whether you’re a compatibilist or an in compatibilist has nothing at all to do with whether the laws of physics are deterministic.
Yes. It’s a conceptual issue to do with what “free will” means … and a physicist would have no special insight into that.
You’re saying that the belief in free will, that describing human beings as agents that make decisions, that make choices,
“Making choices” is setting the bar very low indeed. I don’t think Carrol undestands libertarians too well.
There are a number of main concerns about free will:
Concerns about conscious volition, whether your actions are decided consciously or unconsciously.
Concerns about moral responsibility, punishment and reward.
Concerns about “elbow room”, the ability to “have done other wise”, regret about the past, whether and in what sense it is possible to change the future.
And this is why it’s very important to realize that Laplace’s demon doesn’t exist, and none of us is anywhere close to Laplace’s demon.
Which has no bearing at all on the existence of determinism, or free will.
Determinism also needs to be distinguished from predictability. A universe that unfolds deterministically is a universe that can be predicted by an omniscient being which can both capture a snapshot of all the causally relevant events, and have a perfect knowledge of the laws of physics.
The existence of such a predictor, known as a Laplace’s demon is not a prerequisite for the actual existence of determinism, it is just a way of explaining the concept. It is not contradictory to assert that the universe is deterministic but unpredeictable.
If you are unable to make predictions in a deterministic universe, it is still deterministic, and you still lack the ability to have done otherwise in the libertarian sense, so the existence of free will still depends on whether that is conceptually important, which can’t be determined by predictability. Predictability does not matter in itself, it matters insofar it relates to determinis
m.
Yes. It’s a conceptual issue to do with what “free will” means … and a physicist would have no special insight into that.
“Making choices” is setting the bar very low indeed. I don’t think Carrol undestands libertarians too well.
There are a number of main concerns about free will:
Concerns about conscious volition, whether your actions are decided consciously or unconsciously.
Concerns about moral responsibility, punishment and reward.
Concerns about “elbow room”, the ability to “have done other wise”, regret about the past, whether and in what sense it is possible to change the future.
Which has no bearing at all on the existence of determinism, or free will.
Determinism also needs to be distinguished from predictability. A universe that unfolds deterministically is a universe that can be predicted by an omniscient being which can both capture a snapshot of all the causally relevant events, and have a perfect knowledge of the laws of physics.
The existence of such a predictor, known as a Laplace’s demon is not a prerequisite for the actual existence of determinism, it is just a way of explaining the concept. It is not contradictory to assert that the universe is deterministic but unpredeictable.
If you are unable to make predictions in a deterministic universe, it is still deterministic, and you still lack the ability to have done otherwise in the libertarian sense, so the existence of free will still depends on whether that is conceptually important, which can’t be determined by predictability. Predictability does not matter in itself, it matters insofar it relates to determinis m.