Hear me out: my premise is that many new posts here are using the ordinary "folk concept of free will", rather than an explicit rigorous philosophical definition. I see some arguments for/against determinists, all seem to be inadvertently using, or sneaking in, this folk concept of free will, which makes arguments pointless.

The folk concept of free will is part cluster concept and part psychological construct. (This is different from philosophical definitions.)

A cluster concept is a collection of traits. For example, a "fish" is something that lives in water, has a jaw and bones and scales, and lay eggs. But mudskippers can live on land, hagfish have mouths but no jaws, sharks have cartilage skeletons, etc. So free will operates the same way. Exceptions do not destroy the concept; in fact, this flexibility is a feature of cluster concepts.

A psychological part lies in how free will is a core part of a web of belief. It is tied to a person's identity, morality, sense of purpose, happiness, what it means to be human, and many more. To attack or defend free will, is to also attack or defend a person's entire worldview. A lot of free will debates instead become proxy wars about morality, humanity, etc. Free will can't be debated in isolation until you untangle that web of beliefs, and that is unique for every person.

This folk concept of free will is completely fine for casual conversation or approximating human behavior, but can't precisely describe reality. This is where philosophical definitions comes in. They are logically rigorous and precise. But as such, they are at best, a tiny subset of the folk concept of free will, and at worst, incomprehensible or incongruous to the public.

Ultimately, if two people debate free will and either one is unknowingly using the folk concept, the debate will devolve into arguing for argument's sake.

(FYI. This post has been inspired by "Why Humans May Actually Be Fish" in which Hank Green ends the video saying that taxonomic "fish" is no longer used in scientific conversations, but "fish" is still useful in other contexts. So I feel that arguing against existence of "free will" feels like arguing against the existence of "fish".)

This a of AJayHeel's premise: https://www.reddit.com/r/freewill/comments/1vq0d2a/comment/p4garcu

Suppose an advanced neuroscientist secretly injects him with a targeted genetic therapy before he goes to the car lot. The therapy subtly reconfigures his dopamine receptors so that his brain physically generates 10x the pleasure response when looking at a practical grey minivan, and 0 pleasure when looking at the red sports car.

Unbeknownst to him, he walks onto the lot, looks at the vehicles, and experiences a sudden, overpowering, entirely internal 'desire' to buy the minivan. He buys it, and afterwards says: 'I wasn't forced, I just really wanted the minivan. I chose freely because it matched my desires.'

If a manipulation of your physical biology can make you 'want' something without you knowing, and you still feel 100% free while doing it, how does he know he isn't currently being manipulated by his own biology right now? The feeling is identical either way.

If everything has a cause, and you trace all those causes back through time ... how far back do they go? The Big Bang? But.... what caused the Big Bang? Did "nothing" cause the Big Bang?

Do causes go back in time infinitely? Then, if there is an infinite string of causes going back in infinite historical time .. how did events ever get to this point in time?

Hmm. Sounds like, one way or another, causation depends on magic, either to get something from nothing, an effect with no cause; or some magical force that brought events through infinite history to get to now.

Where did the whole cause and effect system come from? What caused it? What keeps it sustained from one point in time to the next, from one location to another? Universal laws? Where did they come from? What keeps a universal natural law consistent and in operation from on location to the next, from one point in time to the next? What caused natural laws to exist in the first place?

Hmm. I guess it all just popped into existence and is maintained by magic.

A few things determinists have said in response to my posts the past several days.

Before getting into that, though, the definition of Causal Determinism from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

>Determinism: Determinism is true of the world if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

Now, the wild things some determinists say:

"Science requires determinism." - No, it doesn't. See this explanation by u/zoipoi Science only requires highly predictable models of the behavior of phenomena, which is not remotely the same thing as determinism.

"Determinism isn’t held on faith, it’s held because in every domain of physics we can model, the model is a deterministic evolution of initial conditions according to a law. That's testable and observable. It’s an empirical track record that would be surprising in a non deterministic universe." - This is the gross conflation of predictable models of behavior with determinism. Virtually all scientific models contain probabilistic elements.

Under my post The "Rewind the Tape" Argument is, Ironically, Circular Reasoning, several determinists said that the "Rewind the Tape" defense of determinism is not used as an argument, but as a description of what determinism means. Even if you could "rewind the tape," the widespread probabilistic elements in that prior state, at both the macro and subatomic levels, indicate that what follows after the tape is rewound to that point has very little chance of being the same set of things that followed the first time through. These probability variances collectively produce exponentially variant outcomes for relatively short durations after each run from the same starting point begins (assuming that could even be done.)

"When the models that are deterministic can be falsified, then they are interesting, before that, I see no reason why we should refuse that reality behaves as we observe it behaves." - There's virtually no current scientific model that is "deterministic" because virtually all of them contain probabilistic elements. BTW, there is no "scientific consensus" (in terms of what physicists believe) for determinism; the top answers among physicists were non-deterministic interpretations: A Century Into Quantum Mechanics, Physicists Still Can’t Agree What It Means, Nature Survey Shows.

"Determinism is the most efficient explanation for what we observe - Occam's Razor. (paraphrased) - Sure, if you completely ignore or wave away all of the probabilistic elements that exist in virtually every scientific model.

"Libertarian Free Will is the insertion of a "magical" (or religious/spiritual) force or component." (paraphrased) - while LFW can be associated with or derived from such perspectives, there is a robust and long-standing field of LFW thought that is not derived from any religious or spiritual perspective and does not rely on anything approaching "magic," such as Agent-Causal Indeterminism that holds that it LFW is an emergent property of some biological entities that provides that organism with the capacity to begin entirely new causal chains.

(Edited to add:)

"Libertarian Free Will and the initiating of new causal chains would violate known physical laws." (paraphrased) - What physical laws does it violate, then? What we call "physical laws" only represent models of the predictable patterns of observed phenomena. As long as the "chain of events" that follows from the new cause can be well-described by those physical laws, how does it violate those physical laws? What is going on here is the conflation of physical laws with a metaphysical determinist assumption: while an acausal cause doesn't violate any known physical law, it violates the metaphysical perspective of determinism, which claims that every event has a cause. That's a claim that is well outside of the scope of science to verify.

A lot of the free will debate starts with the same question:

"Could you have chosen differently?"

But that might already be too late.

Before you “choose” anything, A or B, something quieter has already happened. (Model generating possibilities)

Your system has already filtered the world.

It has decided what even shows up.

It has predicted what this moment is.

It has assigned meaning before you ever notice meaning being assigned.

And most importantly:

It has already decided what counts as a possible option.

Take something simple.

Someone insults you.

One person instantly sees:

→ fight back

Another sees:

→ walk away

Another sees:

→ laugh it off

Another barely registers it as an insult at all.

But they are not selecting differently from the same set of options.

They are not in the same set.

And this is where the usual debate feels like it’s missing something obvious.

You don’t pick from possibilities.

You wake up inside a space where possibilities have already been pre-sorted for you.

And no, this isn’t the claim that everything collapses into one boring outcome.

Deterministic systems can still explode into variation—different brains, different damage, different memories, different noise, different timing, different everything.

That’s not the point.

The sharper question is this:

Why does one mind even see five possible actions, while another only ever experiences one?

Because the difference might not begin at the moment of choice.

It might begin before “choice” exists at all—when the system quietly decides what reality is allowed to look like.

So if two people are “choosing” from different internal worlds, then asking whether they could have chosen differently without asking how those worlds were constructed might be missing the actual mechanism entirely.

This doesn’t prove determinism.

It doesn’t rescue free will either.

It just shifts the ground under your feet:

How free is a choice if you never chose the space it was made inside?

Maybe the real question was never about choosing.

Maybe it’s about the invisible process that decides what you’re even allowed to choose from.

Hello my gorgeous humans of Reddit,

I’ve been thinking about free will from the perspective that, at the physical level, everything happening in our brains ultimately comes down to chemistry and electrical activity as well as past experiences influencing those factors. Neurons will communicate through electrochemical signals, neurotransmitters influence how those networks behave, and our brains are continuously being shaped by genetics, development, memories, and our past experiences. In that sense, when I make a decision, there doesn't seem to be a separate “self” sitting outside my brain and directing the chemistry. The decision itself appears to be part of the chemistry. I was talking to someone today and he brought it up as a 'equation', because at the end of the day it really can be as simple as saying:

Free Will and Perception of reality = electrical brain activity + chemicals + lived experience

But this is where I find the question of free will interesting. We can describe the physical processes involved, but does describing those processes actually explain the person making the decision? My brain isn't just a collection of isolated chemical reactions; it is an enormously complicated system carrying the effects of everything that has happened to me. My experiences change the physical structure and function of my brain, those changes influence future decisions, and those decisions then become part of my future experience. There is a continuous feedback loop between the physical brain, the environment, and the history of the individual.

This makes me wonder whether saying “it's all chemical reactions” actually settles the free-will question. Perhaps it does if free will requires some kind of non-physical soul or force that can independently intervene in the brain. But if we define free will as the ability of a sufficiently complex organism to process information, consider alternatives, respond to reasons, and act according to its internal state, then the fact that all of this happens physically might not necessarily eliminate it.

At the same time, there is an obvious unknown here. We still don't have a complete scientific explanation for consciousness, subjective experience, or exactly how the physical activity of the brain gives rise to the experience of being a person. That doesn't mean we should insert “life” or consciousness as a mysterious force and call it an explanation- we don't have evidence for that. But it does mean I’m hesitant to say that we have completely reduced the question of human agency to “just chemicals.”

I find this question cool because I’ve had personal experiences with psychedelics and periods of psychosis that radically changed how I experienced reality. Those experiences made me much more aware of how strongly perception, thought, emotion and our sense of what is “real” can depend on the physical state of the brain as well as the experiences that are strong enough to permanently alter both the brain's hardware and situational responses. The external world may not have changed, but my experience of it could change dramatically depending on what was happening neurologically. It makes me wonder how much of what we consider our normal, stable sense of self and reality is ultimately an emergent product of brain chemistry and past experience. At the same time, experiencing those changes firsthand makes me hesitant to assume we already understand exactly how the brain produces consciousness and subjective experience.

So , I’m curious where people here draw the line: if we eventually understood every chemical and electrical process occurring in someone's brain, including their genetics, memories, environment, and past experiences, would that completely explain why they made a particular decision? And if it did, would you consider that proof that free will doesn't exist, or could that physical process itself be what free will actually is?

Thank you for reading this <3

It is odd that the “Determinism Versus Free Will” hoax has continued for so long. The SEP authors tout that the issues “have been taken up in every period of Western philosophy and by many of the most important philosophical figures”. That’s disappointing, because this is a rabbit hole we’ve fallen into by our own careless thinking. And once anyone noteworthy falls for it, the bait-and-switch question is taken seriously by others of note. Taking the question seriously is the trap.

Consider, for example, Albert Einstein. In an interview with the “Saturday Evening Post” back in 1929, he said this: “In a sense, we can hold no one responsible. I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will.” And then, a few lines later, he adds this, “Practically, I am, nevertheless, compelled to act as if freedom of the will existed. If I wish to live in a civilized community, I must act as if man is a responsible being.”

On the one hand, Einstein insists that free will and responsibility do not exist. And then he turns around and suggests that he must act as if they do exist. The position is incoherent.

None of the three SEP articles, on Causal Determinism, Free Will, and even Compatibilism, offers us the key for resolving this unnecessary riddle.

For example, in the SEP article on Free Will, in section 1.2 Modern Period and Twentieth Century, you’ll find another example of the bait-and-switch question. They say that if “all physical objects are governed by deterministic laws of nature, how does contingency and freedom fit into such a world?” The question falsely suggests that “real” contingency and “real” freedom must “surely” be “free of reliable causation”. But, as we’ve already discussed, “freedom from reliable cause and effect” is an oxymoron. So, their question is nonsense.

Contingency is rational causation. It is based on conditional (e.g., “if x then y, else z”) logical operations. It is part of the practical operation of choosing. Choosing is a deterministic process that inputs two or more options, applies some criteria of comparative evaluation, and outputs a single choice.

The choice is deterministic. It will be causally necessitated by some specific combination of rational, biological, and physical causation. For example, the accuracy of the mental function may be impacted by biological conditions, such as lack of sleep, chemical stimulation, or general mood. It can also be altered by physical events, such as a stroke or transcranial magnetic stimulation. But, generally, it is a simple matter of reasoning, of our thoughts and feelings about a given issue, and how we expect things to turn out if one option versus another is chosen. And this makes the process deterministic.

In summary, every choice we make of our own free will also happens to be deterministic. It will be causally necessary/inevitable from any prior point in eternity, and yet it will still be our choice, and ours alone. No prior cause will make this choice for us.

And that is how the “Determinism Versus Free Will” paradox is resolved.

Experiments by Benjamin Libet and others reveal that there is unconscious brain activity that precedes one’s awareness of choosing in some very simple decisions, such as deciding when to push a button. The fact that the choice is being made prior to conscious awareness is used to suggest that our unconscious mind is in the driver’s seat, and that our conscious mind is just along for the ride.

Those making such claims seem to forget that, prior to that unconscious activity, the experimenter had to explain to the subject what to do and the subject had to interpret and internalize these instructions before they could perform the task. Both the explaining and the interpreting required conscious awareness.

After that, it didn’t really matter whether the conscious or unconscious areas of the subject’s brain were determining when to push the button. Both parts were serving the same person and the same conscious purpose.

Consider a college student who chooses to study for tomorrow’s exam. Her intention to do well on the exam motivates and directs her subsequent actions. She reviews the textbook and her notes, deliberately priming the neural pathways in her brain to recall the facts and concepts when reading the test questions tomorrow. This is a clear case of top-down causation, where the consciously chosen intent causes physical modifications within the brain. (The brain is modifying itself via the rational causal mechanism).

Neuroscience helps us to understand how the mind operates as a physical process running upon the infrastructure of the central nervous system. It helps to explain what we are and how we work. But it cannot suggest that something other than us, other than our own brain, our own memories, our own thoughts, and our own feelings is controlling what we do and what we choose. The hardware, the software, and the running process are us.

Could you have done otherwise? Yes, if you wanted otherwise.

Could you have wanted otherwise? Not sure, probably not, but the question is ultimately irrelevant.

Let me define "freedom" as the ability to act outside of determinism and randomness (essentially, "the ability to do otherwise").

While this seems impossible (for if it were not impossible, what is the cause of the free decision if it wasn't random, or determined by something else), THINGS EXIST. THINGS COULD NOT EXIST IF ALL THINGS ARE DETERMINED BY SOMETHING ELSE, FOR NOTHING WOULD EVER EXIST.

So ultimately, we must accept that reality somehow unfolds in part from lack of deterministic causes, as impossible as it is to comprehend what that means. No person or AI or anything will ever be able to understand this within this plain of existence. So this conversation is meaningless.

Determinism is not a scientific theory; it never has been. Cause and effect is not a scientific theory; it never has been.

The origin of determinism is very closely tied to the origin of materialism/physicalism, which began formally as "atomism." Atomism, essentially, was the theory that everything is comprised of tiny solid objects (called atoms) that were indivisible and had innate, objective characteristics that dictated how they interacted with other atoms at any scale. In fact, determinism directly came from this "atomist" perspective.

Although we found out that atoms were not indivisible objects, the conceptual essence of "atomism" remained: that the universe was comprised of objectively real objects with innate, objective characteristics that dictated all activity and processes and outcomes as they interacted according to those characteristics.

This is what "determinism" has been founded on for 2500 years. The concept of physical cause and effect came directly from, and is rooted in this conceptual lineage. The origin and lynchpin of both determinism and physical cause and effect is the basic concept of "atomism."

Over time and as science advanced and more became known about the nature of the structure of the atom, "atomism" was replaced with a different terminology, but with the same conceptual structure: it was called "local realism." IOW, even if the actual "atom" did not provide the objective physical characteristics necessary to support cause-and-effect determinism, something surely did - quarks, leptons, muons, gluons, electrons, neutrons, photons, etc.

Then something shocking happened; quantum experiments at least seemed to directly violate the conceptual framework of "local realism." For the next 100 years scientists attempted to dream up interpretations, such as "hidden variables," and eventually test the theories that could salvage local realism. Unfortunately for determinists, the results of all of those experiments contra-indicated local realism, and culminated in experiments that won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics disproving local realism entirely.

Perhaps cause-and-effect determinists now pin their belief in unproven theories of non-local realism?

In contrast, there have been some attempts to formalize the concept of free will into theories that lend themselves to experimental predictions, such as with the Conway–Kochen theorem in physics and the Libet-style paradigms in neuroscience; while both were taken at the time as being contra-indicative of free will, that is no longer the scientific consensus as further examination revealed both conceptual and methodological issues with those studies. IOW, such experiments are not taken to provide good evidence either pro or con, and it is actually a growing field of scientific inquiry.

So, there has been no basic, fundamental scientific evidence levied against free will, while determinism has experienced a very fundamental scientific defeat of its 2500-year core premise, leaving its adherents scrambling for alternative theories to salvage it.

At least people that believe in free will can say that it feels like we have free will; it doesn't feel like my actions are all determined; and we can say that, ultimately, doesn't everyone act as if everyone has free will? Don't we all talk and judge and infer and think based on that idea?

I don't really know what determinists think supports their belief in determinism. The original philosophical lynchpin and origin - atomism/local realism - has been scientifically disproved. Because of this, I'd think determinists would be a little more skeptical that determinism is true; but that doesn't appear to be the case.

At this point, isn't it valid to say that what keeps people vigorously asserting and defending determinism just faith?

How exactly could you guys have done otherwise on the decisions you made in the past?

By having different thoughts of course.. thoughts that just appear in your mind. Thoughts that will DETERMINE your actions and choices.

Why would free will even need reasoning? Wouldn't that mean that your decision would be based on your reasoning capability? You guys don't think that by literally reasoning things out, you guys are entering determinism domain?

Why do reasons exist if free will is real? Reasons that will DETERMINE your actions and choices.

I am literally seeing no choice in everything that I am doing right now. I only pick what's more coherent to me and what would satisfy me more.

A follow up to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/freewill/s/Sj6C8ElMJM

At t₁, Person B looks backward to t₀.

Person B determines the reasons for the actions of Person A. He maps these reasons with perfect mechanical logic. He finds the exact physical causes of the event&mdas; which is an essential rule of human observation&mdash;we must link effects back to their causes.

But then Person B attempts to turn this backward observation into a forward physical law. He claims that if he returned to t₀, Person A would perform the exact same actions.

Person B is relying on a trick of language. Let us isolate the pure logic. Person B takes a completed slice of time from t₀ to t₁. We will call this recorded history 'A'. He then imagines a hypothetical return to t₀. We will call this imagined timeline 'B'. Person B then argues that the actions in 'B' must identically match the actions in 'A'.

Thus, he is merely stating that 'B' equals 'A'. He is wanting that the past equals the past.

This is a circular tautology.

Asserting that a past event is identical to itself tells us absolutely nothing about the nature of choice at the moment it happened.

Looking backward causes a person to see a fixed outcome. Person B sees this fixed outcome and assumes it means Person A lacked the power to choose. Because he already knows the outcome, he assumes the physical record of the action is identical to the reality of the decision at the time it was made.

Also, Person B fails to separate the act of physical observation from the inner will of the mind. To say "I can explain what happened" is not the same as saying "nothing else was possible". Further, observing a completed chain of events does not prove that the chain was locked before it began. Person B is just making a physical observation of the past, and disguising it as a prediction of the future.

I'm not sure if this only makes sense to me, so i will restate it differently.

1. Person B defines a specific, frozen slice of spacetime from t₀ to t₁ and labels it Object A (which includes Person A's actions).

2. He then posits a hypothetical time travel scenario back to t₀ and labels the upcoming sequence Object B.

3. Because the hypothetical scenario explicitly requires Person B to be transported back to the exact same historical starting point, the rules of the scenario force Object B = Object A.

4. Therefore, Person B isn't proving that the actions had to be the same out of causal necessity; he is simply verifying an identity property. He is saying:

> If I go back to exactly the same past, I will see exactly the same past.

Which is the most useless tautology.

A logical equivalent would be:

> If you rewind time to exactly t₀, the present will be identical to the original present because the present is defined by t₀

The sleight of hand is that retrospective determinism does not imply prospective determinism.

Backward looking:

> "I can see the complete chain of causes that led to Person A's actions." (Valid observation).

Forward looking:

> "Therefore, given those causes, the actions had to happen and couldn't have been otherwise." (Invalid leap).

David Hume famously pointed this out centuries ago:

> "Just because Event X consistently follows Event Y in our backward observations, it does not mean Event Y necessitates Event X in a forward-looking metaphysical sense." (paraphrased)

People keep telling me im using the word wrong or conflating it with other things.

I thought it just meant "Its good to do something to someone". A necessary good, not a fabled "necessary evil". Its just a necessary good that might require some suffering or consequences.

Lets look at pure logic. Just pure logic.

Suppose at t₀ Person A makes a series of actions.

At t₁ Person B looks back t₀ and finds out that he can explain with perfect mechanical precision the reasons behind Person A's actions.

Does it logically follow for Person B to conclude that Person A actions we're physically locked &mdash; that "he could not have chosen otherwise"?

Person B believes this because if he were hypothetically transported back to t₀ to observe Person A's actions, those exact same reasons and conditions would still be present. After all, every single condition observed in retrospect would be identical in that hypothetical time travel scenario.

I would prefer only those with at least a bachelor's in mathematics reply to this post as I'm only interested in their specific intuition. Preferably.

Deception #7 – The Solution is Indeterminism

In modern times, the Epicurean notion of atoms subject to “indeterministic swerves” is mirrored in the suggestion of quantum indeterminacy. Unfortunately, causal indeterminism, if it exists anywhere, reduces our ability to understand, predict, and control the event, because the event has no reliable cause (if the cause is reliable, then the event is deterministic). Ironically, causal indeterminism does not increase our freedom at all, but instead reduces it, by limiting our ability to control events.

The concept of “causal indeterminism” is impossible to imagine, because we’ve all grown up in a deterministic universe, where, although we don’t always know what caused an event, we always presume that there was a cause.

To give you an idea of a “causally indeterministic universe”, imagine we had a dial we could use to adjust the balance of determinism/indeterminism. We start by turning it all the way to determinism: I pick an apple from the tree and I have an apple in my hand. Then, we turn the dial a little bit toward indeterminism: now if I pick an apple, I might find an orange or banana or some other random fruit in my hand. Turn the dial further toward indeterminism, and when I pick an apple I may find a kitten in my hand, or a pair of slippers, or a glass of milk. One more adjustment toward indeterminism and when I pick an apple gravity reverses!

If objects were constantly popping into and out of existence, or if gravity erratically switched between pulling things one moment to pushing them the next, then any attempts to control anything in our lives would be hopeless. In such a universe,  we could not reliably cause any effect, which means we would not be free to do anything. Fortunately, that does not appear to be the case.

We, ourselves, are a collaborative collection of deterministic mechanisms that keep our hearts beating, and enable us to think and to act.

Feelings need justification, reasons amplify feeling and in turn those feelings when it overwhelms. It compels you into doing something.

No. I think it is more accurate to say that, feelings need justification, reasons manipulate feelings. And in turn those reasons. Whichever feeling it overwhelms, your action will be according to that strongest feeling.

If your conclusion lead you to being calm after all the reasoning. Of course you'd feel like a monk. If your conclusion leads you to being irritated after you reasoned everything out. Of course you would act irritated, like whatever the usual irritated trait does. Your actions are based on how the reasoning toned down your feelings. If it didn't tone it down, well you might scream, cry or laugh etc, etc etc.

The only reason why you would reason when choosing something, is because your mind is carefully justifying which is a better choice, out of all the options to pick for you personally

So you always choose the best perceived choice for you.

Your mind always wants the best choice for your character. "Are you sure about that? I will jump into lava to prove that wrong."🤦🤦Obviously.. Your mind perceived that you proving me wrong is more important than your life, is why you did that.

And sometimes, you just become a slave to your belief (belief is something you cannot control, say whatever you want about it. You know what is true to you and what is not). You want your belief justified as, you would feel very satisfied if you ever prove it to be true.

And there is something that people keep forgetting. Not everytime you would reason things out. Most of what you do, happens subconsciously.

Once a satisfying belief has been justified and installed, you do not question it every minute. It just sits in your mind, quietly shaping perception and action.

You will always choose the option that you feel is strongest to you.

And everything always comes back to your belief, is what shapes your life.

If you feel that your belief is false, of course it would compel you to question it out and find proofs if it's actually false or not. The feeling of uncertainty is what makes you genuinely question something, after all no?

No, It’s Not About Religion

In the Section, 1.2 Modern Period and Twentieth Century, the SEP authors list the many modern philosophers who have weighed in on the imaginary problem.

But first, the authors spend a little time exploring free will from a religious and theological perspective. As a Humanist, I view free will and moral responsibility as secular issues. The arguments between theists and atheists over the existence of the supernatural are irrelevant to the issues of determinism and free will.

Next, the SEP authors point out that the idea of causal necessity (“the idea that every event must have a reason or a cause”) and the idea of natural law (“the physical world is one in which all physical objects are governed by deterministic laws of nature”), seem to suggest that something other than us is in control. Which brings us to another deception:

Deception #8 – Delusion by Metaphor

The “laws of nature” are a metaphor for the reliable behavior of natural objects. In the SEP article on “Causal Determinism”, in section “2.4 Laws of Nature”, Carl Hoefer describes it this way:

>“In the physical sciences, the assumption that there are fundamental, exceptionless laws of nature, and that they have some strong sort of modal force, usually goes unquestioned. Indeed, talk of laws “governing” and so on is so commonplace that it takes an effort of will to see it as metaphorical.”

The force of gravity causes the Moon to fall into a circular orbit about the Earth. The Moon does not consult the “law” of gravity to decide what it will do next. The “laws of nature” simply describe and predict what the Moon will do and where it will be at a given point in time. It is the mass and inertial force of the Moon itself that is causing it to move as it does in relation to the Earth. The Moon is just doing what an inanimate object of that size and mass naturally does.

When it comes to human behavior, we too are just being us, doing what we naturally do. The “laws of nature” that apply to us, such as those described in the Life Sciences and the Social Sciences, are not an external force acting upon us. They can be used to describe, explain, and in theory even predict what we will do. But the doing, the choosing, and the controlling, is still us.

A close relative of delusion by metaphor is deception by figurative speech:

Deception #9 – Deception by Figurative Speech

In conversations with “hard determinists” (also known as “free will skeptics”), we often hear claims like this, “since it was inevitable that you would choose A rather than B, you never really had a choice”. This is an example of “figurative speech”. Figurative speech is deceptive due to an implicit, but missing, “as if”.

You can spot figurative statements by asking yourself, “Is this literally true?” Figurative statements are always literally false.

For example, even when it is inevitable that you will choose A rather than B, it remains literally (actually, objectively, and empirically) true that at the beginning you have two options: A and B. And it will literally (actually, objectively, and empirically) be you that does the choosing.

We also hear these pseudo-determinists suggest that we are just “puppets on a string”. The problem with that analogy is that there is no puppet master to be found. Causal inevitability is not an entity with a will of its own, forcing its will upon us. The motives behind our choices are located within us. And the operation of choosing, when neither coerced nor subject to undue influence, is performed by us, and not by any other object in the physical universe.

Let's say in the future we have sufficient technology to determine before a baby is even is born (in utero) that the child will grow up to be a serial killer. What should society do, how would we react with that information?

In a hypothetical scenario, there's a God. This God chooses for you your desires. He creates others and chooses their desires. It ends up in a fight between desires. God already knows about this and everything has already happened. Your fate can't be changed.

God offers you the free will to act as you wish, according to the desires that you didn't choose, but it did. You are also free to do what you wish as long as the circumstances allow it. You also are free to do an you wish, but your wishes are influenced by others.

Does free will exist in this case?