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Eliminative Determinism is a new theory of
causation. It is a natural corollary
of the
theory of eliminative materialism
and its
challenge to folk psychology.
Rather than
present itself merely as an innovation
or
intertheoretic version of traditional
determinism,
it seeks to offer itself as a
replacement,
or at least as an alternative,
for the present
generally accepted school of
thought.
A. Every cosmic entity
is a causal
object
B. Every event is
caused by a causal
object
C. Therefore every
human
is causal object
D. Events couldn't have
happened otherwise
E. Objects couldn't
have
existed differently
F. Abstractions Cause and Effect do not exist |
The theory is based upon principles of a
reductive parsimony and simplicity. It does
not pretend to amend or eliminate the core
determinist bottom-line doctrine that the
algorithms of causal consistency in human
behaviour are the inevitable result of antecedent
conditions and that the human being, in acts
of apparent choice, is the ineluctable expression
of his or her heredity and past environment.
ELIMINATIVE DETERMINISM'S MOST BASIC CONCEPT.
The most basic concept of Eliminative
Determinism
suggests that the human-centred
scenario
of individual 'events' is only
a minuscule
example of the constantly changing
universe
as enacted by every networked
reticulation
of macro and micro causal objects
both historical
and contemporary.
We argue that 'that which causes' equals 'that which exists' and 'that which exists' equates to that
which is holistically cosmically
present
itself. The parts of the cosmos
cannot cause
and cannot exist and cannot even
be understood
except in their relation to the
whole
Such is the immensity and complexity
of the
cosmos; such is the universal
ubiquity of
modal change, and such is the
homogeny between
'change' and 'cause,' all of
which is governed
by the existential imperative
which peremptorily
determines that 'to exist' is
analogous 'to
cause.
For humans to seek to single
out attribute
individual 'cause' to any causal
object is
to differentiate and isolate
that object
as being an individually culpable
entity
which is somehow antithetically
separated
from the overall, shared, mutual
or 'joint
causal responsibility' or 'catenulate
accountability'
of all the causal objects in
the cosmos both
historical and contemporary that
exist in
accordance with scientific generalization
based on empirical observations
or Laws of
Nature or hypotheses confirmed
by scientific
experiments.
Reflective
judgment can
take up the slack to what is
left unattended
to by this new ontology.
Now the confrontation twixt old
and new extends
into the cobwebby domain of folk
ontology
and the Gothic seigneury of causality and free will and the psycho-myth of 'events.'
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Evans Experientialism 
