[EMM_386]

How does free will play into this? If the world is run by all physical laws, then I had no choice typing this out and submitting it, rather then closing the tab right now.

My "decision" isn't real.

If it is an actual conscious choice, that was not calculatable by the exact state prior, then consciousness is fundamental.

[gnzg]

One possibility is that from an omniscient perspective, free will is indeed meaningless. But then again it can be argued that everything would be meaningless from an omniscient perspective: time, space, matter, energy, freedom, love, whatever

That is unless there is some sort of actual absolute meaning to the universe, which is a very boring and treacherous line of reasoning that i won't entertain here

However he existence of an omniscient entity would completely break physics as we know it so any physicalist/rationalist approch to understanding the universe can fairly safely rule it out

Free will may exist as a result of the unknown factors of human consciousness, their actions and consequences and their relations to the physicial world.

Personally I find that thought quite pleasant, because it means that free will does exist from a human perspective, and I happen to posess one of those.

[hsn915]

You had the choice because all the processes that determine your actions happened in your brain, which is a part of you: you are not a puppet controlled from outside.

What is your conception of free will? Is it just "randomness"?

If your actions are not determined by your thoughts and desires .. then they would just be completely random. How is that "free" will?

[athenasword]

My conclusion after a good amount of reading and thinking on this:

Free will, defined as autonomous decision-making partially influenced/affected by the external environment, does exist.

Now 'autonomous' = determined by the agent, i.e. the decision to have pizza today is determined by something in you, not fully determined externally, but that something is likely not your conscious experience.

In that sense, free will does not exist.

But that does *not* mean that everything you do is predictable because P!=NP. Even God, if s/he exists, does not yet know what you will do tomorrow, s/he's waiting to find out.

So: you are not free, but you are not bound to something either.

[dwaltrip]

A decision is a situation in which you did one thing but could have imagined doing something else. It is a necessary concept due to human uncertainty about what will happen in the world -- including our own behavior.

We will never be able to perfectly calculate the causal chains of the universe before they unfold, so we operate in a world of uncertain chances and maybes.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

I recommend reading "Elbow Room: the varieties of free will worth wanting" by Daniel Dennett to get a better handle on what the term "free will" might actually mean.

[fancydoorknock]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1z-pVZiRjac

[gus_massa]

We are still not sure, but probably your decisions aren't real.

[lbrandy]

It depends what you mean by free will. Non-philosphers almost always mean "libertarian" free will when they say that, and yes, this same argument also basically outlaws libertarian free will as well. There is no physical mechanism by which you can alter your brain physics to "choose" things.

Carroll and others have a compatibilist notion of free will which is a more subtle concept that I'm not sure I'm qualified to actually explain.