Determinism and Sliding Doors
Determinism is an integral theme in Director Peter Howitt's movie, Sliding Doors. In Sliding Doors, a small, seemingly insignificant act makes profound changes in the life of the lead character, Helen. Nonetheless, as the movie progresses, it becomes clear that some fundamental aspects of Helen's life, told in parallel stories, remain the same, suggesting some role for determinism.

Determinism is a school of philosophical thought that argues that every event is predetermined, or caused, by events in the past. Even human thoughts are caused by prior events and thoughts, according to the determinist idea. This contrasts completely with the idea of free will, in which humans are capable of making decisions and taking actions that can alter the course of their lives (ikipedia).

The movie, Sliding Doors, tackles the problem of determinism vs. free will head on. Sliding Doors examines two potential parallel life courses for a young British…...

Determinism
FREEDOM OF THE WILL AND DETERMINISM

Contra: Chapter 39. Baron D'Holbach: "We Are Completely Determined"

Pro: Chapter 40. "Corliss Lamont: Freedom of the Will and Human Responsibility" (334-337)

The nature of the freedom of the human will remains one of the most debated questions between philosophers. The durability of the debate is evidenced in the introductory philosophy anthology The Quest for Truth, when the Enlightenment era defender of determinism, Baron D'Holbach is pitted against the 20th century philosopher of Humanism Corliss Lamont. Despite the centuries that divide them, the two men engage in a dialogue that continues to have profound policy implications. The freedom of the will debate touches upon everything from the Christian religion's conception of the soul and salvation, to political science's conceptualizations of human rights, and to the current legal debate over retributive punishment, most specifically capital punishment.

Corliss Lamont, in his essay "Freedom of the Will and Human Responsibility," suggests…...

Devoted as she was to her husband, their intimate conjugal life was something which she was more than willing to forego for a while" (Chopin 1889). In Chopin's wording there is the implication that Clarisse is not as sexual as her husband. Still, like "The Storm" itself, the consequences of the illegitimate passion are minor: "So the storm passed and every one was happy" (Chopin 1889).
"The Story of an Hour" takes place in an urban, industrial landscape. Its plot also revolves around a deterministic twist of fate: Mr. Brently Mallard is killed in a railroad disaster. Suddenly, his wife begins to envision all of the new possibilities that have been opened up to her as an independent woman. Her grief is described as a "storm" but is one that quickly passes (Chopin 1894). In her environment, Mrs. Mallard suddenly only sees joy and hope: "the tops of trees that…...

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References

Chopin, Kate. The Storm. About.com. 1889. Full text available on July 19, 2010 at  http://classiclit.about.com/od/stormkatechopin/a/aa_thestorm_kchopin.htm 

Chopin, Kate. The Story of an hour. English Web. 1894. Full text available on July 19, 2010 at  http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/hour/

There are certain countries where culture still appears to be a strong determinant. A middle ground does exit, as with most complex concepts. For example, Yeh and Lawrence (1995) contest that Hofstede's model did not allow for an understanding of the multifaceted interrelationships that connect culture and economic growth. Through their studies of the relationship between economic growth and Confucianism, Yeh and Lawrence concluded that "the findings from these studies do not greatly enhance our understanding of the relationship between culture and economic growth and may actually mislead us."
As can be seen by the present influence of globalization and the impact of Western culture across the world on developing countries, economics does undeniably play a major role. Yet, this does not mean that the underlying cultural aspects should be disregarded. Despite the fact that two countries are capitalistic, they can have very different cultural systems that will impact this…...

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References

Allen, MW, Ng, SH, Ikeda, K. et al. 2007 "Two Decades of Change in Cultural Values and Economic Development in Eight East Asian and Pacific Island Nations," Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, vol 38, no 3, pp. 247-269

Hofstede, G, & Bond, M 1988. "The Confucius Connection: From Cultural Roots to

Economic Growth," Organizational Dynamics, vol 16, no 4, pp. 4-21.

Beard, C 1913 an Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. Viewed 10 May 2010  http://ideas.repec.org/b/hay/hetboo/beard1913.html

Bruce N. Waller, through Chanelle, denies moral responsibility for a person's actions. How does he argue his unusual position?
Choice by its nature arises from character -- except for flipping a coin or certain subatomic acts of randomness, nothing happens without some causal predisposition. No one can not 'be themselves' and make a choice. A rebellious teen from a classically-inclined family who has musical talent but takes up the electronic guitar rather than the oboe is still making decisions that casually proceed from his character. Sabrina is lucky to have the genetic predisposition to practice, family support, and exterior structures that support her innate determinism to play the oboe and make her able to choose a musical career. Someone needs to have a desire to practice a talent, or a desire to change a bad habit. Without the predisposition to want to change, no change will occur.

There is no moral…...

Today's world has greatly expanded and the challenges and provocations that humanity faces are great. Starting with political and economical challenges, and continuing with social and informational challenges, these are all more vast and complex than they were during Ancient Greek times. It is because of all these challenges that individuals will sometimes feel the need to resort to a higher power rather than treat everything in a causal, scientific approach based on reason and inquiry. Despite their tremendous impact on the human thought and perception on nature and human nature, Christianity and religious faith in general has also played an important role in actually limiting the influence of Greek thought in our society. Christianity and free will being brought into this dialogue, it became more and more complicated to accept determinism and its explanations, for example.
Overall, however, one can appreciate the fact that the Greek thought made its…...

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Bibliography

1. Plomin, R; McClearn, G.E. 1993. Nature, Nurture and Psychology.

2. Pinkar, S. 2004. Why Nature and Nurture won't go away. Daedalus Fall.

3. Lipara, R.A.2005. Gender Nature and Nurture. Routledge.

Free Will Views of Chisholm and Ayer
Determinism vs. Libertarianism

Contrasting the Free Will Views of Chisholm and Ayer

Contrasting the Free Will Views of Chisholm and Ayer

The philosophical dissection of the concept of 'free will' necessarily requires defining causality and the criteria that can influence causation. Towards this goal, the views of two philosophers who take opposing deterministic and libertarianism views will be presented and analyzed.

The possibility that a person's internal state of mind doesn't play an influential role in events is inconsistent with what I believe.

Chisholm and Ayers on Free Will

The concept of free will or freedom necessarily invokes a consideration of causation. Chisholm's view on causation, as interpreted by Feldman and Feldman (2008), requires an explanation of the criteria surrounding causality that Chisholm termed 'conceptual primatives' (Section 6). The first primitive concept introduces causal contribution. For example if a train is late (event A) it seems reasonable to infer that…...

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References

Feldman, Richard and Feldman, Fred. (2008). Roderick Chisholm. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved October 4, 2011 from  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chisholm/ 

MacDonald, Graham. (2010). Alfred Jules Ayer. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved October 4, 2011 from  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ayer/ 

Wand, Bernard. (1959). The origin of causal necessity. Journal of Philosophy, 56, 493-500.

Determinism, Compatibilism, Libertarianism
Contemporary philosophical debates about free will can frequently resemble the old parable of the blind men and the elephant. Various blind sages are asked to examine an elephant: one grabs the tusk and declares the elephant is very like a spear, another grabs the tail and says that the elephant is like a rope. In the case of free will debates, we witness various schools of thought groping around a central question. Determinists examine free will -- the human capacity to choose a course of action from different ethically-weighted possibilities -- and decide that every cause has a prior cause, and thus free will is a myth. Libertarians examine free will, and decide that determinism is a myth. Meanwhile compatibilists examine determinism and libertarianism and find some middle route whereby the two possibilities can be made consistent with each other. In this paper I will examine the three…...

Determinism and Sociology
For as long people have been aware of their own consciousness we have struggled to comprehend the mysterious factors which determine human behavior. Varying schools of thought have been originated within the realms of sociology and psychology, with each adhering to its own interpretation of why the human system naturally organizes itself in the manner it does. Each of these behavioral theories inevitably derives its inspiration from the prevailing social and scientific attitudes of the era from which it was conceived. The theory of biological determinism, for example, is closely linked to the advent of genetics and our growing understanding of the role that genes play in human development. Proponents of biological determinism attribute the entirety of human behavior to the inexorable influence of DNA and genetic makeup. From one's personal taste in music to their level of athletic ability, the foundation of biological determinism is a belief…...

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References

Giddens, A. (1987). Social theory and modern sociology . (pp. 215-263). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford Universoty Press.

Ritzer, G. (1996). Sociological theory. (4th ed.). New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.Retrieved from  http://www.gbv.de/dms/ilmenau/toc/189193476.PDF

Darwin and Determinism
All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience is for it.

Samuel Johnson

James Boswell's Life of Johnson (1791)

Are we the conscious authors of our actions or do our actions happen to us? A casual discussion of this critical question quickly deteriorates into an abstract metaphysical argument between determinism and free will and settles nothing. Instead of opposites, the experience of conscious will and psychological determinism can both be understood as evolutionary adaptations which function in tandem to promote the fitness of the individual. In Michael use's Darwin and Determinism a biology-based discussion of evolutionary thought is presented and its implications on humanity's notions of free will. use's major thrust is to present his perspective on biology and teleology. This perspective can be understood as arguing that one's motivations and decisions are inherently based on biological principles (food, sex, survival) and that there is no room for…...

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References:

Pereboom, D. Living Without Free Will. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Sharpe, K. 1992. Biology Intersects Religion and Morality. Biology and Philosophy. 7(1): 77-88.

Skinner, B.F. Science and Human Behavior. (New York: Macmillian, 1953).

Skinner, B.F. Beyond Freedom and Dignity. (New York, NY: Bantage/Vintage Publishers, 1972).

Therefore, probabilism is more about making an informed and educated choice based on the realm of probabilities available. Probabilism brings with it the theory of prediction, and also positivism, with which it is closely associated. However, probabilism is always referred to as being the half way point between determinism and possibilism. ("Infrastructure Possibilism and Probabilism," 2006)
To conclude, it must be said that while environmental probabilism states that almost all or any behaviors may be probable within one or in any environment, while determinism states that it is the physical environment, and not social conditions, that would shape a person's character and behaviors. Herein lies the basic difference between the two theories. There can be no doubt that several more theories related to these theories will emerge soon, and perhaps these would explain human behavior in a more succinct and terse manner.

eferences

Banning, Carolyn S; Banning, James H. (1994) "Use of…...

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References

Banning, Carolyn S; Banning, James H. (1994) "Use of Nonverbal Cues of the Physical

Environment in Campus Consultation" Campus Ecologist, vol. 12, no. 4, pp: 36-38.

Blair, Alasdair; Hitchcock, David. (2001) "Environment and business"

Routledge.

If we assume that 1) and 2) are true, then hard determinism is valid. Free will then is only an illusion that man perceives as a result of the complexity of all interacting cause-and-effects. Although he thinks he has possible courses of action, his final choice has already been the sum result of these interacting variables. However, if either 1) or 2) is false then it breaks down the whole concept of hard determinism.
This paper further argues that 1) and 2) are both false. First, the cause-and-effect concept is only a human phenomenon. What we know as science is only a generalization of seemingly regular and repeatable events. For example, Newton's laws of motion had been considered the only way of explaining the movement of planets, stars, and galaxies. This generalization has been accepted for hundreds of years. However, Einstein's theory of relativity has shown inconsistencies in Newton's explanation…...

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Bibliography:

Wikipedia Contributors (2008). "Determinism." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 14, 2008 at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism 

Wikipedia Contributors (2008). "Free Will: Moral Responsibility." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 14, 2008 at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will#Moral_responsibility

Absolute Determinism
Questions about place and role of reason puzzle generations of philosophers as they are among the fundamental questions of philosophy. In case it appears that everything is planned and all events are mutually connected it may witness for the divine origin of the universe and man. Laplace proposed the theory of absolute determinism which stated that every process which took place in the universe had a reason so that the next or previous stage of this process could be predicted and described in the absolute form.

Determinism of Laplace had a lot of strong points at the time when he developed this theory. First of all Laplas was a mathematician and physicist and the principle of sufficient reason corresponded to all dynamic processes he studied: motion, oscillations, etc. This principle laid in the fundamentals of classic mechanics and was applied for any dynamical system on the hand with the laws…...

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Reference:

Laplace, Pierre Simon A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities Dover Publications 1996

hen Edith harton tells us that "it was the background that she [Lily] required," we understand that both Emma Bovary and Lily have a very important thing in common. They are first of all women in the nineteenth century society, fettered by social conventions to fulfill any kind of aspirations or ideals. A woman, as it is clearly stated in both novels, had no other means of being having a place in society than by acquiring respectability and money through a good marriage. To marry was the only vocation of a woman, as harton tells us.
Of course, there interferes a great difference between the two heroines here, because Madame Bovary, as her very title proves it, is already a married woman, while Lily in harton's book is in constant pursue of a redeeming marriage. But, essentially the frustration of the two heroines is the same, as Emma is as…...

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Works Cited

The American Experience: Andrew Carnegie- The Gilded Age. PBS Online. 1999. 1 Oct. 2006  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/gildedage.html .

Byatt, A.S. Scenes from Provincial Life. The Guardian. July, 27, 2002. Oct.2006  http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2342/is_n1_v30/ai_18631915 .

Cahir, Linda Costanzo Solitude and Society in the Works of Herman Melville and Edith Wharton. New York: Greenwood Press, 1999

Deppman, Jed. "History with style: the impassible writing of Flaubert - Gustave Flaubert." Style. 1996. Oct 2006

However, a determinist theorist could argue that given the wage inequity between the genders, women who turn to prostitution may do so due to the lack of professions that pay good wages for female employees.
Drug use is another issue that generates much debate. Rational choice theorists often follow the "Just say no" route, and that drug addicts should be penalized for violating the law. Determinists, on the other hand, point out that laws vary by society, and that the laws prohibiting marijuana use only reflect the values of a select elite.

Rational choice theorists may also condemn people who commit euthanasia, whether or not the act was committed with a patient's consent. However, determinists would look more into the situation. Was the patient terminally ill and in pain? Was there consent? These questions will help a determinist in evaluating whether or not a crime has occurred....

Genetic Determinants of Complex Traits

The Role of Gene-Environment Interactions in the Development of Multifactorial Disorders
The Complexity of Polygenic Traits: Unraveling the Contribution of Multiple Genetic Variants
Epigenetics and Gene Expression: How Environmental Factors Influence Genetic Inheritance

Advancements in Genetic Technologies

The Impact of Next-Generation Sequencing Technologies on Genetic Research
CRISPR-Cas9 and Gene Editing: Ethical Considerations and Therapeutic Applications
Precision Medicine: Tailoring Treatments Based on Individual Genetic Profiles

Hereditary Diseases and Treatment

Genetic Testing for Hereditary Diseases: Implications for Prevention and Management
Gene Therapy: Current Challenges and Future Prospects
The Role of Pharmacogenomics in Personalized Treatment for Genetic Disorders

Genetic Diversity and....

Topic Idea 1: The Role of Nature and Nurture in Human Behavior

Discuss the relative contributions of genes and environment to human traits and behaviors.
Examine the interaction between genetics and upbringing, and how they shape personality, intelligence, and other characteristics.
Explore the ethical implications of understanding the role of nature and nurture in human behavior, particularly in the context of genetic testing.

Topic Idea 2: Nature vs. Nurture in Learning and Cognitive Development

Analyze the influence of genes and environment on cognitive abilities, such as language, memory, and problem-solving.
Discuss the importance of early childhood experiences in shaping intellectual development.
....

1. A Comparison of Realism in the Works of Balzac and Zola: Analyzing the depiction of society and human nature in their novels.

2. The Influence of Social Class on Character Development in Balzac's and Zola's Novels: Exploring how societal structures shape the behavior and decisions of their protagonists.

3. The Portrayal of Women in Balzac and Zola: Examining the role of gender and femininity in their works and how it reflects the social norms of the time.

4. The Use of Naturalism in Zola's Works and its Contrast with Balzac's Realism: Analyzing how Zola's focus on determinism and environmental influences differs from....

Balzac and Zola: Literary Mirrors of French Society

Introduction:
Honoré de Balzac and Émile Zola, towering figures in French literature, left an enduring mark on the literary and social landscape of 19th-century Europe. Both novelists were pivotal in the development of realism, a literary movement that aimed to depict life as it was, without idealization or artifice. This essay will delve into the complexities and thought-provoking ideas explored by Balzac and Zola in their works.

Balzac's Human Comedy: A Panoramic Tapestry of French Society

Balzac's monumental work, "The Human Comedy," is a vast literary panorama that spans the social hierarchy of France during the....