If free will was not real

[Excited Penguin]

How can there be a but here? What warrants a but?

If you're a determinist, why cater to compatibilists? I don't get you.

I assumed you were a compatibilist because you specifically said you didn't believe absolute free will didn't exist, which pretty much sums up compatibilist's views.

You can't "respect" someone's views if you don't agree with them. Or, are you talking about the sort of respect where you don't go screaming in the streets, cut people's heads off and terrorize the populace because of a difference of opinion?

How, exactly, do you "respect" someone's views, I wonder, while totally disagreeing with those views at the same time. You can respect the person, but there's no respecting the views, especially not if you don't agree with them.

The existence of free will is a mystery; of course, this is referred to as being the the "hard problem".  Whether it can be solved or not, I cannot say, but my guess is that it will be solved.  Perhaps scientists someday will be able to arrange neurons in such a way as to prove that consciousness is simply biological with no supernatural element required.  Or, the hard problem may simply be intractable, which is hardly proof of a soul and/or some other non-materialistic dualism.

There are a lot of good atheistic folk who are compatibilists, and so, I think that everyone, on this question (free will), can fit into the tent.

The existence of free will is not a mystery, because there is no free will.

The hard problem referres to consciousness, not to free will.

Perhaps scientists someday will be able to arrange neurons in such a way as to prove that consciousness is simply biological with no supernatural element required.

You say that like it's plausible that it is anything but biological. Also, the word supernatural doesn't describe anything real, it's an example of linguistic malfunction(I could get into this and explain it less ambiguously, but that's a whole other subject). They don't have to prove this, anymore than they have to prove there isn't an invisible pony in your backyard. It just doesn't serve any purpose.

There are a lot of good atheistic folk who are compatibilists, and so, I think that everyone, on this question (free will), can fit into the tent.

What?!


I think consciousness isn't a mystery at all and is already explained, at some level, by what we already know about the brain. It's simply a set of functions of the brain, I believe, something evolution built into us to be better able to survive. That we make much ado about nothing, is simply a side-effect.