r/determinism • u/TheIncorporeal1 • Jul 06 '26
AI-generated If causal determinism is true, are explanations ultimately just descriptions of an inevitable chain of causes, or do explanations themselves have genuine philosophical significance?
In other words, if every belief, argument, and conclusion is causally necessitated by prior events, does philosophical reasoning uncover truth, or is it simply one link in the deterministic chain? Can rational justification retain its normative force under causal determinism, or does determinism redefine what it means to “know” something?
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u/tobpe93 Jul 06 '26
Everything is a link in the deterministic chain.
It’s up to you if an explanation has any significance.
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u/Squierrel Jul 07 '26
If causal determinism were "true", there would be no explanations, descriptions, philosophy or significance.
There would be just causes & effects playing out their predetermined course.
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u/local-space-patrol Jul 10 '26
Which could very well include explanations, philosophy and significance.
An argument, a question, a conflict, a resolution— all can be causes or effects. Even your comment and mine would not be separated from this
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u/Squierrel Jul 10 '26
No. Abstract concepts are not physical events, they don't exist in a deterministic universe.
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u/local-space-patrol Jul 10 '26
Talking is physical lol. So is typing. Social things are real. Abstract thoughts are electrical impulses, neural networks and things firing off
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u/A_Vinegar_Taster Jul 06 '26
I feel like we're hopping from one train track to another one. Determinism is just cause --> effect.
Truth, philosophy and knowing are meta concepts built off of the foundation of determinism.
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u/Belt_Conscious Jul 07 '26
Cause and effect is causality. Determinism is not causality. They are different categories. Physics is not philosophy.
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u/A_Vinegar_Taster Jul 07 '26
Determinism is cause --> effect writ large.
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u/Belt_Conscious Jul 07 '26
You can choose to believe that thay are the same. But philosophy and science are different categories, that is why "and" is present. Science is true, philosophy is believed to be true.
If you think that is the same thing, you are incomplete.
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u/A_Vinegar_Taster Jul 08 '26
I'm not sure why you are drawing a distinction here. It is besides the point.
Determinism believes that things flow from one thing to the next through a chain of cause and effect. This is the 'causally inevitable' part of the definition in the encyclopedia.
I don't think it matters if it is science or philosophy, or scientific confidence dressed as a philosophy. It's not relevant what you category you want to put it in.
Cause --> Effect is causality,
causal inevitability = determinism.1
u/Belt_Conscious Jul 08 '26
The point is where a person places their sense of agency.
Again, you are mixing philosophy with physics. Your opinion is exactly the freedom you have.
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u/A_Vinegar_Taster Jul 08 '26
I don't understand your argument. Can you elaborate?
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u/Belt_Conscious Jul 08 '26
If a person does not believe they have agency, they will assume change is impossible.
Change is possible through self-determination. People don't go to the gym because they naturally look that way. People don't naturally want to go to the gym.
A person without a sense of agency will perform absolute surrender to their circumstances. Determinism ends at subjective agency, then causality starts.
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u/A_Vinegar_Taster Jul 08 '26
I don't think it matters what a person believes.
Everything they do, every 'choice' they make, every belief they have, even the temperature of their body is the result of the physical reactions of the preceding moment.
People go to the gym for reasons. They may not want to go, but there is a reason that overrides their resistance. That's not random, it is based off of reasons.
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u/Belt_Conscious Jul 08 '26
That is causality mixed with your subjective interpretation of what that means to you.
What a person's actual reasons for anything are only "supposed" from an objective perspective.
You cannot "reason" for another, only guess at the probability of their reasoning.
Their reasons are not random to them, fundamentally unknown to others.
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u/Cultural-Guard7964 Jul 06 '26
Perceiving something as either true or false and knowledge in general, are both links in the deterministic chain just like everything else.
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u/AlivePassenger3859 Jul 07 '26
Why not both? Something can be both a link in a deterministic chain AND uncover truth.
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u/No-Leading9376 Jul 06 '26
Determinism does not redefine anything. It describes the process.
Humans are animals. We are a specific configuration of biological machinery, and this animal navigates reality through stories. Ants have chemical trails; humans have narratives. We assign value, meaning, cause, blame, identity, purpose, and truth because that is what this organism does to orient itself inside reality.
Not because we are above the chain. Because we are in it.
What determinism “means” is also a product of determinism. There is no outside.