Does Free Will actually exist? Is there a way to tell?

[robvalue]

I think "free will" is such a slippery term as to be as useless. To me it implies some sort of process going on in "us" which is seperate from the pure physics involved. But I feel there is no "us" apart from the physics.

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This should answer that question for you.

This is a very good and punchy video. I'd like to add a few thoughts:

What he said about Einstein, that he thought predetermined crimes should still be punished, was stupid. I don't know if he is quoting correctly here or not. But such a position makes no sense; if we accept determinism, there is no "should". This scenario implies we have one agent with free will deciding whether or nor to punish another agent who has no free will.

With regard to QM, I'm only just learning about it, and it is scary as fuck. I would however be cautious about saying that QM shows things are truly unpredictable. That may well be the case, but I have a voice of caution telling me that we may just not have the full picture. So I would be more comfortable saying that QM appears to show us that there is randomness. Anyone can feel free to kick my arse on that point, as I'm very ignorant so far on the subject.

This is where the slipperiness comes in. Is a bunch of random outcomes a "choice"? Doesn't sound much like one to me. Sounds like we're at the mercy of physics, just in a random way.