Free Will: Fact or Fiction

[Tempus]

He's talking about the writing of history specifically, but it can be taken more generally.

• "The nightmare quality of Kafka's novels lies in the fact that nothing that happens has any apparent cause, or any cause that can be ascertained: this leads to the total disintegration of the human personality, which is based on the assumption that events have causes, and that enough of these causes are ascertainable to build up in the human mind a pattern of past and present sufficiently coherent to serve as a guide to action. Everyday life would be impossible unless one assumed that human behaviour was determined by causes which are in principle ascertainable. Once upon a time some people thought it blasphemous to inquire into the causes of natural phenomena, since these were obviously governed by the divine will. Sir Isaiah Berlin's objection to our explaining why human beings acted as they did, on the ground that these actions are governed by the human will, belongs to the same order of ideas, and perhaps indicates that the social sciences are in the same stage of development today as were the natural sciences when this kind of argument was directed against them." - E. H. Carr (What is History? p94)

I think freewill is nonsense, myself. For me, the answer to the question "what would a world look like with freewill?" would be "frightening". Actually, I find both options frightening, particularly in the early hours. Compatiblism, as far as I can tell, is optimistic determinism. It's really a Morton's fork from my perspective, sans the choice.