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25. marraskuuta 2009 |
                      
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Karoliina Pulkkinen - Kallion ilmaisutaitolukio 2.
Thomas Nagel presents us in his work “What does it all mean?” (1987) the common belief that our actions depend on our own choices and decisions. He argues that the things which truly determine our actions are the circumstances before them. By claiming this, he presents the deterministic view of the world. According to determinism every action taken is a consequence of the circumstances and the natural laws before it, and usually those circumstances are so complex that the predicting the consequences of even the nearest future is extremely hard, if possible in the first place.
Although the concepts of ontological determinism and epistemological determinism might sound very alike, they should be strictly separated from each other. A person who presents epistemological determinism believes that one can predict the future or the following actions in case if the circumstances are well known. Ontological determinist doesn’t believe so: he or she regards, that the circumstances preceding the action might be so complex and difficult that it’s never possible to fully understand how they influence on the future actions.
On contrary indeterminism presents the opposite view. According to indeterminists the actions and happenings in the world don’t exist because of the circumstances before it – there is a real possibility that things could’ve taken some other turn instead of what really happened. There isn’t any particular reason why things happen in such way as they happen.
Indeterminism tries to avoid the problem which determinism inevitably faces: the question of freedom. To the question “Are we free to act by our own choices, decisions and needs?” determinist would give an strict “NO!” as an answer. According to determinism although there exists a mirage of free will, there isn’t truly such thing. The circumstances which stand before our actions might be so small and unnoticeable that it seems like our decisions and actions are done under the consideration of our own free mind, although the reason behind the actions might be found from our early childhood-experiences, for example.
Although at the first glimpse indeterminism might seem less strict and harsh view of the world if compared to determinism, it isn’t so - indeterminism has indeed its own problems. If the existence of the free human mind seemed so hard viewed through the dark lenses of determinism, its existence is problematic with the pink glasses of indeterminism too. Could there truly exist any free mind if the actions and doing doesn’t depend on anything but happen completely randomly? Could our decisions, wants and choices have any impact on the actions if the world would be like that? It seems like indeterminism isn’t able to give any better answer to the question as determinism gives us.
Compatibilists have tried to give their own answer to the problem. When indeterminists and determinists present the opposite views, compatibilists at least try to act like good diplomats and combine the possibility of a true chance of coincidence and the causal structure of the world altogether. One of the most well known procurators of this idea of compatibilism is Immanuel Kant; he claimed that one of the basic things which make defining the world and thinking possible for us is our comprehension of causality: the things happen because of the circumstances and laws which existed before those actions.
One of the answers which compatibilists have tried to give to the problem of combining together causality and existence of free mind is following: our actions are free in case if the decision-making before the action aren’t influenced by some external mechanisms or subjects. If a boy has made his decision to buy green candies by his own will instead being under the influence of persuading friends, his decision is free. If a strict determinist would stop by the candy-shop and chat about this subject with the boy, the determinist would claim that the boy’s decision wasn’t free, although it first seemed like that. According to the determinist, the boy’s decision to buy green candies instead of the red ones might have been a consequence of parents raising methods (“Red isn’t suitable colour for a boy! Green and blue are all right, but no red!”) or some other influences, which we might be far beyond our understanding.
It seems like determinism always gets the final word in the discussion of the existence of free minds – but this doesn’t mean that determinism wouldn’t have any other problems. In case if the structure of the world is somehow determined and our actions are inevitable this means that in the beginning of this long domino-chain of the influences, circumstances and actions there should be the a starting point – the first domino-piece. What has made this first domino-piece to move, so that this chain of events has started in the first place? Or should we ask instead who had moved that domino-piece? The respectable author of the “What does it all mean?” should give his answer to this question: just as inevitable as our actions it seems inevitable, that determinists should blame some higher spirit of this all. Even the Big Bang theory doesn’t go as an ace-card for the determinists – if the big bang was the first circle of this chain of events, something made that big bang to bang in the first place.
The question of determinism is just as complicated as any old philosophical problem should be. We could hope that the future generations will find an answer, but we shouldn’t – the philosophical field of research would miss a lovely old head-banger for ever.
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