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Re:Superdeterminism may help us overcome the current crisis ... by zelphirkalt on Saturday March 14, 2020 @08:36PM (#22579985)
Every time I search for it, I seem to need to go through many websites with wishy-washy explanations. Then I found: http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam051/2004045179.pdf where it lists 4 types in the table of contents (just search for "determinism" in the document). However, some other websites list more types, where some of them imply the others. For example: https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_determinism.html Recently I had an interesting discussion with a coworker, but I cannot find the website we shared to clarify, what I meant by "deterministic".

Basically the metaphysical determinism says, that everything is predetermined and if something seems random, it is simply because of something we do not know yet or something that is too complex to be calculated, so that we cannot predict the event that seems random. Whatever physicists come up with, for example quantum whatever, one can always say: Well, it seems random, but I believe, that there is something we have not yet discovered or don't yet know about, which makes things behave exactly as they are, completely deterministic.

At that point it becomes a believe, not a science. You can always add an unknown (or "hidden variable"). Personally, I do not think this believe is in any way worse, than the believe, that something "simply happens at random" with "no theoretical way of explaining why". Probably metaphysical determinism in one way or another has always been a big motivator for scientists to continue research.

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