I know this is just re-iterating what Caledonian and Ben Jones said, but too have meaningful discussion on this subject you have to taboo “free will” and come up with a specific description of what you are trying to figure out. The most basic concept of free will is “being able to do what you desire to do,” and that is not affected one whit by determinism, or MWI, or God knowing what you are going to do in advance, etc. I know there are a lot of other more sophisticated-sounding discussions regarding this (“ah, but can you choose to desire something else”, etc) but I have yet to hear of a meaningful definition of “free will” that is affected at all by such things as MWI.
BTW, it drives me nuts when people say “well if we do not have free will, why punish criminals?” (or “we pretend free will exists so that we can punish criminals”, etc). We punish criminals so that fewer crimes happen. Whether you think those criminals have “free will” has nothing to do with the results we get by punishing them.
I know this is just re-iterating what Caledonian and Ben Jones said, but too have meaningful discussion on this subject you have to taboo “free will” and come up with a specific description of what you are trying to figure out. The most basic concept of free will is “being able to do what you desire to do,” and that is not affected one whit by determinism, or MWI, or God knowing what you are going to do in advance, etc. I know there are a lot of other more sophisticated-sounding discussions regarding this (“ah, but can you choose to desire something else”, etc) but I have yet to hear of a meaningful definition of “free will” that is affected at all by such things as MWI.
BTW, it drives me nuts when people say “well if we do not have free will, why punish criminals?” (or “we pretend free will exists so that we can punish criminals”, etc). We punish criminals so that fewer crimes happen. Whether you think those criminals have “free will” has nothing to do with the results we get by punishing them.