From the Same Studio that Brought You “Cause and Effect”…

It is sometimes suggested that a deterministic world, limited to one actual future, eliminates all other possibilities. But this is short-sighted. The same evolved intelligence that produced the notions of cause and effect, from which determinism derives its “causal necessity”, also produced the notion of possibilities.

What are Possibilities?

Possibilities exist solely within the imagination. We cannot walk across a possible bridge. We can only walk across an actual bridge. But this does not mean that possibilities are useless figments of our imagination. Possibilities are very important, because we can never build an actual bridge without first imagining a possible bridge.

In the safe sandbox of the imagination, we can run through many bridge design choices, estimate the likely outcomes of each, and choose the one we think is best. In the imagination we can lay out a plan of action, test it in our minds before we test it in the field, to see what steps must come in what order to successfully construct our bridge. Only then are we prepared to build a real bridge, strong and durable.

Uncertainty Necessitates Possibilities

If we were omnisicent, and already knew every detail of what would happen in the future, then we would have no need for the notion of possibilities. We would never use words like “can”, “might”, or “may”, because we would always know exactly what “will” happen.

But, of course, we are not all-knowing. Quite often, we only have clues as to what will happen, clues that only tell us with certainty what “can” happen, but not what “will” happen. Special words, like “can”, “might”, or “may”, shift us from the context of actuality to the context of possibilities. And whenever we do not know for certain what “will” happen, we imagine what “can” happen, to better prepare for what does happen.

From Many to One

Whenever we must make a choice, there will be two or more options, and we must select one. Each option is a possible future. Some choices are small things, that affect our immediate future. Will we wear the white shirt or the blue shirt today? Will we have cereal or pancakes for breakfast? Other choices are major things that determine the course of our lives. Which college will we attend? What career will we pursue? Will we buy a house now or later?

Each choice selects a single actual future from among the possible futures available to us. From among the many things that we can do, it is up to us to select the single thing that we will do.

Within the domain of our choices, the single inevitable future will be chosen by us from among the many possible futures we will imagine.

There is a many-to-one relationship between what can happen and what will happen, and between what we can choose and what we will choose. This many-to-one relationship continues to exist when we reflect upon our past choices. There are many things that we could have done, but only one thing that we would have done.

This many-to-one relationship, between can and will, between possibility and actuality, is a matter of logical necessity, and thus cannot be altered by causal determinism.

Causal determinism may safely assert that we “would not have done otherwise”, but it cannot logically assert that we “could not have done otherwise”.

Everyone Makes Mistakes…

Hey, what?! But we’ve always heard that causal determinism implies that we “could not have done otherwise”!

Sorry, but we cannot conflate what “can” happen with what “will” happen, without destroying the logical mechanism we evolved to deal with matters of uncertainty.

Conflating “can” with “will” creates a paradox, because it breaks the many-to-one relationship between what can happen versus what will happen, and between the many things that we can choose versus the single thing that we will choose.

Using “could not” instead of “would not” creates cognitive dissonance. For example, a father buys two ice cream cones. He brings them to his daughter and tells her, “I wasn’t sure whether you liked strawberry or chocolate best, so I bought both. You can choose either one and I’ll take the other”. His daughter says, “I will have the strawberry”. So the father takes the chocolate.

The father then tells his daughter, “Do you know that you could not have chosen the chocolate?” His daughter responds, “You just told me a moment ago that I could choose the chocolate. And now you’re telling me that I couldn’t. Are you lying now or were you lying then?”. That’s cognitive dissonance. And she’s right, of course.

But suppose the father tells his daughter, “Do you know that you would not have chosen the chocolate?” His daughter responds, “Of course I would not have chosen the chocolate. I like strawberry best!”. No cognitive dissonance.

And it is this same cognitive dissonance that people experience when the hard determinist tries to convince them that they “could not have done otherwise”. The cognitive dissonance occurs because it makes no sense to claim they “could not” do something when they know with absolute logical certainty that they could. But the claim that they “would not have done otherwise” is consistent with both determinism and common sense.

Causal determinism can safely assert that we would not have done otherwise, but it cannot logically assert that we could not have done otherwise. If “I can do x” is true at any point in time, then “I could have done x” will be forever true when referring back to that same point in time. It is a simple matter of present tense and past tense. It is the logic built into the language.

Literal versus Figurative

One might ask, “How did we come to make this error in the first place?”. It comes from using figurative language.

Causal Determinism tells us that every event is both an effect of prior events and the cause of new events. Thus, every event is said to be “causally necessary”, in that it must happen where and when it happens, exactly as it does happen. But, what else would anyone expect?

We’re all used to the notion of cause and effect, and we take it for granted in everything that happens and in everything that we do. Causal necessity weaves these simple instances of cause and effect into a chain of events. One thing leads to the next, and so on, as far back in time, or as far forward, as anyone can imagine.

What are we to make of this? Well, nothing really. It is simply the way things happen. We open the restaurant menu and encounter a list of possibilities, the many things we can order for dinner. We consider these options in terms of our own desires, our own dietary goals. Our own reasoning causally determines what we will order for dinner.

It was always going to happen exactly as it did happen, with us in control of what we would have for dinner.

But some people look at the causal chain and suggest to us that, if our choice was causally necessary, from any prior point in time, then “it is AS IF we never had a choice at all.” That’s a “figurative” statement. We often use metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole and other figures of speech in our communication. But figurative statements share one serious problem: Every figurative statement is literally false.

Take the statement “it is as if we never had a choice at all”. It suggests that, because our choice was inevitable, we were not really making a choice. But we literally (actually, objectively, empirically) did make a choice. In fact, had we not made a choice, the waiter would have never brought us our dinner.

So, figurative statements may be colorful and rhetorical, but they cannot be taken literally, without distorting the truth.

Thus, causal necessity, through figurative usage, acquired many implications that are simply false. When we remove these many false suggestions, causal determinism once again becomes simple cause and effect, and not some monstrosity trying to rob us of our freedom and control.