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Deterministic
Determinism is the metaphysical view that all events within the universe (or multiverse) can occur only in one possible way. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and considerations. Like eternalism, determinism focuses on particular events rather than the future as a concept. Determinism is often contrasted with free will, although some philosophers claim that the two are compatible. A more extreme antonym of determinism is indeterminism, or the view that events are not deterministically caused but rather occur due to random chance. Historically, debates about determinism have involved many philosophical positions and given rise to multiple varieties or interpretations of determinism. One topic of debate concerns the scope of determined systems. Some philosophers have maintained that the entire universe is a single determinate system, while others identify more limited determinate systems. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Will
Free will is generally understood as the capacity or ability of people to (a) choice, choose between different possible courses of Action (philosophy), action, (b) exercise control over their actions in a way that is necessary for moral responsibility, or (c) be the ultimate source or originator of their actions. There are different theories as to its nature, and these aspects are often emphasized differently depending on philosophical tradition, with debates focusing on whether and how such freedom can coexist with determinism, divine foreknowledge, and other constraints. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, and other judgements which apply only to actions that are freely chosen. It is also connected with the concepts of Advice (opinion), advice, persuasion, deliberation, and Prohibitionism, prohibition. Traditionally, only actions that are freely Will (philosophy), willed are seen as deserving credit or blame. Whether free ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indeterminism
Indeterminism is the idea that events (or certain events, or events of certain types) are not caused, or are not caused deterministically. It is the opposite of determinism and related to chance. It is highly relevant to the philosophical problem of free will, particularly in the form of metaphysical libertarianism. In science, most specifically quantum theory in physics, indeterminism is the belief that no event is certain and the entire outcome of anything is probabilistic. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the " Born rule", proposed by Max Born, are often starting points in support of the indeterministic nature of the universe. Indeterminism is also asserted by Sir Arthur Eddington, and Murray Gell-Mann. Indeterminism has been promoted by the French biologist Jacques Monod's essay "'' Chance and Necessity''". The physicist-chemist Ilya Prigogine argued for indeterminism in complex systems. Necessary but insufficient causation Indeterminists do not have to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Incompatibilism
Incompatibilism is the view that the thesis of determinism is logically incompatible with the classical thesis of free will. The term was coined in the 1960s, most likely by philosopher Keith Lehrer. The term ''compatibilism'' was coined (also by Lehrer) to name the view that the classical free will thesis is logically compatible with determinism, i.e. it is possible for an ordinary human to exercise free will (the freedom-relevant ability to do otherwise), even in a universe where determinism is true. These terms were originally coined for use within a research paradigm that was dominant among academics during the so-called "classical period" from the 1960s to 1980s, or what has been called the "classical analytic paradigm". Within the classical analytic paradigm, the problem of free will and determinism was understood as a compatibility question: "Is it possible for an ordinary human to exercise free will (classically defined as an ability to do otherwise) when determinism is true ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laplace's Demon
In the history of science, Laplace's demon was a notable published articulation of causal determinism on a scientific basis by Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1814. According to determinism, if someone (the demon) knows the precise location and momentum of every particle in the universe, their past and future values for any given time are entailed; they can be calculated from the laws of classical mechanics. English translation This intellect is often referred to as ''Laplace's demon'' (and sometimes ''Laplace's Superman'', after Hans Reichenbach). Laplace himself did not use the word "demon", which was a later embellishment. As translated into English above, he simply referred to: ''"Une intelligence ... Rien ne serait incertain pour elle, et l'avenir, comme le passé, serait présent à ses yeux."'' This idea seems to have been widespread around the time that Laplace first expressed it in 1773, particularly in France. Variations can be found in Maupertuis (1756), Nicolas de Condo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fatalism
Fatalism is a belief and philosophical doctrine which considers the entire universe as a deterministic system and stresses the subjugation of all events, actions, and behaviors to fate or destiny, which is commonly associated with the consequent attitude of resignation in the face of future events which are thought to be inevitable and outside of human control. Definition The term "fatalism" can refer to any of the following ideas: * Broadly, any view according to which human beings are powerless to do anything other than what they actually do. Included in this is the belief that all events are decided by fate and are outside human control, hence humans have no power to influence the future or indeed the outcome of their own thoughts and actions. More specifically: * Theological fatalism, according to which free will is incompatible with the existence of an omniscient God who has foreknowledge of all future events. This is very similar to theological determinism. * Logic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leucippus
Leucippus (; , ''Leúkippos''; ) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. He is traditionally credited as the founder of atomism, which he developed with his student Democritus. Leucippus divided the world into two entities: atoms, indivisible particles that make up all things, and the void, the nothingness that exists between the atoms. He developed his philosophy as a response to the Eleatics, who believed that all things are one and the void does not exist. Leucippus's ideas were influential in ancient and Renaissance philosophy. Leucippus was the first Western philosopher to develop the concept of atoms, but his ideas only bear a superficial resemblance to modern atomic theory. Leucippus's atoms come in infinitely many forms and exist in constant motion, creating a deterministic world in which everything is caused by the collisions of atoms. Leucippus described the beginning of the cosmos as a vortex of atoms that formed the Earth, the Sun, the stars, and other celest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Path Dependence
Path dependence is a concept in the Social science, social sciences, referring to processes where past events or decisions constrain later events or decisions. It can be used to refer to outcomes at a single point in time or to long-run equilibria of a process. Path dependence has been used to describe institutions, Technical standard, technical standards, patterns of Economic development, economic or social development, organizational behavior, and more. In common usage, the phrase can imply two types of claims. The first is the broad concept that "history matters", often articulated to challenge explanations that pay insufficient attention to historical factors. This claim can be formulated simply as "the future development of an economic system is affected by the path it has traced out in the past" or "particular events in the past can have crucial effects in the future." The second is a more specific claim about how past events or decisions affect future events or decisions in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laplace
Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French polymath, a scholar whose work has been instrumental in the fields of physics, astronomy, mathematics, engineering, statistics, and philosophy. He summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five-volume Traité de mécanique céleste, ''Mécanique céleste'' (''Celestial Mechanics'') (1799–1825). This work translated the geometric study of classical mechanics to one based on calculus, opening up a broader range of problems. Laplace also popularized and further confirmed Isaac Newton, Sir Isaac Newton's work. In statistics, the Bayesian probability, Bayesian interpretation of probability was developed mainly by Laplace. Laplace formulated Laplace's equation, and pioneered the Laplace transform which appears in many branches of mathematical physics, a field that he took a leading role in forming. The Laplace operator, Laplacian differential operator, widely used in mathematic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of human understanding. Some philosophers, including Aristotle, designate metaphysics as first philosophy to suggest that it is more fundamental than other forms of philosophical inquiry. Metaphysics encompasses a wide range of general and abstract topics. It investigates the nature of existence, the features all entities have in common, and their division into categories of being. An influential division is between particulars and universals. Particulars are individual unique entities, like a specific apple. Universals are general features that different particulars have in common, like the color . Modal metaphysics examines what it means for something to be possible or necessary. Metaphysicians also explore the concepts of space, time, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Predestination
Predestination, in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the paradox of free will, whereby God's omniscience seems incompatible with human free will. In this usage, predestination can be regarded as a form of religious determinism; and usually predeterminism, also known as theological determinism. History Pre-Christian period Some have argued that the Book of Enoch contains a deterministic worldview that is combined with dualism. The book of Jubilees seems to harmonize or mix together a doctrine of free will and determinism. Ben Sira affirms free will, where God allows a choice of bad or good before the human and thus they can choose which one to follow. New Testament period There is some disagreement among scholars regarding the views on predestination of first-century AD Judaism, out of which Christianity came. Josephus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eternalism (philosophy Of Time)
In the philosophy of space and time, eternalism is an approach to the ontological nature of time, which takes the view that all existence in time is equally ''real'', as opposed to presentism or the growing block universe theory of time, in which at least the future is not the same as any other time. Some forms of eternalism give time a similar ontology to that of space, as a dimension, with different times being as real as different places, and future events are "already there" in the same sense other places are already there, and that there is no objective flow of time. It is sometimes referred to as the "block time" or "block universe" theory due to its description of space-time as an unchanging four-dimensional "block", as opposed to the view of the world as a three-dimensional space modulated by the passage of time. The present In classical philosophy, time is divided into three distinct regions: the "past", the "present", and the "future". Using that representational m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biological Determinism
Biological determinism, also known as genetic determinism, is the belief that human behaviour is directly controlled by an individual's genes or some component of their physiology, generally at the expense of the role of the environment, whether in embryonic development or in learning. Genetic reductionism is a similar concept, but it is distinct from genetic determinism in that the former refers to the level of understanding, while the latter refers to the supposed causal role of genes. Biological determinism has been associated with movements in science and society including eugenics, scientific racism, and the debates around the heritability of IQ, the basis of sexual orientation, and evolutionary foundations of cooperation in sociobiology. In 1892, the German evolutionary biologist August Weismann proposed in his germ plasm theory that heritable information is transmitted only via germ cells, which he thought contained determinants (genes). The English polymath Francis G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
