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Originally Posted by ZGoten
I think determinism and souls could work together. You bring up the word 'fate', which does not entirely coincide with determinism. I actually think you are confusing determinism and fatalism in this case. The former just states, that there is a predictable cause-effect-relationship in everything. It does not go the extra mile and say that therefore fate exitsts. This is what fatalism does. Normally, in a world without souls, both ideas would pretty much amount to the same thing, because there's no influence from anything that does not obey that logic. If you have a world in which souls exists, however, fatalism and determinism are becomming two very distinct theories. The former would just not allow souls, because, like you said, fate is already programmed, which excludes the possibility of any divine or spiritual intervention. In the case of determinism, souls could be a part of the world, though, because, like I said, this theory does not say that fate exists. In this scenario, one could imagine souls as some kind of outside influence that can change links of processes that would otherwise run with clockwork precision and theoretical predictabilty. It would be kind of like a sandbox video game like GTA. The bots are minding their own business. The world just runs like it's programmed to run, but as soon as an outside force, in this case the player, intervenes, what up to a point appeared to be destined to happen in the game world, might change because of necessary but unforeseen reactions to the player's actions.
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But wouldn't the entire theory fall apart if there exists some element of the universe that can't be predicted by simply accounting for every single element of physical reality? By my understanding, the theory hinges on the assumption that the future can be predicted with absolute certainty just by knowing all those things. Is my understanding of that incorrect? The very existence of any variable to the equation, particularly human choice, would cause that entire idea to fall apart.
From how I understand your interpretations, it seems that you're drawing a dichotomy between natural phenomena and human-influenced phenomena. Determinism would then only be applicable to natural phenomena, and that human behavior and choice is somehow outside its effect. That's a fine view to take, but it would completely negate the idea of predicting the future of the universe in theory, which determinism relies on. For me, it's all about rejecting one and accepting the other. I can't see how any compromise can work here where free will and determinism can coexist.