Adapted for the Internet from:

Why God Doesn't Exist

    Determinism has had so much religious influence that participants have lost their way in philosophical discussions.
    Determinism has grown to be a misunderstood notion that is used by all to prop up their theories, but then defended by
    few when push comes to shove. On the one hand, we’d like to think that, given sufficient information, we can predict
    certain events and trends insinuated by statistics or just plain intuition. On the other, we refuse to believe that the
    individual is bound by these rules and probabilities.

    The vision that comes to mind is a herd of buffalo stampeding towards a cliff. We concede that each bull and cow has
    free will, but we throw in a caveat that nevertheless an observer can predict the fate of the entire herd. The reason for
    this, so the argument goes, is that despite that a cow can choose to do her own thing, in retrospect she decided to
    follow the herd. Nobody likes to think that God pulls our strings, or really believes that individuals do not have the
    will to decide on their own whether to go left or right. This would shift all responsibility to God, and what would
    become of justice then? Therefore, the religionist has designed ludicrous arguments to show that determinism does
    not operate at the expense of free will, and continues to live at peace with both heaven and hell.

    There is, however, one sense in which the theist is correct: scientists tend to treat determinism and free will as antonyms.
    If I have the liberty to do what I want, then God should not be able to know what I am going to do next. In his debate with
    Sagan, when Mayr argues that Man is a remarkable coincidence, he is putting evolution in this context. He is tacitly
    referring to tactical free-will factors. He is saying that if something had occurred along the way, that if mitochondrial
    Eve (Gen. 2:22) had decided to go left instead of right one day, Man would not be here. Therefore, Man was not predictable.

    However, there is something troubling with tactical free will in the general framework of strategic determinism. It confuses
    an existing movie with what an actor may do during filming. Determinism does not necessarily contradict free will because
    it is not a predictable process in the usual sense in which we think of prediction. Determinism is ‘predictable’ only in
    retrospect. Again, the scientists and philosophers confuse predictions with explanations. Predict, we predict the future.
    Explain, we explain the past. Determinism, in the sense used by Mayr, has to do with the past. The problem is language.
    Mayr is not communicating his ideas rationally because he has stealthily and unwittingly amended the definition of this
    strategic word retroactively. He is not using the word 'predict' consistently (i.e., scientifically).

    Take, for example, a bucket full of water. If you keep it at below 0°C, at normal atmospheric pressure, for a certain length
    of time, you will eventually end up with ice.  This means that we can venture a prediction concerning a liter of ice that sits
    under such conditions. We are not predicting whether the temperature will decrease or whether man can prevent the ice
    from freezing (free will). I am merely saying that if an only if (IFF) we follow these instructions to the letter and all the
    assumptions hold, ice will inevitably form. Hence, before the temperature starts dropping I can predict the outcome of the
    experiment.

    However, a more important lesson to be learned, and one which seems to have escaped the establishment, arises from
    the retrospective perspective, the sense in which philosophers treat determinism in their circular debates. The lesson is
    that if I come across a chunk of ice, I should infer that the temperature dropped sufficiently for this volume of water to
    have changed its physical configuration. In other words, I can 'retroactively' explain the necessity of the ice and the
    reason for its presence by merely knowing the factors that go into making ice. The key to this insight is knowing exactly
    what factors cause water to turn into ice.

    Let me run that by again for those who didn't catch it. This time I'll use a less obvious example. An integrated circuit –
    popularly called a chip – takes a few weeks to be manufactured. All the engineers involved in the design and process
    write specifications that give operators guidelines on what to do at each step for the chip to come out right at the end
    of the cycle. Hence, these engineers can 'predict' that IFF we follow their instructions at each step, we will obtain a
    functional chip. This is what most scientists believe they understand by determinism. However, tactical, free will factors
    usually get in the way. No one can predict whether an operator will mis-process wafers at a given operation. What an
    operator may do at a particular moment is beyond our predictive powers. But again, this ‘free will’ factor doesn’t in the
    least affect the valuable lesson we just learned. The lesson is that if we happen to come across a functional chip, it is
    because the chip has successfully completed each step in the operation successfully. Determinism stealthily embodies
    this incongruous duality: forecasting the future and explaining the past. We cannot predict that a train will necessarily
    arrive at a given town, but if the train does arrive at the town it necessarily crossed the cities through which the tracks
    run.

    Now let’s extend this ‘train of thought’ one final time to the evolution of Man. If we have sufficient information of the
    steps necessary to produce a human being, we can predict that IFF this process is carried out faithfully, Adam will
    necessarily come out of the assembly line. This doesn't mean that we    can predict at the start of the operation
    whether a man will be produced, for surely God can mis-process His spitting image at any step along the way [as
    God did the first time He tried the experiment (free will)       (Gen 6:6)].  It means the reverse: that if we go to another
    planet and come across Man, we can be absolutely certain that this creature is a product of controlled process
    specifications (determinism).

    These misconceptions account for two of the problems in Mayr’s conclusions. On the one hand, he believes that he
    is predicting whether the object Man will come out of the assembly line when he is actually regurgitating history.
    Mayr is doing a thought experiment taking advantage of his familiarity with the past. He assumes that he is standing
    at the starting line of the Cambrian looking through the time tunnel towards the future. This is not true.  He is in fact
    looking through the tunnel from the opposite end! He has retraced the footsteps of Man 600 million years into the
    past like a detective re-enacting a crime. Mayr doesn’t realize that he already knows what he’s looking for. He also
    has a feel for some of the geological, environmental, and biological factors that molded Man. When he affirms that
    Man was a long shot, it is because he has already previewed some of the film clips, including the happy ending (Man).
    An impartial observer cannot make the same 'prediction' at the start of a movie he hasn’t seen because he doesn’t
    have all the information to know whether free will is going to upset his calculation somewhere along the route and
    because he doesn’t know how the movie is going to end.

    The reason Mayr says that he cannot guarantee the appearance of the most intelligent of hominids is that he believes
    that there are too many variables. He feels that he cannot remake this movie like the original one. He mixes determinism
    (in the sense of an explanation, i.e., retroactively) with free will (what a living entity can decide to do in the future). Free
    will can be raised only when determinism is discussed in the sense of prediction, if the future is unknown. When we
    know exactly what the future brings (i.e., Man) it is called the past, and free will has no relevance. There is no room for
    free will in the context of a consummated event. I will refer to explanatory determinism as ‘false determinism’ and to
    predictive determinism as ‘true determinism.’

    Free will means unpredictable behavior. Determinism means that we can predict objects and/or behavior. If Mayr is
    going to talk about a consummated event (the evolution of Man) it is irrational for him to invoke determinism in this
    sense. Mayr is doing nothing more than regurgitating a movie he has already seen. If Mayr is going to talk about
    predicting, he cannot invoke the object Man in his argument because this particular hominid is a done deal.
    Conversely, it makes no sense for him to invoke free will in the context of a consummated event. All the animals in
    the history of life on Earth enjoyed a certain level of free will. They used this gift for better or for worse and we can't
    undo what they did. It makes no sense to ask what if in retrospect because the film is already in post-production and
    we are here. What if type of questions have relevance only in the context of future developments. If instead, Mayr is
    going to talk about explaining the past, he cannot talk about determinism if by determinism he means predicting.
    Mayr can explain how man came to be and he can talk about the probability of Man arising from the set of millions
    of animals. But he can only do so if he knows exactly what factors went into the formation of Man. If he can't explain
    how Man came to be, he can't even give us an objective statistical analysis. All he has left is his opinion, which is
    worth squat.

    Now let's do the thought experiment the way we're supposed to.

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    Last modified 05/22/08


        Copyright © by Nila Gaede 2008
They're all eating
grass. So I guess I'll
just eat grass too.
Analysts invoke both
free will and
determinism to justify
their theories


Herd mentality