Determinism Quotes

“Losing a belief in free will has not made me fatalistic—in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. There is no telling how much I might change in the future. Just as one wouldn’t draw a lasting conclusion about oneself on the basis of a brief experience of indigestion, one needn’t do so on the basis of how one has thought or behaved for vast stretches of time in the past. A creative change of inputs to the system—learning new skills, forming new relationships, adopting new habits of attention—may radically transform one’s life.”
― Sam Harris, Free Will

“Man’s life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without his ever being able to swerve from it, even for an instant. He is born without his own consent; his organization does in nowise depend upon himself; his ideas come to him involuntarily; his habits are in the power of those who cause him to contract them; he is unceasingly modified by causes, whether visible or concealed, over which he has no control, which necessarily regulate his mode of existence, give the hue to his way of thinking, and determine his manner of acting. He is good or bad, happy or miserable, wise or foolish, reasonable or irrational, without his will being for any thing in these various states.”
― Baron d'Holbach

“We can say that Faustus makes a choice, and that he is responsible for his choice, but there is in the play a suggestion—sometimes explicit, sometimes only dimly implicit—that Faustus comes to destruction not merely through his own actions but through the actions of a hostile cosmos that entraps him. In this sense, too, there is something of Everyman in Faustus. The story of Adam, for instance, insists on Adam's culpability; Adam, like Faustus, made himself, rather than God, the center of his existence. And yet, despite the traditional expositions, one cannot entirely suppress the commonsense response that if the Creator knew Adam would fall, the Creator rather than Adam is responsible for the fall; Adam ought to have been created of better stuff.”
― Sylvan Barnet, Dr. Faustus

“In fact, if you are faced with the prospect of running across an open field in which lightning bolts are going to be a problem, you are much better off if their timing and location are determined by something, since then they may be predictable by you, and hence avoidable. Determinism is the friend, not the foe, of those who dislike inevitability.”
― Daniel C. Dennett, Freedom Evolves

“...if in the heat of the dispute he insists and asks, 'Am I not the master of throwing myself out of the window?' I shall answer him, no; that whilst he preserves his reason there is no probability that the desire of proving his free agency, will become a motive sufficiently powerful to make him sacrifice his life to the attempt: if, notwithstanding this, to prove he is a free agent, he should actually precipitate himself from the window, it would not be a sufficient warranty to conclude he acted freely, but rather that it was the violence of his temperament which spurred him on to this folly. Madness is a state, that depends upon the heat of the blood, not upon the will. A fanatic or a hero, braves death as necessarily as a more phlegmatic man or a coward flies from it.”
― Baron d'Holbach

“I have had my mother's wing of my genetic ancestry analyzed by the National Geographic tracing service and there it all is: the arrow moving northward from the African savannah, skirting the Mediterranean by way of the Levant, and passing through Eastern and Central Europe before crossing to the British Isles. And all of this knowable by an analysis of the cells on the inside of my mouth.

I almost prefer the more rambling and indirect and journalistic investigation, which seems somehow less… deterministic.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Not that chance dominated events in the early Solar System, for scientific determinism was also functioning. But chance is an essential factor in all evolutionary events, and the birth and development of our planetary system were not exceptions.”
― Eric Chaisson, Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos

“I don't think things happen to us for a reason. I don't think there is some all-knowing force directing our lives so that we can learn a lesson and pass on that knowledge to others. I don't think I had to go through what I did to get this book into your hands. In fact, there were many other ways I could have learned those lessons—and they could have been learned without excruciating pain. Yet I cannot deny that somehow my experiences also turned me into who I am and resulted in this book being in your hands today. Multiple things can be true at the same time.”
― Laura E. Anderson, When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious Trauma and the Impact of High-Control Religion

“Banish the thought that praying can ever affect
The edicts of gods.”
― Seamus Heaney, Aeneid Book VI

“If you make yourself really small, you can externalize virtually everything.”
― Daniel C. Dennett, Freedom Evolves

“English: "The greatest known freedom is the freest known form of slavery."

Česky: „Největší známá svoboda je nejvolnější známý druh otroctví.”
― Sebastián Wortys

“English: "Belief in hard determinism is the most effective enslavement."

Česky: „Víra v tvrdý determinismus je nejefektivnější zotročení.”
― Sebastián Wortys

“Is the theory that lifeless, mindless atoms (obeying either deterministic laws or probabilistic laws of indeterminism) produce weird, unfathomable, ineffectual, pointless, mental illusions supposed to be more convincing than that we have genuine free will? The whole notion that a world made exclusively of matter, as materialist fundamentalists such as Harris insist, can suffer from illusions, delusions, hallucinations, mental illness, mental breakdowns, mental disorders, is so spectacularly silly that no sane person could ever take it seriously.
Harris, in his pathological determination to rid us of free will, has posited instead a world of delusional atoms in need of psychiatric help! What, do electrons hallucinate? Do protons have delusions of grandeur? Do quarks imagine themselves free? Are 1D-strings narcissistic? If none of these things is true, how on earth does Sam Harris propose that if humans are made of atoms alone, we can suffer from such illusions? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and Harris doesn’t offer any evidence at all!”
― Mike Hockney, The Sam Harris Delusion

“No one denies that we are influenced by genes and environment. What is denied is that we are determined by our genes and/or environment, that we are literally puppets that cannot act differently, that we have no moral agency, no personal accountability, that we are mere machines. No one who accepts the eternity of the soul can regard our current body, and current environment, as what makes us what we are. Only atheists and materialists hold such ideas. To deny free will is to deny the soul. Without the soul, we would indeed be machines. To put it another way, the reality of free will is the proof of the existence of the soul (since free will is impossible otherwise).
People such as Sam Harris require free will to be false because, if it isn’t, his materialist belief system is false.”
― Mike Hockney, The Sam Harris Delusion

“Dagda’s goblin: “Oh now, boy, we’re not ‘ere to talk about me. It’s _you_, boy. Who are _you_? What’s _your_ name?”
Hellboy, quietly: ” … Anung Un Rama …”
Dagda’s goblin: “PHAA! That’s just words, boy. What do they mean?”
Hellboy: “I don’t know.”
Dagda’s goblin: “Anung Un Rama. World Destroyer. The Great Beast …”
Dagda: ” ‘And upon his brow is set a crown of fire …’ ”
Sir Edward Grey: “Is that who you are?”
Hellboy: “I … … No.”
Dagda’s goblin: “Well, then, boy, it’s not your name, is it?”
― Mike Mignola, Hellboy, Vol. 4: The Right Hand of Doom

“God is concerned with, and active in, current world events, but these events are not so “set in stone” that there is nothing we as human beings can do to change the future.”
― Curtis Ferrell, Dual Citizenship: Living as a Christian in America

“Quantum entanglement

Quantum entanglement is a sign and subtle proof of the Universal Mind securing the oneness or singularity of the “material” world. This way, the ultimate immaterial reality operates within the “material” reality. The laws of physics are at work with maximum speed, yet the information is ever-present and omnipresent simultaneously, which is, in a way, proof of quantum entanglement.

Einstein described the phenomenon of quantum entanglement (particle entanglement, when a particle is in two places simultaneously) as the “spooky action at a distance.” He also said: “I don't believe in quantum physics because I believe the Moon is there even if I am not looking at it.” We agree with Einstein that the Moon is there, whether we look at it or not. We also believe that we cannot affect the position of a particle, either if we look at it or not. It appears as a particle when we look at it because we identify and recognize it. When we don't look at it, it is a wave, an illusion. We do not make any impact on it. We also agree with Einstein that a particle has a definite spin before being measured.

Einstein has shown that one particle can affect the other if the signal travels between them faster than the speed of light. On the macro level, if we disregard the micro level of a micro level at which the smallest immaterial indivisible “particles” (not yet discovered) may travel faster than the speed of light, the signal traveling between the “particles” may be faster than the speed of light. It may be at any place at any time. Information is not lost because, on a micro-level of a micro-level, there is an "absolute" velocity (of immaterial “substance,” “particles,” information, messages, “thoughts,” and underlying oneness of reality) that secures the “absolute spacetime” even in the world of plurality which the Universe is. This principle is oneness in a plurality (or singularity in diversity). In this way, the original oneness (singularity) of the primordial Universal Mind of the Absolute is saved even in the world as its manifestation.

There can be no plurality without oneness (singularity) simultaneously; otherwise, the world would not be possible. Without the underlying oneness, the world would be a mechanical compilation of "dead matter," incapable of producing any logical or sustainable physical system or the world, not to mention biology and life. Without oneness or singularity, the world would be “existence” without existing, equal to nothingness.

Quantum entanglement, securing the instantaneous interconnectivity among the unimaginable number of “material” entities, is the underlying force in action, uniting everything in one superbly interconnected and alive organism. Quantum entanglement also manifests “absolute speed” and nonlocality; otherwise, particles would not have instantaneous interconnectivity. The Universal Mind (Primordial Immaterial Force) is the uniting force of everything. In partnership with emptiness, the Universal Mind is the creator of everything and reality as we see it.

• A = ∞p (Where p is potential) Absolute is infinite potential.
0 = ∞
• W = P (Where W is the world or U—universe and P is plurality)
• A = P+p (Plurality)

Any existing world (Universe) is finite. The Absolute Mind is immaterial and limitless, but it is still limited in itself and any particular manifestation (the world) and infinite in its potential. In other words, it can appear at any time, anywhere, as a specific manifestation, and it can go on (appearing and disappearing in the form of universes) forever ad infinitum. This potential of the Absolute (and the Nothing) for infinity (as a never-achievable goal) is the leading cause (source) of uncertainty, which, ultimately, is the source and basis of free will. Without uncertainty, there is no free will. Determinism excludes uncertainty and, therefore, free will.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, ABSOLUTE

“According to Daniel Dennett and many other philosophers, free will and determinism are compatible. Despite my agreement with this view, I must admit that my way of coming to the same conclusion may be slightly different, contain different motivations, and come from a different perspective. Therefore, this topic deserves further clarification; although findings may be the same, they may be so for different reasons. Even if they would be the same for the same reasons, they might be based not only on different approaches to the same problem but also on a different perspective in viewing the world—understanding the world, the concept of the world, its potential, and its appearance to us.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, ABSOLUTE

“Different conclusions to which Pierre Simon Laplace (Philosophical Essays on Probabilities [1814 ]) arrived stem from almost the same subject (the world) analyzed by Dennett. We must credit Laplace (which Dennett did) for thinking about the same problem two centuries ago without possibly being affected by the discoveries to which Dennett and other philosophers and scientists were exposed. However, we must emphasize that some other philosophers and scientists before Laplace treated the same subject, including Baron d’Holbach and Roger Boscovich (Ruđer Josip Bošković) in his Theory of Natural Philosophy .

“Laplace’s Damon” (argument):
“An intellect that at any given moment knew all the forces that animate Nature and the mutual positions of the beings that comprise it, if this intellect were vast enough to submit its data to analysis, would condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest bodies of the universe and that of the lightest atom; for such an intellect nothing could be uncertain; and the future, just like the past, would be present before its eyes.”
— Pierre Simon Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities

There is nothing wrong with this argument since it is only hypothetical in terms of “An intellect which at any given moment knew all the forces that animate Nature …” This is not a positive or negative statement about determinism but only an intellectual proposition or question of what the case would be if there were such a “vast enough” intellect. Another question is if Laplace’s own belief or faith would lead him or not to such a conclusion. He only states that “an intellect which at any given moment knew all the forces that animate nature …” which is not proof that such an intellect exists or that he unconditionally believes in such an intellect. The mere intellectual proposition about an imagined intellect (not necessarily a real one) under the proposed conditions (not necessarily the real ones), we shall treat only as a hypothetical question or proposition or statement and not as an apparent belief (though there may be a clear belief behind it). Furthermore, this proposition doesn’t prove how it would undermine the compatibility between determinism and free will even if such an intellect existed.

Laplace's conclusion under the proposed conditions is proper and must be true. But the question is not whether the conclusion itself is true if the argument, Laplace’s Damon (actually intelligence), does not represent (demonstrate) or prove the fact (truth) but only a possibility that this may be a fact (if such an intellect existed). We cannot say that this is a definition of determinism by Laplace but a possible vision (of a definition) of a universe under the proposed conditions.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, ABSOLUTE

“To prove this to be a definition, not only of determinism but also of the actual world (Universe), to which goal Laplace aims, Laplace would have (or should have) offered “proof” of the actual state of the Universe. Since this was impossible, he defined a world under such “ideal” conditions through an example as a proposition. The question of whether the world, under such “ideal” conditions, would be ideal is highly debatable (we would dare to think that such a world would be not only far from perfect but on the verge of horror). From this argument, it follows that if such a world were not, in fact, ideal, then imagined or proposed “ideal conditions” would not be ideal either.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, ABSOLUTE

“Determinism implicitly seeks perfection, but the idea of determinism pursuing perfection is the pursuit of its own perfection (rather than perfection outside itself). But we would first need to know what perfection and an ideal are. It would not matter much if, by analyzing this, we conclude that the ideal and the perfect are the same, in which case we would use these words and terms interchangeably. But the problem is how to define the basis (on which determinism is, and must be, largely based) of the whole universe if we do not understand exactly the meaning, or all possible meanings, of the terms perfect and ideal, not to mention our understanding or misunderstanding of the actual state of the Universe.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, ABSOLUTE

“We must conclude that any proposition (definition) of abstract concepts (linguistically or philosophically) is not necessarily a proposition (definition) of that to which these concepts or propositions (definitions) ought to be applied. This kind of thinking, or definitions coming from such thinking, is inherently false.

On the other hand, if the supposed or proposed argument reflected reality, it would be a definition of a fact and not a proposition (“definition”) of an imagined concept. Laplace didn’t show interest in proving that this is the actual reality or even stating it, so it must be that he either imagined his argument as a hypothesis or he believed that this example argument contains enough merits of itself to justify not only the argument but also the fact or truth itself.

From our point of view and the idea of the Universal Mind as having a potential for infinite variety, we can conclude that even an “intellect” of a Universal Mind cannot predict and know all the varieties of its potential and the potential of all possible universes in infinity, which saves it from its own perfection while opening the door for infinite potential of the “free will.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, ABSOLUTE

“DETERMINISM AND PROBABILITY

We may understand determinism as “the thesis that there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future” (Van Inwagen, 1983, used by Dennet in his Edinburgh University lecture). But, a theory, or a thesis, must be based on our concepts, knowledge, and understanding of reality. Our very concepts, understanding, and conclusions about reality may be only partially correct or accidental since there is not enough knowledge (not to mention evidence) to support the particular theory or thesis.

In light of these ideas, it would not only be more economical but also prudent and wise to consider the reality out and beyond the customary spectrum and, by doing this, to come to conclusions or theories that would more significantly, possibly more accurately, reflect not only our ideas but the reality itself as it could be, beyond established and accepted paradigms, and, ideally, reflect the reality as it is. In that way, we would provide the ground (or possible grounds, or open the possibility) for defining the actual reality in a more tangible or, ideally, more accurate and useful manner than defining ideas and concepts based on theories, which may very well be, more or less, futile attempts to define the indefinable, depending on the degree of accuracy of any single approach.

Dennett uses the example of quantum physics to prove that “at any instant, there are many possible futures, and they are completely undetermined.” Once the organism of the Universe is in motion, its destiny is determined to a large extent. This destiny will be different if the same Universe starts motion (walk, experience, life) at any other “moment.” Every destiny of every new Universe or revival is different. That is the potential of the Absolute. This potential or its variations are not known even by the omnipotent intellect or God. Even an “intellect, which knew all the forces that animate Nature at any given moment,” could not know precisely how its potential “materialized” in every new birth, revival, and cycle.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, ABSOLUTE

“Could you do things out of order and end up at the same place?”
― Liane Moriarty, Here One Moment

“It was a random meeting that changed all that, although for a Surrealist like Prim, as I later discovered, nothing in the world is ever truly random. She believed the events that seemed to be chance are actually preordained by the subconscious; the people and objects we encounter are embodiment of our inner desires, waiting to be discovered.”
― Joanna Moorhead, The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington

“Future unfolds in cascades of causes and choices. That is the Best Fit Theory, realizing what will happen next.”
― Pusp Raj Bhatt, The Best fit Theory: … realizing what will happen next !

“Suppose it's all a question of glandular secretion. Too much of one gland, too little of another — and you get your murderer, your thief, your habitual criminal. Clement, I believe the time will come when we'll be horrified to think of the long centuries in which we've indulged in what you may call moral reprobation, to think how we've punished people for disease — which they can't help, poor devils. You don't hang a man for having tuberculosis.”
― Agatha Christie, The Murder at the Vicarage

“In the cosmic scheme of things, your life barely registers as a blip. It is hardly noticeable in the long arc of history. The information you produce by moving your arm up is not going to tell you much about anything of interest. But when you scope down in a way that reflects the horizon scaled to human thought and action, your life looms large in the image. It doesn’t just loom large; it occupies a central place. The events of your life provide the frame of reference around which the events of History arrange themselves in circles of diminishing knowledge and concern. The difference that your choices make to your own future is large, indeed.”
― Jenann Ismael, How Physics Makes Us Free

“What is life but a confusing algorithm when you are aware, or a controlled simulation when you are not?”
― F.C. Quiles, Dismantled: A Theory of Broken Mindsets—A Blueprint of Infinite Futures

“Then there was The House of Future Needs, an old pawn shop that engaged in the sale of utterly useless trinkets. Except, of course, your purchased knickknacks were guaranteed to become “unforeseeably important” in your immediate future.

“What is useless today can save your life tomorrow” the shopkeeper advertised, a man rumoured to have glimpsed into the atemporal dimension of Subexistence. Vivian passed the pawn shop a number of times before her cynicism made room for a purchase.

‘So how does this work exactly?’

‘You see, miss, you have a looksee around, see? And pay attention to what draws you in. Then you go right ahead, see, and take a gander on some of my wares. See if there’s anything that grabs your eye, see?’ was the shopkeeper’s advice.

Vivian ended up buying a red eyepatch for no obvious reason. Truth be told, she had wanted an eyepatch ever since Miles Fenn piqued her interest in pirates. All those stories about great sea battles, buccaneer lifestyle and treasure must have rotted her brain.”
― Louise Blackwick, The Book of Chaos