[coldtea]

>If free will exists, that would seem to imply that people can make decisions that affect their future. Wouldn't free will therefore imply nondeterminism?

Not necessarily.

"Free will" is being able to express your actual self (your will) in a decision.

But if on a matter that calls for A or B decision, you can make either A or B, then "you" are not a coherent thing (because you can go multiple ways. Wouldn't a person that is authentically themselves can only chose one option --the one truer to themselves and their ideas, courage, cowardice, etc.-- each time?).

So, what if there's only one possible outcome of each decision one makes each time, and the set of prior decisions (that they followed A in this matter, B in the other, and on on) is what defines you as you?

Then free will and determinism are the same thing -- the untangling of yourself as a unique being.

[mannykannot]

If that is so, then free will is a redundant concept (the outcome is actually determined without it), and the question becomes one of why do we feel we have, and are exercising, a choice between A and B.

As it happens, I am pretty sure that I am not a coherent thing - or, at least, I would not rule out a putative explanation on the grounds that it would imply that I am not a coherent thing.

[coldtea]

>and the question becomes one of why do we feel we have, and are exercising, a choice between A and B.

Perhaps there's no choice, but there's an examination/consideration of the alternatives. We mistake this examination as a choice process, even though we only have one choice (the one we end up making).

[naasking]

> We mistake this examination as a choice process, even though we only have one choice (the one we end up making).

Or perhaps you're mistaken that "choice" was ever anything else.

[bad_user]

In the absence of free will, expressing yourself in a decision is simply a function taking the current environment and your past as input.

You may be a unique being, due to your past, meaning that the possibility for another being to make the same "choices" in the same sequence as you is really low, however that's just high entropy.

Compatibilism is basically word play. If the universe is deterministic, then we are just a bunch of atoms reacting predictably to external forces, making us not very different from rocks.

[davemp]

> If the universe is deterministic, then we are just a bunch of atoms reacting predictably to external forces, making us not very different from rocks.

No. This is very disingenuous. We are a beautifully ordered, continuously changing, unlikely set of atoms with history and the ability to affect / finely order huge amounts of other atoms. We're much better and more interesting than rocks! :)

(No offense to anyone who really likes rocks--they're cool too).

[bad_user]

I'm not talking about what's interesting or not in the universe.

I'm saying that compatibilism basically says that rocks too have free will. Which makes the term meaningless.

I mean, if you think about it, rocks too can suffer grinding due to their environment, having their shape, size or texture changed, which will affect what "choices" they'll make in the future and all rocks are unique in the universe due to their shape, composition and location.

So in regards to a "free will" discussion, the only difference between us and rocks is what? That we are living organisms and thus can move around? So is an amoeba.

[coldtea]

>So in regards to a "free will" discussion, the only difference between us and rocks is what? That we are living organisms and thus can move around? So is an amoeba.

No, it's that we perceive our time-line-uniqueness as will (consciously) whereas rocks don't.

[davemp]

It's very frustrating to have discussions with deconstructionists. Rocks do not have cognition.

[bad_user]

I'm just messing with you :-P