You got me, I am of the void.
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Stop staring back at me!
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I looked first at both Wikipedia’s and then the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s article on Fatalism.
It would seem from these that there is not a single viewpoint of ‘Fatalism’, but rather a number of similar viewpoints, most notably:
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Theological Fatalism, which is described as being “very similar to theological determinism.”
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Logical Fatalism (which is the main topic of the SEP article).
It isn’t clear to me which of these views, or something different, you are proposing.
It is also unclear to me that any of these viewpoints are explicitly “neither deterministic nor random” – just that they seem to be viewing the world from a viewpoint that whether they are deterministic or random is irrelevant.
Why not? Have I not explained what I was proposing in the very passage of my message you quoted?
That’s fine. Is it clear to you how what I described is explicitly neither deterministic nor random, though? If yes, then is your point merely that, just ahead of the part where I explained what I meant, I introduced a label often used in the manner I did, instead of inventing a new word for the purposes of this discussion just in case my preferred label is also used in any other manner? If so, point taken. If not, what is your point? And if it is not clear from my description (or John’s), then what, specifically, is there a remaining confusion over?
And just to defend myself here, since I have in the past come under some scrutiny for word usage uncommon or unfamiliar to my interlocutors, in this instance I’d say it is still rather appropriate. A cursory glance at Wikipedia’s article on Determinism would seem to give a definition of fatalism quite consistent with what I presented:
Fatalism is the idea that everything is fated to happen, resulting in humans having no control over their future. Fate has arbitrary power, and does not necessarily follow any causal or deterministic laws.
The corresponding passage in the German article seems to agree:
… [Die] Besonderheit des Determinismus die Kausalität, also dass der Zustand eines isolierten Systems zur Zeit t+\mathrm dt durch seinen Zustand zur Zeit t determiniert ist. Bei Fatalismus und Prädestination wird von einem offenen System ausgegangen, dessen zukünftiger Zustand durch den äußeren Eingriff des Schicksals determiniert wird und nicht durch den aktuellen Zustand.
Looking at the SEP article on Causal Determinism, we also find the same thing:
Fatalism is the thesis that all events (or in some versions, at least some events) are destined to occur no matter what we do. The source of the guarantee that those events will happen is located in the will of the gods, or their divine foreknowledge, or some intrinsic teleological aspect of the universe, rather than in the unfolding of events under the sway of natural laws or cause-effect relations.
All of these passages, I grant, seek to separate fatalism from determinism in particular. I think it is also fair to say, however, that they describe a system which is not free to evolve in a different way, sampled under some probability distribution, should one reset it. It is my contention without a source, for now (i.e. until there is a disagreement on this point), that fatalistic systems are something other than random also.
That’s an abstract that doesn’t actually say what the problem is or why, in the author’s opinion, it isn’t a problem. Would you care to elaborate?
The thing that philosophy is useful for is the fine definition of the terms of a given argument. Fate, however, is a broad term that cannot be relied on to convey any particular meaning, and rather often connotes some loose notion of mysticism, with little to do with physical cause and effect. That may be appropriate in context of Theism, as predestination is not based on natural causation.
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During the Dover trial, the claim that “Intelligent Design” was a scientific hypothesis was rejected on the basis that the idea refuted evolution and left “Intelligent Design” as the sole remaining hypothesis was a false dichotomy. There could be a third, unknown, alternative. Elsberry and Shallit.
ETA I recall Paul Nelson bringing up unconceived alternatives at PS but couldn’t find it just now on searching.
ETA2 (throwing everything at the wall) Russell’s Paradox? Set theory and species?
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Fatalism could be considered a sort of psychological stance, an approach to one’s view of the sort of power a human being has. A sort of pessimism or defeatism about life and your ability to change anything of worth or substance.
In this view fatalism isn’t necessarily the stance that the world is deterministic down to the subatomic level (hence the idea that fatalism does not imply a causal hypothesis, that “Fate has arbitrary power, and does not necessarily follow any causal or deterministic laws.”), but more the view that at least human beings do not have sufficient influence to change the world or their circumstances in any substantive way that you might say “really matters.”
A fatalist might say that of course you can influence mundane or irrelevant things (move the air molecules around you to some extent), but in the grander scheme of things individual human beings are ultimately destined to toil in vain against the injustice of it all (the rich will always get richer and the poor will always get poorer, or the sun will go nova one day and there’s nothing we can do about it, say) or something to that effect.
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Your expressed thoughts are too elliptical for me to know what precise point you’re trying to make. In particular, does this have anything to do with the article whose abstract you previously linked?
A simple one in that many and maybe most dichotomies are false in reality.
i’m sorry that it’s paywalled. Have family staying for a week. Screen time will be severely restricted until next Sunday.
There is a true dichotomy between determinism and indeterminism (X and not-X). The question is then whether indeterminism can be such that libertarian free will is possible. I would argue that it’s not (the luck problem). The dichotomy between determinism and randomness may be a false one, if indeterminism doesn’t entail randomness.
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I wouldn’t call that a dichotomy in the logical sense, and in fact the world can hold some of each. And determinism is perhaps a poor name, as it could include fatalism of the sort previously discussed. I would prefer “causality”. In that case indeterminism should perhaps be replaced by “non-causality” or something of the sort. Two sorts of events, caused and uncaused, of which the latter might be random or perhaps fated. But if events are fated, causality is an illusion, and a deceptive one. At any rate, where’s free will?
Sorry for backtracking here, but I just got around to watching this video enough times to grok it. It’s a bit annoying, because I thought I had about as good a handle on Bell’s theorem as I could expect to have without knowing calculus, but I guess not.
If I understand correctly, superdeterminism is a model in which hidden variables exist. In the double slit experiment, then, it would in principle be possible to know in advance which slit(s) the “particle” would go thru. This does not eliminate the quantum weirdness, however. Under “no-hidden variables” model, this weirdness manifests in the observation that the wave function of the particle collapses only once a measurement is made. Under superdeterminism, the weirdness is found in the fact that one cannot know which slit(s) the particle will go thru without also knowing what measurement will be made, before the measurement actually IS made. That is why the concern arose that superdeterminism, if true, would destroy science. I think Hossenfelder makes a good argument that such quantum effects would not undermine observations made in vaccine trials or other areas of science, since at that level enough information is available regarding the entities involved that these effects are not significant.
Is that about right?
BTW, the lecture series below includes what I found to be one of the clearest explanations of Bell’s inequality (at 1 hr 10 min of lecture 2). Here, the lecturer presents an even starker choice: Since Bell’s Inequality is derived from logic and mathematics, one must decide which to reject: Hidden variables, or logic and math.
(As a bonus, at 49 mins of the same lecture you will find a stunning demonstration of the double slit experiment.)
(10) MIT 8.04 Quantum Physics I, Spring 2013 (2013) - YouTube
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Yeah that’s how I understand it too. The idea is that if you knew the hidden variable (in effect, if it wasn’t “hidden”) you could predict which slit the particle would go through.
The idea is that there IS a hidden variable under superdeterminism, it’s just for all practical purposes unknowable.
The quantum-weirdness doesn’t go away, because we can’t know the hidden variable. It remains hidden. The whole idea is just to say that quantum mechanics and Bell’s inequality (and all it’s associated weirdness) doesn’t, contrary to popular misapprehension, rule out local hidden variable theories. The apparently relatively obscure and often entirely non-considered assumption of statistical independence was held constant (Sabine argues, on dubious philosophical grounds), with the conclusion that a local hidden variable theory couldn’t explain observations as experimental results would then violate Bell’s inequality.
But if the assumption of statistical independence is untrue, the experiment can’t be said to rule out a local hidden variable theory.
That’s how I understand it too. Human beings are macroscopic objects and someone in a vaccine trial isn’t running around in a state of superposition prior to measurement, as we are in a state of constant strong interaction with the environment. Shroedinger’s cat isn’t actually, truly both dead and alive until you open the box. The milk in your fridge doesn’t actually collapse into having gone bad until you open the door. No, it really degraded in there over days. It didn’t decide how bad to go at the moment you opened to smell the carton. The moon really does continue to exist when you stop looking at it, etc.
But in the end the whole point is just to say we can’t rule out determinism by an appeal to quantum mechanics without making an assumption we can’t prove. I myself am just undecided (and it seems to me we have to strictly remain agnostic, as the question seems to be unsettle-able in practice) on whether the world is fundamentally deterministic at the microscopic level.
Personally, I think that determinism has to be ruled in before any talk of ruling it out – on any grounds – can commence. It’s always been a conjecture rooted in intuition only. Neither classical nor quantum physics actually support it.
Meanwhile the uncertainty principle is an artifact of calculus itself. It shows up in both classical and quantum physics, irrespective of what is assumed about the microscopic constituents it emerges from. Even artificially restricting the applicability of physics to deterministic problems is no way around it, for it shows up in those all the same. Until we allow ourselves to reject maths altogether, it is not a matter of interpretation.
I choose to believe I have the option to choose (within physical limits). I don’t understand the position of someone who chooses to believe they don’t have such a choice. If there is anyone looking in who holds that position I’d be curious to hear their reasoning.
I’m not sure why you marked your message a reply to mine, since it does not address anything I said in mine, but I’ll interpret it as an invitation for me specifically to respond to your query.
As I and several fellow users have already articulated, some of us do not understand what “choosing” means, exactly. If the agent “exerts control” over their decision, then the decision is less than free, for it is controlled by the agent, who no more chose the act than they chose their desire to implement it, or what ever personal history of theirs brought about such desire. If the agent does not “exert control” over their decision, then the decision, though being free from control, is also free from the agent’s will.
One can also frame this in the language of causation and the context of determinism:
To the extent to which some decision is influenced by and a consequence of the universe’s history until the point of the alleged branching, it is not the agent who is at that point in control of all those lines of causation. The extent to which the decision is not caused by any circumstance outside of the agent’s immediate control, is indistinguishable however from the extent to which the decision is a random occurrence, likewise outside of the agent’s control. In total, then, the “choice” is not something the agent contributed to beyond being a mere link in the chain (if deterministic) or chain mesh (if less-than-deterministic) of events.
A compatibilist would add here, that they appreciate the inclination to speak of “free will”. Since, however, it does not seem that a third category of causation adds anything identifiable or useful to the discussion, the label is best used for something beyond ontological claims about the nature of choices.
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Apologies. I don’t post here much these days and I meant to choose general reply.
Well, thanks anyway for the reply. 
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