Determinism, Free Will and Paradox

[Alex K]

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Hm, I don't find that entirely satisfactory, but if we run with it, determinism automatically precludes free will, and lack of determinism produces it. It becomes almost the same thing.

Not at all - in fact, it's almost the opposite.

Given a purely deterministic Universe, free will would be defined as the ability of an individual to act in non-deterministic ways. Determinism would preclude free will only up until the point at which the composition of individual life forms (specifically the brain) reaches sufficient complexity as to generate the emergent property of free will. IOW, determinism in a sufficiently complex Universe would necessarily generate "pockets" of free will.

Look (for example) at the way in which the Solar System - most notably in the Earth-Moon-Sun part of the system - generates pockets of "reverse entropy," in which the energy from the Sun is allowing order and complexity to increase on Earth, at least for a little while.

We can argue that this "reverse entropy" is illusory in the larger scheme of things, representing really nothing more than minor side-effects of energy exchange between the Earth and the Sun, yet it cannot be denied that life on Earth has been increasing in complexity and order for billions of years. Thus, although entropy cannot truly be reversed, there exist little pockets - eddies in the inevitable flow towards Universal heat death - which temporarily (albeit futilely) allow for a bit of 'swimming upstream.'

Similarly, in a deterministic Universe, there might emerge pockets of non-deterministic behavior: unpredictable bubbles within the predictable whole. Free Will on the micro scale, if you will.

I'm tellin' ya, word salad FTW every time!

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I don't see how pockets of truly unpredictable behavior should be able to arise any more than pockets of violation of energy conservation can arise.

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As it just so happens, this is the book I had planned on starting today:

I suspect it may have some things to do with the topic at hand...

Awesome!