Determinism (and its twin sisters “election” and “predestination”)  is concept which, in order to avoid being self-contradictory and a logical fallacy, must remain only theoretical.  There is no actual, physical thing (person, object, particle, or otherwise) which can be determined, or be a function of determinism.  And here’s why:

Determinism is a concept which can have no end; no corners, no stipulations.  Like “spacetime” and “inerrancy”, once you qualify it, outside of a theoretical/abstract construct it immediately becomes an impossible idea; untenable, and unable to fit within the physical realm’s frame of reference.  It is because of this it must not ever be qualified.  More simply put:  determinism is determinism is determinism, period.  Attempting to apply something ELSE to an idea that is the utter and complete source of itself; meaning, the whole and categorical definition of IT is IT…yes, attempting to apply this idea to a physical “thing”, which must be transient to the concept of “determinism”–meaning, it is NOT determinism but is itself– means you have added extra–meaning to the concept; and therefore the concept is no longer the concept; it is destroyed.  Because determinism is determinism is determinism is something else also…is no longer determinism.

It’s that simple.

Or not.

By definition, in order for determinism to remain ITSELF, that is, a concept which can actually have a theoretical definition, it cannot be added to, because adding to it will only ever LIMIT it; and determinism, if limited, is by definition no longer determinism.  It is impossible that something is partially determined; it is impossible that something can be determined and then not be determined for a time.  The point is that if something is determined then it IS determinism, and is LITERALLY nothing more.

See the problem here?

An object cannot be a function of determinism.  If an object is said to have either a beginning or end, then one must concede that, logically, the object at some point was NOT determined.  But the problem is that a thing cannot be both determined AND not determined…or rather, it cannot be a function of determinism and NOT-determinism.  Determined and NOT determined are mutually exclusive ideas, obviously.  Just as black cannot also be white.  They are utterly incompatible concepts.  What we are irrationally saying is that the determined object, actually WAS (by virtue of it’s non-existence either prior to its “beginning” or after its “end”) in a place where it was not determined…and that is impossible.

Ah, you will say:  “But, Argo.  Non-existence is not a place. So it does not have to be determined.”

Nice try.  Attempting to get around your logical fallacy with another one.  That’s double the points, by the way!

To which I would reply:   “Precisely, which is why determinism is falsely applied.  A determined object by definition can never NOT have a place; it can never functionally NOT exist, because that which does not exist cannot be determined…again, by definition (my favorite phrase).  You cannot determine/predestine/or elect that which IS NOT.  You cannot determine nothing.”

And further, and again, a determined object cannot be NOT determined, even by non-existence (another qualifier to determinism because…why, class?  Because if you qualify a theoretical concept with ANYTHING you automatically make it self-contradictory, and destroy it), because then IT, in its “uncreated form” was not determined.  Impossible and illogical on many levels.

See, the idea of an object being determined  is really that the object, because it is determined, can at no time be in a place where it could  not be/have been.  If we concede it had a beginning, we contradict ourselves by declaring that there was a time where it actually existed so that it could be determined, but also at the same time, did NOT exist.  It was determined and not determined at that same moment.  This is rational nonsense.  So here we see TWO glaring logical contradictions.   They are stark, and they are real, and they make determinism an impossible idea, outside of a purely theoretical framework.

Well, okay.  We’ll just decide that the object is eternal, right.  We’ll say it has no beginning or end.  That way, it can be consistent with determinism.  Easy peasy, right?  It always existed.

You wish.  Remember the rule:  qualification = self-contradiction.

Eternally determined?

Hmmm….really?  How does that work, exactly?  I mean, never mind that this flies in the face of everything considered orthodox by pretty much every science and every religion in the world…that a physical thing is eternal.  But this is really besides the point.   If the object has no “where” or “when” to go, because it is eternally going…pursuing a “there” which which cannot exist because eternal is infinity and infinity can, by definition, have no set value, how on earth can it be determined?

That’s another two points for trying, though.

See, the very same problem arises if we say that the object is eternal…the object NEVER had a beginning nor an end.  An eternal object cannot be a determined object because the idea of determinism is dependent on time in order for it to be even theoretically possible.  But by definition any eternal thing cannot be a function of time, because eternal time means that time is infinite, and infinity can have NO set value.  To declare that an eternal object is a determined object, according to infinite time, begs the question:  just when will its “determined”  status be realized (and, as a short aside, think about this:  what you are really saying is that a determined instance of an object is existing prior to existing; and really the idea of determinism falls flat on its face with simply THIS one single obvious contradiction; a thing, or act, or movement, or thought, cannot exist before it exists; right there tells you that “time” itself is purely theoretical)?  If time is infinite then there can be no set time where an object’s determined status is realized, because you cannot have a set value of infinity; and this is because, functionally, any set value of infinity will only ever amount to zero.  (This is the paradox of infinity, as I call it…and it’s a real paradox, not a contradiction, like predestination as the reformed teach it).  Simply put, you can have no WHEN to a value of infinity.  The answer of “when” it will be realized can only be:  always; and always, as a value of time can only be zero, or NEVER.

This of course means that the sum of an object’s determined status is completely within the object itself…the object becomes its own “time”, and if that is true, then it cannot be determined because it cannot have a transcendent “future” apart from itself.  If the object is its own time, then time is eternal as a function of the object–meaning, it has an infinite value as a function of the object, and thus, cannot manifest or reveal a determined WHEN or WHERE outside of the object…the when and where of the object’s determined status is:  here and now, always, which of course is NOT determinism because there is no “future” for the object to be apart from where it is; because for an eternal object, its future is itself.  And add to that the logical contradiction which says that an object can determine itself.  As I have already proven, determinism and physical object are mutually exclusive ideas; one cannot exist as an actual function of the other.

I’d like to point out that the same logical fallacy applies, again, to “spacetime”, and I plan on elaborating on this idea (which follows the same logic as this post) later.  But, for now, suffice to say spacetime can have not beginning or end without contradicting itself, and it cannot be eternal without contradicting itself; space and time cannot be eternal because then they must be valued at infinity, equates to zero when attempting to make an object a function of space time.  Eternal spacetime means that spacetime is not actually a function of space or time; it must be without BOTH.  And if that is true, then space and time are really neither space nor time as they pertain to physical objects, because nothing applied to an object begets nothing; no value.  Qualifying space time as either “created spacetime” or “eternal spacetime” always contradicts the concept. Argo’s functional premise #7, by the way.

The point here is to remember that the anchor of our truth must only be the physical.  We can never, and I mean never attempt to categorize physical objects (and I mean people and bibles in this…yes, you heard me) as functions of purely theoretical constructs.  Once you do, you will destroy the life and/or being/essence of the object and the truth of the theory.

The theoretical can only exist as true in the theoretical world.  The physical can only exist as true in the physical world.  Attempting to couple the two is an exercise, always, in mutual exclusivity, and both worlds are destroyed.