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Laplace's Demon makes Nietzsche Affirmation

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Suppose we juxtapose

Quote:

We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes - Pierre-Simon Laplace

and

Quote:

If we affirm one moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event - and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed. - Frederick Nietzsche

Any thoughts?
Does the Nietzschean affirmation have any meaning for the strict incompatiblist?

@Deckard,

Deckard;114850 wrote:

Just suppose we juxtapose

and

Any thoughts?
Does the Nietzschean affirmation have any meaning for the strict incompatiblist?

You might have stopped by omitting the last four words of your last question.
What has that N. quote to do with Laplace? Or, with anything?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;114856 wrote:

You might have stopped by omitting the last four words of your last question.
What has that N. quote to do with Laplace? Or, with anything?

I take it you're not a fan of Nietzsche.

@Deckard,

Deckard;114868 wrote:

I take it you're not a fan of Nietzsche.

Even if I were, what would that quote have to do with Laplace or physics?

@Deckard,

Deckard;114850 wrote:

Suppose we juxtapose
and
Any thoughts?
Does the Nietzschean affirmation have any meaning for the strict incompatiblist?

Laplace's demon is a presentation of so called "hard determinism". The future and the past are fixed, only one possible future only one possible past.
Nietzsche's statement is one of the dependence of the present on the past but does not address whether there is only one possible future and one possible past. Nietzsches statement is one of causation but not necessarily determinism.
They are much different in their underlying assumptions.

@prothero,

prothero;114960 wrote:

Laplace's demon is a presentation of so called "hard determinism". The future and the past are fixed, only one possible future only one possible past.
Nietzsche's statement is one of the dependence of the present on the past but does not address whether there is only one possible future and one possible past. Nietzsches statement is one of causation but not necessarily determinism.
They are much different in their underlying assumptions.

Just determinism. I have no idea what Laplace thought about free will. Do you? Even if there is only one possible future, why can it not be up to what someone did what that future would be? Suppose a person became a lawyer because he chose to go to law school. He might have chosen to go to medical school but he didn't. So, he became a lawyer, of his own free will.

Of course the past is pregnant with the future (Leibniz). So what? How do you distinguish between causation and determinism? Determinism, I learned, is the thesis that every event has some cause without which the event would not have occurred. And every cause is, itself, an event.

What is all that affirmation stuff about? Is it something to take serious notice of? Or is it just another of N's tantrums?

@Deckard,

Deckard;114850 wrote:

Suppose we juxtapose

and

Any thoughts?
Does the Nietzschean affirmation have any meaning for the strict incompatiblist?

Even if we are determined, we are still forced to suffer the illusion of choice. Spinoza strikes me as an affirmative determinist. I could see Nietzsche going down that road. Does the phrase "love of fate" have deterministic implications? But I believe Nietzsche sort of dodged the question, treating both determinism and free will as myths...

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;114984 wrote:

Even if we are determined, we are still forced to suffer the illusion of choice. Spinoza strikes me as an affirmative determinist. I could see Nietzsche going down that road. Does the phrase "love of fate" have deterministic implications? But I believe Nietzsche sort of dodged the question, treating both determinism and free will as myths...

Why on earth would choice be an illusion if we are determined? Spinoza was a logical determinist, for he thought that all causal relation was a necessary connection. It was that notion of logical determinism Hume attacked and called it, Spinoza's "hideous hypothesis". Hume held that free will was incompatible with logical determinism, but was compatible with determinism, and so, Hume was a soft determinist. He held that both determinism and free will were true. He held that it was only because determinism was confused with logical determinism that it was thought that determinism was incompatible with free will. N's apparent confusion between fatalism and determinism is still something else again.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;114994 wrote:

Why on earth would choice be an illusion if we are determined?

To me that question answers itself. For a hard determinist, choice would be an illusion.

---------- Post added 12-28-2009 at 05:35 PM ----------

kennethamy;114994 wrote:

N's apparent confusion between fatalism and determinism is still something else again.

Have you read the passage? I think it's in beyond good and evil.

---------- Post added 12-28-2009 at 05:36 PM ----------

kennethamy;114994 wrote:

Spinoza was a logical determinist, for he thought that all causal relation was a necessary connection.

If we see reality as all one, then it only makes sense to affirm it or deny it as a whole. It's been awhile since I've been immersed in Spinoza, but I understood him as affirming the Totality, which was determined and all of a piece.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;115001 wrote:

To me that question answers itself. For a hard determinist, choice would be an illusion.

---------- Post added 12-28-2009 at 05:35 PM ----------

Have you read the passage? I think it's in beyond good and evil.

---------- Post added 12-28-2009 at 05:36 PM ----------

If we see reality as all one, then it only makes sense to affirm it or deny it as a whole. It's been awhile since I've been immersed in Spinoza, but I understood him as affirming the Totality, which was determined and all of a piece.

Why would it be an illusion even for a hard determinist. You mean he could not really choose vanilla rather than chocolate. What if he pointed to the vanilla and said, I think I'll have a pint of that? What would he be doing?

No I have not read the passage.

Your last is far too vague to deal with. The distinction between logical determinism and just nomic determinism is what is at issue here.

@Deckard,

For a hard determinist all choice would be illusion, yes. Else "hard determinism" is as soft as jello. I think I answered in the spirit of the OP.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;115015 wrote:

For a hard determinist all choice would be illusion, yes. Else "hard determinism" is as soft as jello. I think I answered in the spirit of the OP.

How would it be an illusion? I asked you before what if I pointed to vanilla and I said, I'll have a pint of that, please? What would I be doing if not choosing vanilla. In fact, "I choose that....." seems to be a performative. By saying the words, "I choose that.....", I am performing the act of choosing.

@Deckard,

But your choice could have been calculated before hand. In the subjective sense, you experienced choice. We don't have to use the word illusion if you don't like it.

For hard determinism, the future is already present in the present, or so I infer.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;115077 wrote:

But your choice could have been calculated before hand. In the subjective sense, you experienced choice. We don't have to use the word illusion if you don't like it.

For hard determinism, the future is already present in the present, or so I infer.

I don't know what you mean. To say, "I choose vanilla" is to choose vanilla. How could that be an illusion? For all of determinism, both soft and hard, the future lies in the past. That is, past events cause future events. So what? If the cause of a future action was my choosing it freely (not under compulsion) then the future event is a free action. I did it. And I was not compelled to do it.

@Deckard,

It's all in the terms. Long ago I believed in God and Heaven and Hell. We should look at the ethical implications of hard determinism. Hitler is justified by hard determinism. Hard determinism drains the world of good and evil. Or so says Umo.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;115095 wrote:

It's all in the terms. Long ago I believed in God and Heaven and Hell. We should look at the ethical implications of hard determinism. Hitler is justified by hard determinism. Hard determinism drains the world of good and evil. Or so says Umo.

But hard determinism is false. Soft determinism is true. So why look at the ethical implications of hard determinism? I am a determinist, but I am not a hard determinist. I think you are confusing the two.

@Deckard,

No confusion. I'm soft on determinism myself. Just giving you some his-story. And even soft determinism has ethical implications. Confusion? Umo assures me that this is impossible.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;115097 wrote:

No confusion. I'm soft on determinism myself. Just giving you some his-story. And even soft determinism has ethical implications. Confusion? Umo assures me that this is impossible.

What does "soft on determinism" mean? I think you are confusion soft and hard determinism. Else, you would not be saying what you are saying. A soft determinist is just as much a determinist as a hard determinist. The difference is in the implications for free will.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;115101 wrote:

A soft determinist is just as much a determinist as a hard determinist. The difference is in the implications for free will.

Free will is sort of an important matter. Why bother with soft and hard if they are so similar? To ignore free will is to ignore half the significance of the question for human beings.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;115138 wrote:

Free will is sort of an important matter. Why bother with soft and hard if they are so similar? To ignore free will is to ignore half the significance of the question for human beings.

You simply don't know what "soft determinism" and "hard determinism" mean. To say that someone is a soft determinist is not to say he is not a fully fledged determinist. It is to say that he believes that determinism is compatible with free will. And a hard determinist is also a fully fledged determinist. But he holds that determinism is not compatible with free will. So, the issue between the two kinds of determinist lies in whether they think that determinism is compatible with free will or not.

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