Free Will Debate

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

If determinism is correct, then what you think of as ‘choices’ are nothing of the sort - you aren’t willing anything. In other words, you only feel as if you’re making a choice. If you debate with yourself at length whether to pick up a spoon with your right or left hand, the result will always be what it was always going to be (in a deterministic universe).

But again, I’m not arguing for or against determinism OR free will. I’m saying it’s a mug’s game to try to determine which is correct.

Boru

I made a choice: that choice was determined by my psychology. I was uncertain about hat I wanted to do, I felt the urge to decide the way I did. And then I did it. How is that *not* 'will'? Willing the choice is part of the causal sequence.

But it isn’t possible to know if you were willing the choice or not. If your ‘choice’ was determined by your psychology, then it isn’t a choice at all - your alleged choice was pre-determined by your psychological make-up, which in turn was determined by your genetics, your environment, your education, your relationships, and so on. And all of these would in turn have been pre-determined by other extrinsic factors.

If the universe is deterministic, there can be no place for free will. You can have one or the other, not both.

Boru