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Only Artifacts Are Deterministic

I would argue that only artifacts—intentional constructs—are truly deterministic systems. This is because they alone are closed, idealizations with a content fixed by definition, whereas nature and natural systems are not. It is therefore somewhat ironic that causality has been associated with determinism, while intentionality has been associated with free will. Free will is only free because consciousness can transcend the determinate content of its own creations. The creations themselves, however, are necessarily finite, closed, and hence determinate. It is not nature that is deterministic, but Man’s thought systems and idealizations projected upon it. It might turn out that nature is deterministic, but only if nature proves to be an artifact, a thought, a simulation. Only, in other words, if nature is unnatural!

RELATED TAGS: [artifice/artifactuality, (finite) (closed) deterministic/isolated/idealized system, idealization of/in science, causality and determinism, intentionality and free will, free will versus determinism, conscious transcendence, non-deterministic/chaotic nature, projected idealization, nature is not an artifact, nature versus artifact, creationism, nature is/as simulation]