Free Will

[The Grand Nudger]

You need to explain what, exactly, you mean by "free will."  Free will, as described in the opening post, is perfectly compatible with determinism.

By virtue of it's concession on the former, with regard to the latter, sure.  That's how free will is made to be compatible, regardless of whether or not free will is.  I, personally, don't mean anything by it, I don't know that it's actually describing something we have or do.  Generally, the notion that we are somehow, or in some measure, independent and/or intentional causal agents.   Whether a person thinks we're magic stuff that creates decisions  ex nihilo....or a person thinks that we are material creatures bound by circumstance to appraise relatively few options.  The field is wide, I get that....but personally...I think that the entire field is fairy tale and folklore.  

Additionally (though this is getting us off topic), the ability to predict something is not at all the same as causing it.  I can predict that the "sun will rise" tomorrow, but my knowledge of that future event is not in any way causing that future event.

Doesn't have anything to do with anything I said...but okay?  

(Of course, by the "sun will rise," I mean that it will seem so, due to the rotation of the earth, not that the sun will literally rise.)

I can also predict that my wife will never cheat on me.  My prediction is based on my knowledge of her character.  I do not cause her to act as she does.

I also predict that you will not willfully stick your hand into a fire and hold it there until it is completely burned off, so that you just have a stump at the end of your arm.  My prediction on that is based on knowing a bit about human nature, and, obviously, I am not causing you to refrain from doing such a thing.  Yet I am extremely confident that you will not do that.  In the ordinary sense of the word, I know you will not do that.  It is not a belief that is unsupported by evidence, or in other words, it is not a mere bit of faith.  My belief on that point is based on evidence.  It is a justified true belief.  (Go ahead, prove me wrong!  I dare you!)

There are countless other such examples, but the point is, the ability to predict something does not entail that one is in any way causing the event, nor does it rely on a specific idea of whether determinism holds or not.  Whether determinism is true or false, I make all of the above assertions with extreme confidence, and they are supported by evidence, and are not merely examples of faith.

I wasn't discussing predictions, I was discussing the availability of knowledge.  The possible or potential truth state of some future event "x".  The cause of some future event X and the availability of knowledge of future event "x" are separate propositions. There's nothing in the above that I would disagree with at a glance, but it seems like you thought we were.

Also, if it is going to be discussed, it would be good for you to explain precisely what you mean by "fatalism," as your claim that fatalism must be true if determinism is true is not correct for all common uses of the term "fatalism" (though it may be for others).

The simplest common thread between all, fatalism distilled, is this.  There is a true statement regarding the fact of a future state.  X will happen.  Fatalism must be true if determinism is true, because determinism holds that the truth value of some future event x can be derived from current state y.  X will happen, if y... so on, and so on. They're slightly different positions (one offers a "why", for example) that have this one area of overlap. People have elaborated upon this, of course, applied it to life to present something more than the statement of certainy regarding a future event. For example, "theres no point in doing anything". I don't subscribe to it myself, nor would I have to, if I were a fatalist. I see alot of those beefier, more elaborate versions of fatalism on display there in your links. Those don't interest me much, like Buddha dispensing wisdom, lol.