Deterministic system (philosophy)
Encyclopedia
A deterministic system is a conceptual model of the philosophical
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 doctrine
Doctrine
Doctrine is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system...

 of determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...

 applied to a system
System
System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....

 for understanding everything that has and will occur in the system, based on the physical outcomes of causality
Causality
Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....

. In a deterministic system, every action, or cause, produces a reaction, or effect, and every reaction, in turn, becomes the cause of subsequent reactions. The totality of these cascading events can theoretically show exactly how the system will exist at any moment in time
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....

.

To understand this concept, start with a fairly small everyday system. Visualize a set of three dominoes lined up in a row with each domino less than a domino's length away from its neighbors, impervious to external environment
Surroundings
Surroundings are the area around a given physical or geographical point or place. The exact definition depends on the field. Surroundings can also be used in geography and mathematics, as well as philosophy, with the literal or metaphorically extended definition.In thermodynamics, the term is used...

 influences. Once the first domino has toppled, the third domino will topple because the second will topple upon being contacted by the first domino. This could feasibly be shown by a scientist
Scientist
A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...

 using a computer model
Computer simulation
A computer simulation, a computer model, or a computational model is a computer program, or network of computers, that attempts to simulate an abstract model of a particular system...

 front-loaded with the ability to correctly apply physics.

Small deterministic systems are easy to visualize, but are necessarily linked to the rest of reality by an initial cause and/or final effect. To go back to the dominoes, something outside the system has to cause the first domino to topple. The last domino falling might cause something else outside the system to happen. And the system itself must be considered in isolation--if external forces such as hurricanes, earthquakes or the hands of nearby people were taken into consideration, the final domino toppling might not be a predetermined outcome. Complete isolation of a system is unrealistic, but useful for understanding what would normally happen to a system when the possibility of external influences is negligible. Complex physical systems are necessarily built using simpler ones, and using isolated systems as a starting model can help bridge the gap and aid in understanding. The domino example is developed in the Petri net
Petri net
A Petri net is one of several mathematical modeling languages for the description of distributed systems. A Petri net is a directed bipartite graph, in which the nodes represent transitions and places...

 computational model.

This example assumes that dominoes toppling into each other behave deterministically. Even the above-mentioned external forces which might interrupt the system are causes which the system did not consider, but which could be explained by cause and effect in a larger deterministic system.

Some deterministic systems

  • Classical physics
    Classical physics
    What "classical physics" refers to depends on the context. When discussing special relativity, it refers to the Newtonian physics which preceded relativity, i.e. the branches of physics based on principles developed before the rise of relativity and quantum mechanics...

     is the deterministic system assumed in the domino example which scientists can use to describe all events which take place on a scale larger than individual atoms. Classical physics includes Newton's laws of motion
    Newton's laws of motion
    Newton's laws of motion are three physical laws that form the basis for classical mechanics. They describe the relationship between the forces acting on a body and its motion due to those forces...

    , Classical electrodynamics, thermodynamics
    Thermodynamics
    Thermodynamics is a physical science that studies the effects on material bodies, and on radiation in regions of space, of transfer of heat and of work done on or by the bodies or radiation...

    , the Special theory of relativity, the General theory of relativity, chaos theory
    Chaos theory
    Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...

     and nonlinear dynamics. Some of these systems are complex, and events may be difficult to predict in practice, but if the starting conditions were known in enough detail, the outcomes of events in such systems could be predicted.

  • Nearly all electronic computer
    Computer
    A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

    s in use today are based on theoretical von Neumann computer
    Von Neumann machine
    Von Neumann machine may refer to:.* Von Neumann architecture, a conceptual model of a computer architecture* The IAS machine, a computer designed in the 1940s based on von Neuman's design...

    s or Turing machine
    Turing machine
    A Turing machine is a theoretical device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules. Despite its simplicity, a Turing machine can be adapted to simulate the logic of any computer algorithm, and is particularly useful in explaining the functions of a CPU inside a...

    s, i.e.: they are devices that perform one small, deterministic step at a time. If all inputs are specified, the computer will always produce a particular output which is calculated deterministically. Computer scientists also study other models of computation including parallel computers (more than one deterministic step at a time), and quantum computers (which are based on non-deterministic quantum mechanical models). Computer systems or programs are often described as non-deterministic if their behavior depends on factors that cannot be predicted or reliably reproduced, such as the time of day or the speed at which the user enters data at the keyboard. This, however, is a somewhat different usage of the term.

  • Behaviorism
    Behaviorism
    Behaviorism , also called the learning perspective , is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking, and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behavior...

    , an approach to psychology based on the proposition that behavior can be researched scientifically without recourse to inner mental states, is usually considered to be deterministic and opposed to free will.

Non-deterministic systems

Events without natural causes cannot be part of a deterministic system. Whether such events actually occur is a matter of philosophical and scientific debate - however, possible uncaused events include:
  • Random Quantum events
Quantum physics
Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...

 holds that certain events such as radioactive decay
Radioactive decay
Radioactive decay is the process by which an atomic nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting ionizing particles . The emission is spontaneous, in that the atom decays without any physical interaction with another particle from outside the atom...

 and movement of particles
Uncertainty principle
In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states a fundamental limit on the accuracy with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle, such as position and momentum, can be simultaneously known...

 are completely random when taken at the level of single atoms or smaller. Schrödinger's cat
Schrödinger's cat
Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, usually described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. The scenario presents a cat that might be...

 is a famous thought experiment
Thought experiment
A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences...

 in which a cat's survival cannot be determined theoretically before the experiment is done. For almost all everyday non-microscopic occurrences, however, the probability of such random events is extremely close to zero, and can be approximated to almost certainty with statistics using the correspondence principle
Correspondence principle
In physics, the correspondence principle states that the behavior of systems described by the theory of quantum mechanics reproduces classical physics in the limit of large quantum numbers....

. The philosophical consequences of quantum physics were once considered by many (including Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...

) to be a major problem for the scientific method which traditionally used a strong version of scientific determinism (see Philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...

).

Systems with controversial classification

Some systems are particularly difficult to classify as deterministic or not, and have generated much philosophical debate. The major example would be human minds, and possibly animal minds too. Can people have free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...

 if their minds are truly deterministic? Conversely, when deterministic computers are said to exhibit artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

, how are their minds similar to ours?

The entire universe

The larger the deterministic system, the longer the necessary chain of cause and effect. The entire universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...

 may be considered as such a system, which creates its own philosophical questions (see Determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...

).

See also

  • Chaos theory
    Chaos theory
    Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...

  • Classical mechanics
    Classical mechanics
    In physics, classical mechanics is one of the two major sub-fields of mechanics, which is concerned with the set of physical laws describing the motion of bodies under the action of a system of forces...

  • Classical physics
    Classical physics
    What "classical physics" refers to depends on the context. When discussing special relativity, it refers to the Newtonian physics which preceded relativity, i.e. the branches of physics based on principles developed before the rise of relativity and quantum mechanics...

  • Philosophy of science
    Philosophy of science
    The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...

  • Quantum indeterminacy
    Quantum indeterminacy
    Quantum indeterminacy is the apparent necessary incompleteness in the description of a physical system, that has become one of the characteristics of the standard description of quantum physics...

  • Quantum mechanics
    Quantum mechanics
    Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...

  • Quantum mind
    Quantum mind
    The quantum mind or quantum consciousness hypothesis proposes that classical mechanics cannot explain consciousness, while quantum mechanical phenomena, such as quantum entanglement and superposition, may play an important part in the brain's function, and could form the basis of an explanation of...

  • Scientific determinism
  • Social cycle theory of Sarkar
  • Uncertainty principle
    Uncertainty principle
    In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states a fundamental limit on the accuracy with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle, such as position and momentum, can be simultaneously known...

  • Indeterminacy
    Indeterminacy (Philosophy)
    Indeterminacy, in philosophy, can refer both to common scientific and mathematical concepts of uncertainty and their implications and to another kind of indeterminacy deriving from the nature of definition or meaning...

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