Deterministic Universe Research Articles

Quantum Determinism and the Akashic Field: Exploring Synchronicity and Human Limitations in Accessing Universal Laws

This paper explores the hypothesis that quantum mechanics’ apparent randomness conceals a deterministic structure governed by immutable laws. Drawing on metaphysical concepts such as the Akashic Field and Carl Jung’s synchronicity, it proposes that quantum uncertainty may reflect human limitations in understanding, rather than genuine indeterminism. Synchronicities may reveal glimpses of a pre-ordained cosmic order, much like accessing information from the Akashic record. We introduce a connection between quantum physics and metaphysical traditions to challenge conventional interpretations of quantum mechanics and human free will, advocating for a more interconnected and deterministic universe.

Free Will and the Paradox of Predictability

In recent literature there has been increased interest in the so-called “paradox of predictability” (PoP) which purportedly shows that a deterministic universe is fundamentally unpredictable, even if its initial state and governing laws are known perfectly. This ostensible conclusion has been used to support compatibilism, the thesis that determinism is compatible with free will: supposedly, the PoP reveals that the nature of determinism is misunderstood and actually allows freedom, hence also free will. The present paper aims to disprove this conclusion and show that the PoP has absolutely no implication concerning the predictability of deterministic systems and the nature of determinism. Its paradoxy arises from a confusion between mental and physical notions in its formulation (the PoP tacitly premises a mental arbiter with respect to whom notions such as prediction and signification have meaning) and disappears once it is expressed in purely physical language. Ultimately, the PoP demonstrates not that prediction is impossible under determinism, but merely the obvious fact that it is impossible to predict while simultaneously acting so as to disprove one’s own prediction. The related issue of the impossibility of self-prediction is also discussed.

Repensando a inteligência humana e da máquina sob o determinismo

This paper proposes a metaphysical framework for distinguishing between human and machine intelligence. It posits two identical deterministic worlds -- one comprising a human agent and the other a machine agent. These agents exhibit different information processing mechanisms despite their apparent sameness in a causal sense. Providing a conceptual modeling of their difference, this paper resolves what it calls “the vantage point problem” – namely, how to justify an omniscient perspective through which a determinist asserts determinism from within the supposedly deterministic universe.

An extension of many-interacting-worlds method on non-Guassian model

Discussions about whether quantum theory is determinism or indeterminism has lasted for a century. A new approach to standard quantum mechanics called many-interacting-worlds method based on many-worlds interpretation and de Broglie–Bohm mechanics provided the possibility to demonstrate probability from deterministic universe. The many-interacting-worlds method has been proved successful in the ground state of harmonic oscillator. In this article we extend this method to one dimensional Coulomb potential and construct a corresponding empirical density function. We also provide a theoretical proof of the convergence of density function. Our numerical simulation of one dimensional Coulomb potential in the first excited state obtains the consistent result with standard quantum mechanics and shows the applicability of many-interacting-worlds method. This research provides the possibility to extend many-interacting-worlds method to non-Gaussian quantum systems.

The Stoic cosmos, the freedom of the Stoic and the akrasia

The paper attempts to introduce the Stoic concept of a deterministic universe and the centrality of the Stoic sage in it, using selected parts of Stoic philosophy (physics of the elements, psychology, causality and hierarchization of causes). The basic line of interpretation is to prove the thesis that the freedom of the sage is based on the autonomy of his manifestations justified by the sovereignly rational disposition of his soul. The author of the paper argues in support of the thesis that akrasia as acting against the order of reason and nature is not possible in the Stoic sage.

Manipulation, machine induction, and bypassing

A common style of argument in the literature on free will and moral responsibility is the Manipulation Argument. These tend to begin with a case of an agent in a deterministic universe who is manipulated, say, via brain surgery, into performing some action. Intuitively, this agent is not responsible for that action. Yet, since there is no relevant difference, with respect to whether an agent is responsible, between the manipulated agent and a typical agent in a deterministic universe, responsibility is not compatible with the truth of determinism. In response, some theorists have argued that there is a relevant difference, and have developed two sorts of accounts of that difference: bypassing views, and manipulator-focused views. Manipulator-focused views suggest that the difference concerns the presence of a manipulator, whereas bypassing views suggest that the relevant difference concerns the fact that the action issues from attitudes that the manipulated agent acquired in a way that bypassed her capacities for control over her mental life. One sort of case used to decide between these sorts of accounts is a case of machine induction, which is just like a manipulation case, yet the change in the agent is the result of some natural force. Against the received view, Xiaofei Liu argues that such cases pose problems for bypassing views, and favor manipulator-focused views instead. This paper addresses Liu’s arguments, as well as a variety of cases, concluding that cases of machine induction do not provide motivation for a bypassing theorist to adopt a manipulator-focused view.

Shepherd on Causal Necessity and Human Agency

Shepherd defends an account of the universe founded on two causal principles: that effects necessarily have causes, and that like causes have like effects. Folding mind into the class of natural phenomena governed by these principles, Shepherd naturalizes the mind, but in doing so she sets herself the challenge of explaining how, within a deterministic universe, agents can be necessary causes of their own actions. With special attention to Shepherd’s resistance to materialism and to any reduction of the mental, the paper argues that we can read Shepherd as leveraging her original theory of causation to develop a distinctive compatibilist view of the psychology of intention, one that makes agents the necessary causal sources of their own actions.

Free will: An impossible reality or an incoherent concept?

Abstract The problem that Tallis attempts to address in Freedom: An Impossible Reality (2021) is that science appears to describe the entire world deterministically and that this seems to leave no room for free will. In the face of this threat, Tallis defends the existence of free will by arguing that science does not explain our intentional awareness of the world; and it is our intentional awareness that makes both science and free will possible. Against Tallis, it is here argued that his argument is vulnerable to two criticisms. Firstly, his characterisation of science as apparently deterministic is inaccurate. Secondly, he has not solved the problem he has set himself but rather recast it, so that his conclusion leaves us having to account for free will, not in a deterministic universe, but either as a product of chance or as a miracle. It is here suggested that when we set aside the illusory threat of scientific determinism, we also set aside the temptation of free will (as its spurious answer). That done, we may better focus upon agent’s freedom of action – as discussed by philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke and Hume – the rational capability of an agent to act upon their wishes, given the constraints under which they find themselves.

The Paradox of Predictability

Scriven’s paradox of predictability arises from the combination of two ideas: first, that everything in a deterministic universe is, in principle, predictable; second, that it is possible to create a system that falsifies any prediction that is made of it. Recently, the paradox has been used by Rummens and Cuypers to argue that there is a fundamental difference between embedded and external predictors; and by Ismael to argue against a governing conception of laws. The present paper defends a new diagnosis of the roots of the paradox. First, it is argued that the unpredictability has to be understood in the light of Turing’s famous results about computability, in particular his proof that there is no solution to the ‘halting problem.’ This allows us to see that previous analyses of the paradox were either mistaken or not fully adequate. Second, the sense of paradox that nevertheless remains is traced to the idea that rational behaviour is not dependent on contingent environmental circumstances: that it is always up to us to engage in activities such as rational prediction or rational belief. The paradox of predictability teaches us that this idea, natural though it may be, is mistaken.

Physical Determinism, Zygote-Manipulation and Responsible Agency

Agents have no control over the formation of their own zygote. Others may do. According to a well-known argument, the so-called Zygote Argument for incompatibilism, these facts, together with a prima facie plausible further assumption, are sufficient to prove that human agents cannot be responsible for their actions if they live in a deterministic universe. This paper argues that the lack of agents’ control over the constitution of their own zygote can undermine their responsibility only in exceptional conditions and that the occurrence or non-occurrence of those conditions has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of determinism. What undermines agents’ responsibility in the situations described by the Zygote Argument is the occurrence of some specific initial conditions which may render the manipulation of agents’ behaviour possible, and not the truth of determinism.

The Devil and the Dice; Job and Justice: Understanding the Misfortunes of Job in light of Modern Science & Law:

The Book of Job – the original “when bad things happen to good people” story is so troubling, so heinous, so rank unbelievable to most of us, that we react by denial, or worse. So awful is it, that many, including the Rambam (Maimonides), claim it is an allegory or a parable. That “out” doesn’t help. A parable is meant to convey a message. If the story is so repugnant on its face, then the message underlying the parable is sure to be equally unpalatable. Allegorizing the story, however, does allow us to step away from the rigid descriptors of “the Adversary” as “Devil or Satan and look for concepts to account for what accrued as opposed to anthropomorphized personalities. Many explanations have been given for the saga, seemingly absurd on its face, from the consolation that the reckoning of reward and punishment happens in the World to Come, to Nachmanides’ view that this reflects transmigration of souls. None of these explanations are satisfying to most of us who, in the causal or deterministic universe we believe ourselves to reside, cannot accept such an infinitely deferred or indirect consequential outcome. Indeed, per Kahneman and Twersky, humans are programmed to see cause and effect when temporal connections are apparent, whether or not they exist. This essay attempts to reconceptualize the Job parable by incorporating modern notions of a non-deterministic universe as currently enunciated in quantum mechanics. This scientific predicate would define the Job-events as random or chance happenings (spooky events at a distance), with such a framework built-in to the workings of the Universe, even a Divinely orchestrated one. Such a non-deterministic universe is postulated to exist in perhaps 95% of cases, leaving a “space” for random events (or what might be called freak accidents or alternatively “miracles) to occur. This approach also offers a response to the mother of a child diagnosed as autistic weeks after a measles vaccine – who refuses to accept robust statistical evidence that the vaccine did not cause the disease. Sometimes, says Job, events just happen. This is an explanation that can only be offered in the context of a compound religious-scientific platform, such as First Things provides. The essay then goes on to explore how the concept of God-given Justice can still be applied to the events as they occurred, even holding God “accountable” as the creator of the Universal random program using principles of modern tort law. Again, this is a perspective for which First Things offers a unique platform.

For Whom Does Determinism Undermine Moral Responsibility? Surveying the Conditions for Free Will Across Cultures.

Philosophers have long debated whether, if determinism is true, we should hold people morally responsible for their actions since in a deterministic universe, people are arguably not the ultimate source of their actions nor could they have done otherwise if initial conditions and the laws of nature are held fixed. To reveal how non-philosophers ordinarily reason about the conditions for free will, we conducted a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic survey (N = 5,268) spanning twenty countries and sixteen languages. Overall, participants tended to ascribe moral responsibility whether the perpetrator lacked sourcehood or alternate possibilities. However, for American, European, and Middle Eastern participants, being the ultimate source of one’s actions promoted perceptions of free will and control as well as ascriptions of blame and punishment. By contrast, being the source of one’s actions was not particularly salient to Asian participants. Finally, across cultures, participants exhibiting greater cognitive reflection were more likely to view free will as incompatible with causal determinism. We discuss these findings in light of documented cultural differences in the tendency toward dispositional versus situational attributions.

Determinism, Counterpredictive Devices, and the Impossibility of Laplacean Intelligences

Abstract In a famous passage drawing implications from determinism, Laplace introduced the image an intelligence who knew the positions and momenta of all of the particles of which the universe is composed, and asserted that in a deterministic universe such an intelligence would be able to predict everything that happens over its entire history. It is not, however, difficult to establish the physical possibility of a counterpredictive device, i.e., a device designed to act counter to any revealed prediction of its behavior. What would happen if a Laplacean intelligence were put into communication with such a device and forced to reveal its prediction of what the device would do on some occasion? On the one hand, it seems that the Laplacean Intelligence should be able to predict the device's behavior. On the other hand, it seems like that device should be able to act counter to the prediction. An examination of the puzzle leads to clarification of what determinism does (and does not) entail, with some insights about various other things along the way.

Time, Leeway, and the Laws of Nature: Why Humean Compatibilists Cannot Be Eternalists

AbstractHumean compatibilism combines a Humean conception of laws of nature with a strong dual-ability condition for free will that requires that agents possess the ability to decide differently when they make a free decision. On the Humean view of laws of nature, laws of nature are taken to be contingent non-governing descriptions of significant regularities that obtain in the entire history of the universe. On Humean compatibilism, agents are taken to possess dual ability when making free decisions because what the laws of nature will finally be is (at least partially) dependent upon how an agent decides. In this paper, I argue that the tenability of Humean compatibilism depends in part upon what theory of time is correct. More specifically, I argue that Humean compatibilism is untenable in a deterministic universe if eternalism is true.

Divination and Human Nature. A Cognitive History of Intuition in Classical Antiquity

Divination and Human Nature. A Cognitive History of Intuition in Classical Antiquity

Laypersons’ Beliefs and Intuitions About Free Will and Determinism

We linked between the social psychology and experimental philosophy paradigms for the study of folk intuitions and beliefs regarding the concept of free will to answer three questions: (1) What intuitions do people have about free will and determinism? (2) Do free will beliefs predict differences in free will and determinism intuitions? and (3) Is there more to free will and determinism than experiencing certainty or uncertainty about the nature of the universe? Overall, laypersons viewed the universe as allowing for human indeterminism, and they did so with certainty. Examining intuitions of prosociality, future orientation, learning, meaningfulness, human uniqueness, and well-being, ratings were highest in the indeterministic universe condition and lowest in the deterministic universe condition, both significantly different from the uncertain universe condition. Participants’ free will beliefs had only weak impact on realism, happiness, and learning intuitions but did not reverse the general intuition favoring indeterminism and showed no impact on other intuitions.

Reasons, Determinism and the Ability to Do otherwise

It has been argued that in a deterministic universe, no one has any reason to do anything. Since we ought to do what we have most reason to do, no one ought to do anything either. Firstly, it is argued that an agent cannot have reason to do anything unless she can do otherwise; secondly, that the relevant ‘can’ is incompatibilist. In this paper, I argue that even if the first step of the argument for reason incompatibilism succeeds, the second one does not. It is argued that reasons require alternative possibilities, because reasons are action-guiding. A supposed reason to do the impossible, or to do what was inevitable anyway, could not fill this function. I discuss different interpretations of the claim that reasons are action-guiding, and show that according to one interpretation it is sufficient that the agent believes that she has several alternative options. According to other interpretations, the agent must really have alternative options, but only in a compatibilist sense. I suggest that an interpretation of action-guidance according to which reasons can only guide actions when we have several options open to us in an incompatibilist sense cannot be found. We should therefore assume that reasons and obligations are compatible with determinism.

What Do People Find Incompatible With Causal Determinism?

Four studies explored people's judgments about whether particular types of behavior are compatible with determinism. Participants read a passage describing a deterministic universe, in which everything that happens is fully caused by whatever happened before it. They then assessed the degree to which different behaviors were possible in such a universe. Other participants evaluated the extent to which each of these behaviors had various features (e.g., requiring reasoning). We assessed the extent to which these features predicted judgments about whether the behaviors were possible in a deterministic universe. Experiments 1 and 2 found that people's judgments about whether a behavior was compatible with determinism were not predicted by their judgments about whether that behavior relies on physical processes in the brain and body, is uniquely human, is unpredictable, or involves reasoning. Experiment 3, however, found that a distinction between what we call "active" and "passive" behaviors can explain people's judgments. Experiment 4 extended these findings, showing that we can measure this distinction in several ways and that it is robustly predicted by two different cues. Taken together, these results suggest that people carve up mentally guided behavior into two distinct types-understanding one type to be compatible with determinism, but another type to be fundamentally incompatible with determinism.

Oxytocin influences intuitions about the relationship between belief in free will and moral responsibility

Philosophers have proposed that laypeople can have deterministic or indeterministic intuitions about the relationship between free will and moral responsibility. However, the psychophysiological mechanisms that generate these extreme intuitions are still underexplored. Exogenous oxytocin offers a unique opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of these underlying mechanisms, since this neuropeptide influences a wide range of outcomes related to social cognition and prosociality. This study investigated the effects of intranasal oxytocin on intuitions about the relationship between free will and moral responsibility by applying a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-subject design. Healthy male participants rated the moral responsibility of a hypothetical offender, who committed crimes in either a primed deterministic or an indeterministic universe. Under placebo, participants held the offender more morally responsible when acting in an indeterministic compared to a deterministic universe, which could be accredited to recognition of the offender’s freely chosen action to commit the crimes. Under oxytocin, participants rated the offender’s actions with greater leniency and similarly assigned lower moral responsibility in both universes. These findings strengthen the assumption that a person can have different intuitions about the relationship between free will and moral responsibility, which can be presumably dependent on motivational states associated with affiliation.

The Quantum World

Scientific measurements of fine-tuning factors, especially the cosmological constant, have forced non-theists to fall back on anthropic reasoning and multiverse theories to try to explain away the implications of a theistically-designed universe. Whatever its other uses, employing anthropic reasoning in this way is questionable. It is unscientific to posit trillions upon trillions of universes--as many multiverse proponents and string theorists do--in order to try to explain away the fine-tuned existence of our own. Albert Einstein would likely dismiss many current multiverse theories. Yet, might we still live in a multiversal reality? This essay posits such a reality--a Triverse--as a more parsimonious view over popular multiverse theories. The proposed Triverse has some similarity to, but is distinct from, Roger Penrose’s “three worlds” in his Shadows of the Mind. A multiversal Triverse reality might also eventually be reconciled with some of the evidence and indicators that support quantum mechanics, and thus help define a more deterministic universe.