Can prayer change God's perfect plan?

[Edwardo Piet]

Yeah it sounds like you're a compatabilist.

Of course comptabilist free will exists. But EVERYONE believes in that. NO ONE questions that.

However most people ALSO believe in incompatabilist free will on top of that... even though it's impossible.

That's the point. What most people believe in is false.

If the compatabilists are going to step in they should point out that the free will most people believe in is wrong. AND tell they don't need that kind of free will. Like Dan Dennett does.

But the first step is often missed. Comptabilists define what free will is... which is a kind EVERYONE believes in but they fail to point out the incompatabilist kind is impossible and.... if they were to point that out successfully they would shatter a lot of people's inner worlds.... their life would suddenly make no sense to them.

UNTIL they then also thoroughly convince people that Compatabilist free will is sufficent. And it is.

I mean... it is sufficent in the sense that it's all anyone ever has anyway. But I certainly felt more motivated when I believed in the impossible kind when I was much younger.

It is rather shattering to realize that you're a slave to your motives. And all compatabilsm does is say "Hey there's a difference between voluntary action and involuntary action and it's useful to hold people responsible AS IF they have free will!" that's literally how vacuous the compatabilist definition is.

No one questions the... for instance... legal definition of free will. That doing something voluntarily or 'of one's own free will' is something that any sane mature adult has....

...that's not the point. The point is most people also believe they are not slaves to their motives and that any given point in time they could have chosen otherwise. They could not. They were always going to do it... or indeterminism is true. Either way... THEY did not determine it.... their brain controls them.... they don't control their brain. Meaning that their mind... the conscious part of their brain... is ultimately controlled by the brain as a whole -- or the relevant unconscious parts.

And furthermore the brain itself is ultimately influenced by external factors as well. It's all prior causes prior causes prior causes or quantum randomness. Either way... no free will that most people believe in.

If you do intentionally do X at time T you could literally NOT have intentionally done Y at time T of your own free will. The compatabilist just says "Oh but you did it intentionally so that's free will". It's super vacuous.

Comptabilism is looking at the lack of free will and at the fact we all behave as if we have it anyway and just labelling that free will. It's literally looking at WILL... and calling it free will. And then the compatbailists are like "Fuck... where does the free part come in? Oh right we'll just say that whether an action is voluntarily or not determines if the will is free."

Sam Harris is very correct when he says it resembles theology. It's pathetic word games. It's as bad as trying to talk God into existence.