perhaps you might elucidate the disctinction between causation and compulsion. I would have thought that compulsion was simply a sub-set, or special case, of causation.

But when this was shot to pieces by the discovery that atoms are essentially empty, then the argument switched sides: now what happens on the quantum scale is not really indicative of what happens 'in the real world'.

I look at all the examples of rules that objects obey like gravity and laws of motion. I see that for any system the more information that I have of the forces involved and the materials present the more accurate my prediction becomes. I then follow this pattern to the conclusion that if I had complete knowledge of the system at a particular point in time I could completely predict the outcome of the system. What is wrong with this logic?

Sweet Surrender

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But when this was shot to pieces by the discovery that atoms are essentially empty, then the argument switched sides: now what happens on the quantum scale is not really indicative of what happens 'in the real world'.

Determinism was not shot to pieces by quantum mechanics. The argument has always been centered around why we cannot accurately predict particles velocity and position. If you know light moves particles and you also know this is the only way to measure particles then you find out that you cannot predict particles from measurement should you jump to the conclusion that the particles do not follow rules? This is one interpretation. I do not think it is right.
I look at all the examples of rules that objects obey like gravity and laws of motion. I see that for any system the more information that I have of the forces involved and the materials present the more accurate my prediction becomes. I then follow this pattern to the conclusion that if I had complete knowledge of the system at a particular point in time I could completely predict the outcome of the system. What is wrong with this logic?

Like in the morning with the whole day ahead of you.... do you walk through it knowing that whereever you find yourself... whatever is happening... there was no other possibility? Like you're in a movie you haven't seen, but the script is set in stone.

Or do you struggle... imagining that there's some right answer... some right thing to be, some right thing to say, some particular goal to achieve?

Objects can't obey anything. That is only a metaphor.

You have a most peculiar picture of the natural world.

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Like in the morning with the whole day ahead of you.... do you walk through it knowing that whereever you find yourself... whatever is happening... there was no other possibility? Like you're in a movie you haven't seen, but the script is set in stone.

Or do you struggle... imagining that there's some right answer... some right thing to be, some right thing to say, some particular goal to achieve?

I feel more the latter than the former. Being determined does not mean I have to stop the struggle.

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But when this was shot to pieces by the discovery that atoms are essentially empty, then the argument switched sides: now what happens on the quantum scale is not really indicative of what happens 'in the real world'.

Determinism was not shot to pieces by quantum mechanics. The argument has always been centered around why we cannot accurately predict particles velocity and position. If you know light moves particles and you also know this is the only way to measure particles then you find out that you cannot predict particles from measurement should you jump to the conclusion that the particles do not follow rules? This is one interpretation. I do not think it is right.
I look at all the examples of rules that objects obey like gravity and laws of motion. I see that for any system the more information that I have of the forces involved and the materials present the more accurate my prediction becomes. I then follow this pattern to the conclusion that if I had complete knowledge of the system at a particular point in time I could completely predict the outcome of the system. What is wrong with this logic?

I see that for any system the more information that I have of the forces involved and the materials present the more accurate my prediction becomes. I then follow this pattern to the conclusion that if I had complete knowledge of the system at a particular point in time I could completely predict the outcome of the system. What is wrong with this logic?

Not unless you are determined to stop the struggle, for then, how can you continue to struggle if you are determined to stop the struggle? Isn't that what you must hold to be consistent? In fact, you are consistent only if you are determined to be consistent. Isn't that right-according to you? It is not up to you whether you struggle, nor whether you are consistent. Nothing (according to you) is up to you. Including your belief that nothing is up to you. And of course, equally, since (according to you) nothing is up to me either, it is not up to me whether I think you are right. So, what is the point of arguing? Except, of course, it isn't up to us whether we argue, since that is also determined.

Causal (or nomological) determinism is the thesis that future events are necessitated by past and present events combined with the laws of nature. Such determinism is sometimes illustrated by the thought experiment of Laplace's demon. Imagine an entity that knows all facts about the past and the present, and knows all natural laws that govern the universe. Such an entity might be able to use this knowledge to foresee the future, down to the smallest detail.

there is no support in physics for the idea that the past is “fixed” in some way that the present and future are not, or that it has some ontological power to constrain our actions that the present and future do not have. It is not hard to uncover the reasons why we naturally do tend to think of the past as special, and assume that both physical causation and physical explanation work only in the past present/future direction (see the entry on thermodynamic asymmetry in time). But these pragmatic matters have nothing to do with fundamental determinism. If we shake loose from the tendency to see the past as special, when it comes to the relationships of determinism, it may prove possible to think of a deterministic world as one in which each part bears a determining—or partial-determining—relation to other parts, but in which no particular part (i.e., region of space-time) has a special, stronger determining role than any other.