A Case for Chronological Determinism
Let's workshop this short defense of Chronological Determinism, the view that the past guarantees the future
A Case for Chronological Determinism
1. Introductory Remarks
As with Necessitarianism (a form of Determinism I discussed in a previous post), Chronological Determinism entails that nothing—no thought, no feeling, no action—is ultimately up to any human. In the following post I will offer several proofs for this view, challenging as it is to the presumptions about agency and responsibility on which our society rests. My proofs, which largely reflect the spirit of Spinoza (a 17th century philosopher on whom I wrote my PhD dissertation), stem from those developed in further detail in my paper “A Rationalist Defense of Determinism,” which was published in Theoria a few years back.
2. What is Chronological Determinism?
According to Chronological Determinism, the form of Determinism that contemporary metaphysicians typically have in mind in the debates concerning free will and moral responsibility, the past provides the sufficient condition for whatever is the case in the domain of the future. Chronological Determinism holds, in other words, that the entirety of reality right now (we might picture a domino to represent that entirety) plus, if it makes a difference, the entirety of reality before right now (a series of dominos behind the domino of right now) entails the entirety of reality in the next moment (the domino that follows the domino of right now): what happens before or earlier settles, in effect, what happens after or later. Chronological Determinism, in short, is simply the view that the past guarantees the future.
Chronological Determinism, to be clear, is the view that the not-necessarily-physical past guarantees the not-necessarily-physical future, such that from any moment in time there is only one total way that things can play out from that moment on. What way is that? The way they do end up playing out. Chronological Determinism is the view, in other words, that the state of everything—and I mean everything: physical, spiritual, eternal, supernatural, or whatever might be real and relevant—at any given moment T entails the state of everything at every subsequent moment, fixes the entirety of reality at every point onwards. Since Chronological Determinism implies that from the past to the future there is a continuous thread (whether the thread has many branches or not), the best way to put it is as follows. Chronological Determinism is the view that the past guarantees that any future that does play out does play out (however many futures there may be) and that any future that does not play out does not play out.
3. Background Definitions and Assumptions
Before I get into my proofs for Chronological Determinism, let me introduce some terms and make some clarifications first.
First, there are only three options when it comes to something, A, obtaining. (1) A is other-caused, that is, A is caused by something nonidentical to A, that is, A is excreted (whether in time or not) out of some other being (and so exists ab alio, from an other). (2) A is self-caused, that is, A is caused by A itself, that is, A is excreted (whether in time or not) out of its very own being (and so exists a se, from itself). (3) A is uncaused, that is, A is caused neither by its own being nor by some other being but rather by nothing, that is, A is excreted (whether in time or not) out of nonbeing (and so exists ex nihilo, from nothing).
Second, the uncaused category is necessarily empty, in which case all things are either (1) explained by themselves (self-caused, causa sui) or (2) explained by an other (other-caused, causa aliena). Why is it impossible, in effect, for anything to be uncaused? I defend this controversial view in detail in section 5.1 of my paper “A Rationalist Defense of Determinism,” but the short answer is: you cannot get something from nothing. To deny that the uncaused category is empty is to say, in effect, the absurd: that something, x, has reality even though reality—reality all-things-considered (and so including x itself)—does not ultimately suffice for x to have reality in the first place (whether the phrase “in the first place” be understood in a temporal sense or not). Being, however, cannot be engendered by nonbeing. Something cannot be generated from power-bereft metaphysical nothing—from metaphysical nothing, remember, in a way that does not mean that it is generated from itself. Ex nihilo, that is to say, nihil fit: from nothing—which does not have any powers or states or dispositions or laws or potencies or fields or information or implications or energy fluctuations or even lacks (if lacks have being)—nothing comes.
Third, when it comes to that which is self-caused there are three main options. According to the first option, that which is self-caused is that which exists before it exists in order to cause itself to exist. This option is a nonstarter. It is absurd, after all, for something to exist before it exists. According to the second option, that which is self-caused is that which causes itself to exist at the very same moment it comes to exist in the first place. This option too is a nonstarter. Nothing, after all, can create itself at some moment despite not existing before it is created. There is only one remaining option, which unlike the other two does not involve any absurdity: that which is self-caused is that which is necessary in virtue of existing by its very definition (that is, in virtue of having an essence that—rather than just happening to be instantiated—all by itself guarantees that it is instantiated). For something to be self-caused in the third sense, in other words, is for it to have an essence that cannot truly be conceived except as existing (since that essence inherently involves existence in the way that the concept “bachelor” inherently involves the predicate “male”). If something is self caused, that something must be self-caused, therefore, in this third sense, in which case it always already exists by the necessity of its own nature.
Fourth, what is sufficient for o is what guarantees o, such that o obtains whenever what is sufficient for o obtains. After all, what is sufficient for o is what fully explains why o does rather than does not obtain and what fully explains why o does rather than does not obtain is what guarantees o. To avoid confusion about the claim that what is sufficient for o guarantees o, consider the following points. (1) The sufficient condition for what occurs is not to be confused with the difference-maker for what occurs. Despite how people sometimes speak, the sufficient condition for the match lighting is not the match being struck. Besides the match being struck there are other conditions that need to obtain: match being dry, strike-surface being gritty, fan not blowing, oxygen being in the room, or whatever. (2) Some people may think that even though there is a sufficient condition for me pressing the shift key on the keyboard, it was not guaranteed that I would press the specific one I did: the one on the right. Such a scenario is no counterexample to the claim that what is sufficient for o guarantees o. To be sure, there was a sufficient condition for pressing the shift key in general, that is, any shift key. In this case, it was guaranteed that some shift key would be pressed. But there was also more specifically a sufficient condition for clicking the shift key on the right instead of the one on the left. The sufficient condition guaranteeing that specific action presumably involves the factors for pressing the shift key in general and also the factors that made the difference for my pressing the one that I did: it is my habit to hit the one on the right; the one on the right was closer to the other key I wanted to press while holding it down; and so on. (3) If q does not guarantee z, then q might do some work to explaining why z obtains. However, if q does not guarantee z, then q does not sufficiently explain why z obtains and so is merely a partial cause, an insufficient condition.
Fifth, sufficient causation is transitive. If x suffices for y such that y necessarily obtains whenever x obtains, and if y suffices for z such that z necessarily obtains whenever y obtains, then x suffices for z such that z necessarily obtains whenever x obtains. One might wonder about the following example, though. Imagine that (A) an annihilating asteroid is coming to earth, which in turn causes (B) me to use my one last genie wish to teleport somewhere safe, which in turn causes (C) me to survive. Surely it does not make sense to say, as we would be forced to say if causation is transitive, that an annihilating asteroid coming to earth causes me to survive! Understand, however, that the asteroid example merely undermines the transitivity of insufficient causation. Clearly, an annihilating asteroid coming to earth is not sufficient for me to use my genie wish. Many other factors, in addition to the asteroid coming, resulted in my using the wish: my wanting to live, my having a genie wish left, my being awake, my knowing about the asteroid, my having oxygen to breath, or so on. That sufficient causation is transitive is unassailable.
4. Proof A for Chronological Determinism
Chronological Determinism is an intuitive doctrine, as Proof A makes clear.
1. The entirety of reality at any given moment sufficiently causes the entirety of reality a split second into the future. (See Proof B for Chronological Determinism, especially premise 2, for more on this seemingly trivial point.)
2. Sufficient causation is transitive. (See point 5 in section 3.)
Therefore, the entirety of reality at any given moment sufficiently causes the entirety of reality at every subsequent moment.
5. Proof B for Chronological Determinism
Proof B is a more involved argument for Chronological Determinism.
1. There is a sufficient cause for why any future that does play out from the entirety of reality, the state of everything, at any given time T does play out.
Rationale.—There is a sufficient cause for whatever is, a complete explanation for why what occurs occurs (see point 3 in section 2 and section 5.1). There is a sufficient cause, therefore, for why any future that does play out from the entirety of reality at any given time T does play out. (From here on, let us abbreviate “the entirety of reality at T” or “the state of everything at T” as simply “x.”)
2. If there is a sufficient cause for why any future that does play out from x does play out, then the sufficient cause is provided by x—or, if it bolsters my case (although I will not regularly repeat it), by the entire history of absolutely everything up to and including x.
Rationale.—If the sufficient cause for why any future that does play out from x does play out is not provided by the past, which includes absolutely everything in reality in that past and so even everything atemporal or necessary or permanent (God or whatever else), then what else could be involved aside from what is already included in or explained by such a broad past? After all, backwards causation seems to be a nonstarter and even cases of concurrent causation—the ball at T (cause) and the pillow dent at T (effect)—are typically caused by what came before: someone putting the ball on the pillow. (For a thorough explanation as to why nothing else could be involved, see the discussion at the end of Proof B.)
3. If the sufficient cause is provided by x, then x guarantees that any future that does play out from x does play out.
Rationale.—What is sufficient for something guarantees that something (see point 5 in section 2). So if x provides the sufficient cause for why any future that does play out from x does play out, then that just means that x guarantees that any future that does play out from x does play out.
4. If x guarantees that any future that does play out from x does play out, then CD is true.
Rationale.—If x guarantees that any future that does play out from x does play out, then that means that the state of everything at any given moment guarantees the state of everything at every subsequent moment. After all, x is the state of everything at any arbitrary moment.
Therefore, Chronological Determinism is true.
The above rationale for premise 2, the claim that there is a sufficient cause for why any future that does play out from x does play out only if the sufficient cause is provided by x, is by no means definitive. Before I shift to another proof for Chronological Determinism, then, we need to rule out any potential premise-2-undermining candidates. What candidates might there be? The only hope, so at least one might think at first glance, is that the future in question, either in whole or in part, is one of the following: uncaused, self-caused, caused by something outside of time, or caused by some portion of the future in question. As I will show one by one, each fails to undermine premise 2 for one reason or other.
The first three options obviously fail to undermine premise 2. (1) The future in question, either in whole or in part, is not uncaused in such a way that violates premise 2. After all, nothing is uncaused to begin with (see point 2 in section 3). (2) The future in question, either in whole or in part, is not self-caused in such a way that violates premise 2. The only viable sense of self-causation—namely, being necessary in virtue of having an essence that involves existence (see point 3 in section 3)—presumably does not apply here since we are talking about something causing itself merely at a certain intermediate moment of time. But even if the viable sense of self-causation does apply here, premise 2 still stands. For then the future in question would be a necessary-permanent fixture of reality and so would already be included in the broad past operative here. (3) The future in question, either in whole or in part, is not caused by something outside of time in such a way that violates premise 2. If it were caused by something outside of time, then it would be caused by something already included in the broad past operative here.
The fourth option—namely, that the future in question, either in whole or in part, is caused by some portion of the future in question—takes a bit more discussion. Upon scrutiny, however, it does turn out that the future in question, either in whole or in part, is not caused by some portion of the future in question in such a way that violates premise 2. Since none of the other options (uncaused, self-caused, caused by something atemporal) work, to resist saying that the portion in question is included in or explained by the past, our only hope is to say—in what amounts to reapplying the fourth option—that the portion in question (call it “p”) is caused by something else (call it “s”) in the future in question. There are several problems with going down such a path.
If the portion in question, p, causes the whole future in question, then p obviously causes s, that which causes the portion in question. But then we have a situation where the effect of its own nonidentical cause is the very cause of that cause, a causal loop scenario in violation of the principle that sufficient causation is irreflexive when there are genuine steps. (To say that sufficient causation could be reflexive even while involving genuine steps is to say that A could sufficiently cause itself by way of sufficiently causing something nonidentical to itself, something to which it should be identical if it really is the sufficient cause of A and if A, through it, really is the sufficient cause of itself.)
If the portion in question, p, does not cause the whole future in question, then in the least we are off on an infinite causal regress. For then s, that which is supposed to cause p, is caused by something else in the future in question—something else that must be, of course, in the future in question (lest we fall back into one of the other dead-end options: uncaused, self-caused, caused by something atemporal). But even if we allow, as the causal regress at hand requires, that there are actual infinites (which is itself a contentious matter among mathematicians and philosophers), actually infinite causal regresses appear to be impossible. Consider, for example, the following Angel Paradox.
Imagine that at each prior cause there is a unique angel that will blow its horn if and only if no angel at any prior cause already blew its horn. Now, pick any one of these causes, Cn. A horn is blown at a cause prior to Cn and so not at Cn. For a horn would have been blown at a cause prior to Cn if a horn had not been blown at a cause even prior to that. In other words, an angel at Cn-1—a cause prior to Cn—would have blown its horn if no angel at a cause prior to Cn-1 already blew its horn. But now we land in contradiction. Since a horn is blown, a horn is blown at a specific cause. That cause, of course, can be described as Cn (Cn being, after all, any arbitrary moment). For reasons just explained, though, no horn is blown at Cn. So a horn is blown at Cn and yet no horn is blown at Cn. We land in such contradiction by supposing that the chain of causes recedes to infinity. The contradiction goes away if the chain has a first member. For in this case the angel at the first cause blows its horn and all the rest of them do not blow their horns.
There are independent ways to establish the point as well. Consider p and s again. p, recall, is a portion of the future in question—a portion that is supposed to cause the future in question. s, recall, is also a portion of the future in question—a portion that is supposed to be nonidentical to p and that is supposed to cause p. Now, s is either (1) in the past relative to p, (2) in the future relative to p, or (3) in the present relative to p. Aside from the infinite regress worry that plagues each of these three options, there are additional problems specific to each. If s is in the past relative to p, then obviously that is no threat to premise 2. Premise 2 is the claim, after all, that the past provides the sufficient cause for the future. If s is in the future relative to p, then we have a case of backwards causation. But since what causes something else must already have being to cause something else, it is absurd to say that what is yet to have being causes what already has being. If s is in the present relative to p, then we have in place a regress of concurrent causes. Such a regress, even independent of the above reasons against causal infinitism altogether, must have a prime member (for reasons well-articulated by Aquinas and Scotus). Unlike a “horizontal” series where each intermediate cause does not rely directly on its predecessor being present for it to bring about its successor (in which case, to give an everyday illustration, the dye still turns the hair blue even if we now delete the hand that put it in the hair), here we are dealing with a “vertical” series where each intermediate cause relies directly on its predecessor being present for it to bring about its successor (in which case, to give an everyday illustration, the ring that suspends the punching bag no longer suspends the punching bag if we delete the rings—the suspended suspenders—above it). Since the cause of any effect in a vertical series is a cause of that effect only in virtue of its being concurrently caused by all the prior members, there must be a source of oomph if there is even to be a given effect—a source that has its power at least in the relatively built-in way of battery-powered items. But here is the key point. Since the vertical series in question cannot have any outside explanation (lest it collapse into one of the earlier categories), its source must be completely nonderivative, must have its power in an absolutely built-in way, and so must be—since nothing is uncaused—self-caused, having an essence that involves existence. But in having an essence that involves existence, that source would be necessary-permanent fixture of reality and so would be already included in the broad past operative here.
6. Proof C for Chronological Determinism
To rope several of the above points of discussion together, consider Proof C.
1. Whatever unfolds from any arbitrary moment—10,000 years ago from right this second, say—will have a sufficient cause for why it unfolds exactly as it does. (See point 2 of section 3.)
2. Since whatever unfolds from the moment in question has a sufficient cause for why it unfolds exactly as it does (see premise 1), whatever unfolds from the moment in question is not uncaused.
3. Since whatever unfolds from the moment in question is not uncaused (see premise 2), and since there is no option other than something being either self-caused, uncaused, or other-caused (see point 1 in section 3), whatever unfolds from the moment in question is either other-caused or self-caused.
4. If whatever unfolds from the moment in question is other-caused, then Chronological Determinism is true.
Rationale.—The only viable other to whatever unfolds from the moment in question is the entirety of what was going on before the moment in question, in which case whatever unfolds from the moment in question is guaranteed by what came before (see rationale for premise 2 of Proof B). Since the moment in question is any arbitrary moment (see premise 1), it follows that Chronological Determinism is true if whatever unfolds from the moment in question is other-caused.
5. If whatever unfolds from the moment in question is self-caused, then Chronological Determinism is true.
Rationale.—If whatever unfolds from the moment in question is self-caused, then whatever unfolds from the moment in question exists by the necessity of its own nature (see point 3 in section 3). If whatever unfolds from the moment in question exists by the necessity of its own nature, then not only does whatever unfold from the moment in question unfold according to the necessity of its own nature and so deterministically (each state guaranteeing the next), but also—and most importantly—whatever unfolds from the moment in question is a necessary-permanent fixture of reality (see point 3 in section 3). If whatever unfolds from the moment in question is a necessary-permanent fixture of reality, then whatever unfolds from the moment in question is already included in the broad past operative here. Since the moment in question is any arbitrary moment (see premise 1), it follows that Chronological Determinism is true if whatever unfolds from the moment in question is self-caused.
Therefore, Chronological Determinism is true.
This piece in unpublished
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