You do realise that determinism in no way suggests nurture is not a significant factor.sublunar wrote: ↑10 Aug 2017If things were as simple and biological as Determinists like yourself claim they are, if that's all there really was to it, then wouldn't we see the evidence play out in the Nature vs Nurture debate, specifically in the study of twins? Wouldn't it be easy to prove that Nature is a supremely more significant contributing factor to one's development than (what had been classically referred to as) Nurture?
I'm not saying this is definitive proof one way or the other, but if Determinism was as obvious and real as you claim it to be, then wouldn't the outcome of such a study at least have some evidence to support your absolute claims? I do realize it's not an exact comparison. So what other fields of scientific research parallel this discussion close enough to provide useful data? I believe the Nature vs Nurture debate and its resulting data is close enough to warrant consideration.
When we are talking about quantum mechanics it's important to realise that we're talking about behaviour on a scale far beyond anything we are able to reach in normal human-to-world interactions.
All of our interactions with the world are deterministic. All of classical physics is deterministic.
There is some debate on whether the brain makes use of quantum mechanics because "human mathematicians are capable of proving so-called 'Godel-unprovable' results." With the counter argument being that cognitive and neurological processes can make mistakes.
It's important to note that non-deterministic behaviour can produce deterministic results at different scales.sublunar wrote: ↑10 Aug 2017Not only are there large gaps of missing information for our human understanding of consciousness, there are gaps of our understanding of the universe itself. You claim that "The matter of the universe, given the conditions it was in at such-and-such a time, was always going to result in the formation of planet Earth, upon which life appeared in such a fashion, to multiply and die off and multiply in just such a way as to bring everyone to this exact moment in this exact fashion." but what do you know about quantum mechanics, general relativity or quantum field theory? Because these fields seem to have concluded that "the universe is indeed non-deterministic at a fundamental level".
For instance, a random coin flip is non-deterministic, yet its average largely isn't. The significance of non-deterministic behaviour can be highly insignificant.
Non-deterministic behaviour is masked by averages, and any quantum entanglement happening in your torch still results in the same shadow.
As I understand it, micro-activities that are non-deterministic have highly insignificant effects. As you increase the number of non-deterministic instances you get more statistically deterministic outcomes, which basically means for the most part that on a fundamental level most significant activity is deterministic.
I imagine that it's when you get closer to the early universe that non-deterministic quantum behaviour has a greater effect.
It's rational to be open to the possibility that living organisms could be making use of quantum mechanics given birds may already be using quantum entanglement for navigation.
I do get a sense of a bit of a false dichotomy between science and something else, be it mysticism, spirituality or something, but I think that as things are are how science will come to understand them. At least that is how it's supposed to work.