> It’s weird to me, because literally every day I get increasing evidence suggesting I have free will within some limits and the universe is unfathomable and unpredictable.
I find the whole subject fascinating, but I am not an expert. I break it down for myself in this manner, so perhaps you could give your view.
If we rewound the universe by an hour (as an example). Literally, every single thing, particle, what have you in the universe is exactly as it was an hour ago. Then you started it again (1). Would you end up where everything in the universe happened exactly as it already did? Faced with the same choices, would *you* make the exact same choices, to end up exactly as we are now?
If the answer is yes, then that implies determinism, and would probably reject what you think of as free will (I'm taking a guess, because you didn't explicitly define free will).
If the answer is no, then it appears that the choices are just random. You have all the same information, all the same moral conindrums, etc, and yet, you just chose something different. Why? In this case, if it is just random, then that also seems to reject the idea of free will.
If there is some other mechanism involved here, could you describe whether it would make the same decisions or not. And if not, then on what basis would the decisions be different?
(1) I'd really prefer to avoid nitpicky arguments about the arrow of time and so on. This is just a thought experiment.
I find the whole subject fascinating, but I am not an expert. I break it down for myself in this manner, so perhaps you could give your view.
If we rewound the universe by an hour (as an example). Literally, every single thing, particle, what have you in the universe is exactly as it was an hour ago. Then you started it again (1). Would you end up where everything in the universe happened exactly as it already did? Faced with the same choices, would *you* make the exact same choices, to end up exactly as we are now?
If the answer is yes, then that implies determinism, and would probably reject what you think of as free will (I'm taking a guess, because you didn't explicitly define free will).
If the answer is no, then it appears that the choices are just random. You have all the same information, all the same moral conindrums, etc, and yet, you just chose something different. Why? In this case, if it is just random, then that also seems to reject the idea of free will.
If there is some other mechanism involved here, could you describe whether it would make the same decisions or not. And if not, then on what basis would the decisions be different?
(1) I'd really prefer to avoid nitpicky arguments about the arrow of time and so on. This is just a thought experiment.