determinism versus indeterminism

[Purple Rabbit]

Yes. What I mean is that we still have free will. A lot of believers seem to think that determinism can't be true because if it was we wouldn't/couldn't have free will. But this is of course nonsense. We'd always have the free will we always had.

But it may turn out that that kind of free will is nothing more than an anecdote we tell ourselves a posteriori! Afterwards we say that hadn't we acted so and so, event X would not have occurred. It is interesting in this regard that Dennett in his work on cognitivism shows adherence to this idea, that the body is acting before the mind has reached the 'decision' to act that way. Waht is left is not the freedom of choice but an emulated concept of free will a posteriori.

To say the future is determined is not to say that you have no free will. If you knew the future and it was inevitible. That doesn't really make sense does it?

I'd say it does! If by free will you mean the freedom to influence in any way a priori a specific outcome it does, because an a posteriori 'explanation' in terms of cause and effect is not the same. In other words, you will have the illusion of free will instead of a priori free will.

If you knew that someone was going to attack you from behind does that mean you couldn't look behind you?? I don't see how it could. You don't lose your free will. You would have the same free will you always had. If the future is predetermined that does not mean there is no evitability. You still have free will.

This example won't suffice. If you hear that someone behind you(read: the neurons from your ear signal this) and suspect an attack (read: the neurons from your memory signal this), your neurons will fire automatically to signal danger and everything that happens after is fully determined by the the sum total of all previous events. There is no decision process taking place. All is just happening in a flow of cause and effect.