Quotes About Determinism

God does not play dice.

I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world.

There are no coincidences in 'Westworld.'

Even as rigorous a determinist as Karl Marx, who at times described the social behaviour of the bourgeoisie in terms which suggested a problem in social physics, could subject it at other times to a withering scorn which only the presupposition of moral responsibility could justify.

What men call chance is simply their ignorance of causes; if the statement that something had happened by chance were to mean that it had no cause, it would be a contradiction in terms.

The contrast between genetic and environmental, between nature and nurture, is not a contrast between fixed and changeable. It is a fallacy of biological determinism to say that if differences are in the genes, no change can occur.

Wavefunction collapse is anything other than "random". If you could really see what was going on, you would see that nothing ever happens randomly, any more than a dice throw produces a genuinely randomly outcome (if you could see what was going on, all the forces in play, you would know exactly what the outcome would be). Sensory ignorance is not ontological uncertainty. Reality knows exactly what it is doing even if you don't!

Tutti i pregiudizi sono determinati da altri pregiudizi, e i più frequenti sono quelli che nascono dai loro opposti.

Too often we shape our public positions on the basis of our economic connections. That brings us dangerously close to economic determinism.

keep in mind always Isaiah Berlin's admonition from his celebrated lecture delivered in 1953, and published the following year under the title "Historical Inevitability," in which he condemns as immoral and cowardly the belief that vast impersonal forces such as geography, the environment, and ethnic characteristics determine our lives and the direction of world politics.

if you program a purpose into a computer program, does that constitute its will? Does it have free will, if a programmer programmed its purpose?

To speak of chance is to negate the possibility of any law of cause and effect. Chance is the one final irrationality acceptable to the free will.

Technology is never deterministic, and the fact that something can be done does not mean it must be done.

It turns out that our choices of everything from food to mates result not from some mysterious free will but rather from billions of neurons calculating probabilities within a split second.

We should always think about and focus on the things that we can control, and not the things that are beyond our control. In my view, Life is like a game of cards, and the hand we are dealt is Determinism; while the way we will play it is Free Will. Let's aim to make it a good one!

If you talk to geneticists they are constantly finding that your genes are being switched on and off because of the environment. Genes alone do not determine an exact path in your life.

Quantum physics presents a new and exciting worldview that challenges old concepts, such as deterministic trajectories of motion and causal continuity. If initial conditions do not forever determine an object's motion, if instead, every time we observe, there is a new beginning, then the world is creative at the base level.

Biology, list history, is not built with 'if's.

In physics, all can you do is predict the consequences of physical laws.

In The Craft the clockwork God of Newtonian determinism has been replaced by the quantum-aware Great Architect who is ready and willing to allow us to contribute to His malleable Plan for the cosmos.

Thus transcription factors regulate genes. What regulates transcription factors? The answer devastates the concept of genetic determinism: the environment.

I can't really imagine how to live your life as if there is no free will. It may never be possible to view ourselves as the sum of our biology. Perhaps we'll have to settle for making sure our homuncular myths are benign, and save the heavy lifting of truly thinking rationally for where it matters—when we judge others harshly.

This is huge. Saying that a gene "decides" when it is transcribed is like saying that a recipe decides when a cake is baked. Thus transcription factors regulate genes. What regulates transcription factors? The answer devastates the concept of genetic determinism: the environment.

Where's the room for free will in this mechanical universe of yours, Charles?" "There isn't any. That's why I say the universe stinks." "We have no freedom at all?" "The freedom to wriggle a little on the hook.