. But when it comes to my past and I have to accept that something happened the way it did, I find it to be very comforting that what happened always happened for a reason. If I did something stupid, I don't have to beat myself up for it, I can rather just accept that I had reasons to do so. And if what I did was unmoral, I can see that, I can use my morals, think about it and behave different the next time. And I will be able to behave different because the factors changed. I'm able to change many of my factors and I think that is a huge power. Not some god figure is deciding how my life will go but it's me who can change the rails my train of life is driving on.” “But you decide nothing...” “Yes, I do. There still is decision. The only difference is that the decision in fact is not fully free – not free at all actually, depending on how you define 'free'. But actually that doesn't matter for the present because right now you don't know all the factors. You think you have free will and to you it is a decision. It doesn't really matter if one could have calculated the outcome if they had known your factors because you feel like you're free. If we go deeper into the material we might even question if reality might not even be exactly be just that: The things you experience or think to experience. But I think this step is not even needed to understand the concept of determinism. It's like when you do math. The answer is clear because math is based on laws of nature, but even though the answer is already clear, when you solve the problem and you do the math you are still doing that action. You're thinking about what 189*248 is to then think about what that plus 700 is. Even a mashine does this step, even if way quicker, and those steps, that are what your decisions in determinism are. That is you living.” Alex took a deep breath and smiled brightly when she saw her girlfriend nod. “So determinism is a law of nature that just exists and it does have its effect on us but in fact even if we accepted it nothing would change?” “Well, nothing would change in the respect of that determinism has always been true. It's like gravity still does have an effect on us even if we refused to believe that it exists. A lot would change when it comes to the area of law though, especially criminal law. Many concepts of law, for example in Germany, are based on the concept indeterminism – the opposite of determinism - because for example Germans require someone to be able to not behave a certain way in order for the state to be allowed to sue them for that certain way of behavior. So if we now argued that everything is determined you'd have to say that no one can ever behave in a different way than they do. You'd not be able to sue criminals in Germany which would be very very bad. I honestly don't know the answer to this problem, I suppose the professors are working on that though.” Alex shrugged. “To be honest, I feel quite bad talking about this theory because I fear the consequences we'd have to face if people were actually convinced that it's true. I fear many people will understand this in a very wrong way and then it will cause a lot of harm. But that's actually the reason why I talk about this: I hope to be able to explain to people how they have to look a determinism in order for it to not become toxic. And concerning the rest I have faith that our professors will find a way to solve the legal problems.” “And the way we have to look at it is as an explanation for the past, something to hold onto but not as a compass for the future?” “Exactly. No law of nature stands alone, neither does determinism. You have to view the whole and besides determinism, gravity and many other laws of nature there are always our morals. And they are what we have to use as a compass for future behavior: the moral our society has agreed upon morals like the golden rule. Determinism is just something you can hold onto for some strength when looking at your past, like other people do with a God.”

Ich bin nicht durch meine Eifersucht determiniert, durchs Schlüsselloch zu gucken; sondern weil ich mich als Eifersüchtigen gewählt habe, gibt es überhaupt erst die Situation eines zielgerichteten Handelns.

Chemins croisés: Le Don du Fel (F) vom 14.05. bis 12.07. 2023

Gastbeitrag von Torsten Hesse: "Warum das Leib-Seele-Problem kein Scheinproblem ist"

Determinismus

TRIGGER-Warnung: Schicksal, Fehler, Zukunft, Scheitern, Determinismus, Tod, Vorspielen von Gefühlen