Okay, I’m joining this discussion late, so forgive me if I miss the point with what I’m about to say.
AG, your stance - if I am not mistaken - is that human beings (regardless of how you wish to deconstruct them into essentially seperate entities like the physical self, the soul and so on) are subject to the exact same, universal laws that apply to everything else. Given this, every part of our being can be explained using the same principles that can, theoretically, explain everything else. Thus, if our being can be reduced to this set of immutable laws (which I think everyone concedes have not yet been described or “uncovered”), every action we commit can be explained by referring to some preceding “cause” that we have no control over, and, in most cases, no knowledge of. We choose the vanilla icecream, so to speak, because the endless series of causes and effects have led us, without any real say in the matter, to it. We are, then, entirely subservient to this set of laws and thus cannot transcend them, and in any way make a choice that is not entirely in deference to them.
Free will, then, becomes an illusion. The choice we make has little to do with will, but is entirely to do with the immutable laws of nature, that govern every other organism on this planet, and every piece of matter in the universe.
In this sense - being as objective as possible - I would be inclined to agree with you. So far as everything can be explained at the lowest level (which is becoming more and more a reality as we continue to learn about atmoic and sub-atomic properties), it can be expanded and, as these laws effect the whole of everything at its very foundation, it can thus be expanded and applied to the highest level where it culminates in determinism. I would be inclined to agree, that if you can understand the entire universe at this lowest level, that it can be used as a spring-board to explain everything else.
Thus we can attempt some definition of you hard determinism (correct me if this is wrong): that, as everything is governed by a given set of universal laws, everything can be explained in deference to them, and, indeed, only in deference to them. Every event or object is simply the culmination of a certain amount of causes and effects governed by these principles, and, as such, everything must have a prior cause. Thus, if these laws can be properly understood, rather than just using them to trace back the series of causes that lead up to an event, you could theoretically use them to predict what will happen (as these laws are universal and unchanging). Now I think we all agree that such knowledge is impossible, but it’s more the theory that we’re concerned with here.
The ramifications for free will are indeed dire, if what you say is indeed true. Your determinism states, as I’m fairly sure I’ve already pointed out, that a choice made by a human being was - given the cumulation of every prior cause and effect - inevitable. That this choice, if we were granted the gift of omniscience, could be traced back and explained purely in terms of these universal laws I’ve mentioned several times before. Given this, the conclusion goes, real free will is an illusion.
So is that basically what you’re saying then? Is that the brunt of the argument? (as I said, feel free to tell me if it isn’t .)
If so, I think I could only agree. Determinism is, unfortunately, for me, the most logically viable of the perspectives offered here. There are few arguments that can refute the notion of determinism and causality (causality being, if I am not mistaken, the main principle behind determinism).
However, with regards to this free will debate, I still believe that all is not lost.
The main point of all the preceding text, really, is to make this question (which may only be valid if the said text is accurate):
Does it matter if free will is merely an illusion?
Suggest, for a second, that your deterministic stance does prove, once and for all, that - objectively - free will is an illusion. That given the laws that govern everything, including ourselves, there is no way we can ever, really, make choices in the way we’ve always assumed we can.
But how can such objectification be warranted? So long as we view the universe through human eyes, an objective position - attempting to explain the human condition from beyond the human condition - seems futile. All experience - including the experience of the principles we are discussing here - is through human eyes, and attempting to transcend our humanity to analyse these things from a non-subjectivist stance seems an impossibility. Where am I going with this?
My question is simply, how does an objective refutation of real free will undermine the very subjective, yet similarly “real” illusion of free will? So long as we experience free will - regardless of what the causes of this free will may be from an objective stance - how can it be dismissed? Whether free will is just an illusion brought about by the very act of being human or not, seems a rather idle query. We are human. The human perspective may be fallible, but it’s a perspective we cannot transcend. The same perspective the “wrongly” assumes we have free will, may be the same perspective that “wrongly” assumes there is a cause/effect relationship for every event, and that everything can be explained in deferece to similar principles. The same perspective that imagined free will, is the one that created your logic.
Now I’m not going to go down the opposite path here and suggest that nothing can be explained due to our inextricably fallible, subjectivist stance (a la absolute skepticism), but I will say that the illusion of free will - even if it is just an illusion objectively - is still part of what makes us human and cannot be neglected simply because, via our attempt at an “objective” critique (which is still entirely subjective at base) tells us that our experience may be entirely wrong.
If we dismiss our experience of free will (as illusory as it may be) where does that leave us? I may not be free to chose, but I am free to experience choice. Only you can say why the latter is far inferior to the former.