So I’ve put that down on the score sheet as another big fat double zero.
Tally stands at 2-1 to Pav. Thanks Ingenium. Should have read the dialogue though. That was my favourite bit. Quantum indeterminancy. Wiki.
I do not think you should ever expect the Chamber of debate to be well used compared to other forums. Obviously, debates like this take considerable time investment and aren’t going to occur every day. But, in my view a forum that produces the occasional gem is probably more worthwhile than one that produces eons of crap.
This debate was pretty excellent. The standard very, very high throughout. I enjoyed both positions and think both were very well explicated. The heavily metaphorical approach worked well and was entertaining. I also appreciated the break from the ‘quote and shoot’ approach.
Here is my breakdown:
In Tab’s first post, he argued that there was room for indivdual maneover, but that his verision of ‘inveitabilism’ leads to the view that the path of societies as a whole is determined:
What I mean to say by this is, throughout history, despite there being implicitly a diversity of choices to be made at any one point, overall, mimicking pre-determinism, only a select section of the starting populations would ever remain in existence, namely the ones who acted to follow exactly the path delineated by the best solutions to certain problems. Solutions which existed, in hypothetic form, prior to the event.
I felt this initial line of argument had promise. However, I feel the response from Pav somewhat missed a key element of Tab’s argument - that Tab was allowing for personal freedom and for decisions freely made to have an effect. The cheerio’s example, for example, was about how one person could trigger something in a society to happen - an example which Tab correctly defeated with his response that he has already allowed for this: that his argument was that this can only happen when the socitey at whole was in trouble. I couldn’t see much trouble for Tab’s position after Pav’s first response.
However, in my view - Pav delivered a surefire real hit a bit further on:
Inevitabilism would indicate that anytime a fucked situation exists that there will be a trigger to set it off, however, this fails to take into account the fact that an unstable system not presented with a trigger will still maintain.
This point may be devastating, and I feel it is something Tab should have explicitly answered. However, if Tab does answer this in his final post, I can not locate precisely where (perhaps a disadavntage of his eccentric style?). This is certainly a disadvantage, in my eyes, for his inevitablism theory and a hit well scored by Pav.
That said, I do not feel that Pav’s one mighty blow was enough, and during the debate I personally felt that much of Pav’s posts were skirting round the edge of relevency. I think it was a tough one for Pav - you let Tab start which means he got to define the debate, and in my view Pav never fully caught up with the way it had been defined - preferring to talk about the freedom of individuals and the limited scope effect of that freedom, without latching on fully to the debate about societies and the general path of human kind. This is probably seen best in his final statement:
The Compatabilist believes in mobility, horizontal, vertical, rotational and circular mobility. In other words, the Compatabilist understands and accepts that there are going to be aspects of his own individual experience that are beyond his control, but that there are also aspects fully within the realm of his control. To wit, while some things have been determined, many things (quite possibly, most things) have not.
Thus, despite the fact that Pav defined, defended and supported his own theory excelently, I personally feel the debate went to Tab.
Post Edit: I’ve just read Anita’s commentary (I didn’t read other commentaries before - I thought it fair to give mine uninfluenced). I agree with everything Anita is saying, I guess we differ on votes cast as I am going more the style of debate-marking which says that the first speaker gets to define the motion, as it were, and thus it was Pav’s responsibility to respond to Tab’s arguments about societial inevitability. The fact that I am also struggling with the idea that the two sides are mutually exclusive (Anita) is a weakness for Pav as he did no set his account up clearly in a way that would refute Tab’s initial position.
That was definitely a well-reasoned Judgment, Brevel-Monkey.
I really appreciate everyone who has Judged this Debate, for me, against me, or with a, “No-Confidence/Draw/You Both Suck,” vote for taking the time to do so. These Judgments have been fantastic thus far and have also presented arguments that I think it would be very difficult for me or Tab to argue against. I’m looking forward to responding to some of these Judgments after the Judging has concluded.
Current Score:
Tab: 2
Pav: 2
Draw: 2
AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!!!
For the record: I can’t vote, so call this an abstention. Tab and I have spent years hashing this over in too many ways to count, so I am biased. (sorry, Pav) Still a couple of comments:
Tab, I think you might have spent more time emphasizing the limits of choice at the micro level. Each input in a causal chain is restricted to extremely limited parameters of behavior, typically yes, no, maybe. There is no smorgasbord of choices, and what is choice can only occur inside those narrow parameters so that outcomes are predictably deterministic, or as close to inevitable as possible. Had you punched this aspect up, Pav would have played hell countering it.
Pav, You correctly spoke to sponteniety and novelty but not enough emphasis. Tab acknowledged the mindboggling problem when he mentioned quantum indeterminacy and you didn’t push him into the corner with it. Even though inevitabilism is a well reasoned theory, appearances are still a guessing game and the utter complexity of a causal chain with all the feedback loops left plenty of wiggle room for choice. Had you pushed this, Tab would have had to try to negate chance as part of the causal process and failing to do so would have given you the upper hand.
All in all, a good debate. The lack of formaity was a plus. You guys done good. 
My vote isn’t supposed to count, but seeing as I’ve just read everything here, agree with many of the previous critics, and know that you’ve accepted a low-post-count vote already, I’ll say my part:
I had trouble seeing where you two disagreed! The arguments were on two different scales. The first half of each of your main examples I took as cases for the others’ point of view. Since you couldn’t come to a disagreement, I’ll refrain from coming to an agreement 
Tab wins for clarity of argument, ease of reading. It was fun to read, but he also made his point clearly enough that I have trouble believing there’s anything more he could ever say. Pav, as others have said, kept going 'round his points like he wanted to say more, but couldn’t figure out how to do it.
Pav wins for getting me to believe his stance is more complete. The few times he said meaningful things, they incorporated and advanced Tab’s arguments. Or maybe that’s just the conclusion I reached in trying to translate his thoughts. Tab’s points were just too simple, and relied on the enormity of scale to impress.
The arguments were all about prediction. This is different from my (likely out of date) knowledge of the fate vs. free will debate (which I settled myself here, 
). Tab was able to show that, on large scales, important events can be predicted quite accurately. Unfortunately for him, if scale doesn’t impress me, I could use the same argument to say that the final position of a thrown baseball can be predicted with similar, if not better accuracy.
Neither discussed the difference between physics-like systems and (perceived) free-will systems. Neither discussed predictability within a complex environment. Both of these were mentioned by Pav and ignored by Tab.
Super simple summary:
Tab: I’m entertaining!
Pav: But there’s more!
Thanks to Tents for reading through all the bumf, particularly my bumf, again, and for his commentry. In hindsight I should have pushed a couple of things further, the situational-programming bit for example, but opted to cut them short - particularly in the story, because they’d have made it [even more] ridiculously long. Another day, another thread.
Hey Kygron, thanks for the review. Story of my life - too many laughs, too little substance 
.
Anyway, since you gave a very positive win-win vote, I think we’ll accept it.
Score stands now at:
3-3.
I don’t know about you, but my nails are down to the quick.
Great breakdown, Kygron!
Referring to me:
I love it!
That’s a speed bump, are you trying to tell them to slow down about judging this thing?
If they were any slower they’d be going backwards. Let’s face it, even google image search is running out of ideas to bump this thread.
I vote for Tab.
I would like to state that I do not vote for Tab because he is right. Both Pav and Tab are wrong, however, Pav has failed in motivating his argument properly because he misunderstands he argument of Chaos theory, which is one AGAINST cause and effect. The reality of this problem is that causality exists in our minds and we cannot prove that it exists outside of our minds as well. Since this is the case we must separate between the noumenon and the phenomenon, which is what Tab is pointing towards: one thinking he chooses x, might be simply a computer program deluded into thinking it actually can choose or something. However, Tab does not make the proper jump towards the inapplicability of quantum indeterminacy to reality since it is a model and therefore applies the causal workings of our mind, as opposed to the reciprocity of reality.
Anyway, the vote was for Tab.
Christmas has come early this year.
Thanks for taking the time to vote Arjen.
Okay, so the tally sits now at:
4-3 to dear old me. My God, I’m in the lead.
Hmmmm… I might have to change my abstention to a vote just to even things up…
Ah-ah-ah No takey-backies…
Two hours remain for voting.
Haha. Well done Tab 
Voting has concluded, and (only including votes that picked a favorite one way or another), Tab is the winner by a margin of 3-2.
I’d like to extend my congratulations to Tab as well as my gratitude for taking the time to participate in this Debate with me. I would also like to extend my gratitude to all who took the time to Judge this Debate as well as everyone who took the time to read it (even if they chose not to Judge).
I would also like to say that I consider it an honor to have this Debate come down to only one vote, going into this thing I thought that I was going to get crushed.
I’ll probably have more to say about this Debate in the next day or two, unfortunately, I’m kind of pressed for time at the moment.