Deterministic Disquiet

Determinism seems to be the belief that all human traits are biological and all human actions nothing more than mechanical responses to stimuli.

Mark Twain wrote about determinism in a short story called, "What is Man?"

I find something lacking in this idea but it is very difficult to express. When Lilly Tomlin said, "Accountants know the cost of everything but the value of nothing," she came close to expressing the flavor of my opposition to determinism.

I know it is childish to refuse to believe something because I find it objectionable, so that places me in a state of disharmony.

I accept that environment contributes greatly to a person's character. Those raised in Tibetan monasteries will turn out differently than those raised in jihadist enclaves. Those taught that it is wrong to kill and steal will turn out differently than those taught that it is the key to unlock a heavenly harem.

I accept that hereditary makeup contributes greatly to your opportunities and limitations. Those born severely disabled will not achieve athletic renown. Those born mentally disabled will not achieve cognitive renown.

Since training seems to influence behavior, bringing out valor in soldiers and inflaming cruelty in the practitioners of fundamentalist religions, then it seems possible to assert that your ethical makeup can be influenced. Since a man will act as he believes, then it seems possible to assert that your actions can be molded.

But how are emotions explained?

If I am stirred by a work of art while another is not, or I am awed by a landscape which another finds uninteresting is that wholly a matter of training and exposure? Is hope a wholly biological response?

What makes determinism so hard to address is that it makes the argument I am who I am because I had the biological and environmental experiences that I have had. That if I had had other traits or trips I would be different.

I can not escape my nature or trade my skin for another to test these claims can I?

And if I could would not the claims of determinism follow me still?

I cannot exist outside of my own experiences and neither can anyone else.

Therefore it seems determinism is a vexing opinion, but not a theory which can satisfy the falsifiability principle.

My desire to be more virtuous motivates a lot of my thoughts at present, and I find determinism an interesting way to think about the world and I hope that reflection upon its premises will train me to be more forgiving of other people's faults (I am sufficiently gracious with regard to mine own faults).

Why do we seem to instinctively distrust and dislike anyone that is seen as too calculating and insincere.

If determinism is true then there is no such thing as sincere or insincere since we are not capable of behaving in any way other than that which we have, do, or will behave.

In other words we could say that Hillary Clinton and Newt Gingrich are non-sincere people. We could say that a suicide bomber is non-sincere or a child that brings a flower for his mother is non-sincere.

Something tells me that this is false yet I cannot convince even myself that it is such.

There seems to me to be more to a person than a lamp-post. We experience we evaluate we feel. We disappoint ourselves and sometimes we redeem ourselves. We fall in love and hurt ourselves, and then we fall in love again. We are attracted by beauty. We desire to be happy and to avoid suffering.

Don't we?

Aren't there more to emotions than meets the I?