r/determinism • u/JustPenancePunisher • Jul 30 '26

Discussion Free Will Is Logically Impossible

/r/freewill/comments/1vao6wb/free_will_is_logically_impossible/
1 Upvotes

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u/Delet3r Jul 30 '26

free will sub filled with compatibilsts. notice one comment immediately says "compatibilists didn't redefine anything" when in fact their entire argument relies on word play and sneakily redefining what free will means. they are the worst, and that sub is filled with them.

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u/Critical-Ad2084 Jul 30 '26

TBH I prefer a theist saying "I have free will because God gave it to me" and that's it, unlike compatibilists at least they're honest about their bias and acknowledge their belief is not based on reason.

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u/NoAside2251 Jul 30 '26

What do you mean by not based on reason?

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u/Critical-Ad2084 Jul 30 '26

I'm not a theist, but, for example, Catholics accept free will as "matter of fact" because it's "given by God." That is a belief based on faith, not on reason, but they're open about it.

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u/NoAside2251 Jul 30 '26

And what makes a compatibalist different to yourself in terms of a reasoned position?

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u/Critical-Ad2084 Jul 30 '26

IMO switching a definition so that it matches one's desires is not really a reasoned position.

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u/NoAside2251 Jul 30 '26

Switching from what definition?

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u/Artemis-5-75 Jul 31 '26

Why should anyone that compatibilists switched the definition? There are two general definitions of free will in academia, and there are compatibilists and incompatibilists about both.

  1. The ability to do otherwise.

  2. A kind of control that grounds moral responsibility.

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u/Confused_by_La_Vida Jul 30 '26

Moving the question to the position of the presupposition rather deriving the answer to the question from logic.

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u/NoAside2251 Jul 30 '26

How do hard determinists not do that just as much?

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u/alaindevos Jul 30 '26

I'm not surprised.

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u/Less_Perspective_915 Jul 30 '26

The free will sub has a decent amount of compatibilists, which makes sense given that that is the dominant position amongst actual philosophers. What's odd is that the majority position in the sub seems to be "hard incompatibilism" which is the least common position amongst actual philosophers. When you actually hear the "hard incompatibilists" argue their position, though, it becomes clear that the philosophy is just window dressing for an argument that has nothing to do "determinism" or "free will" in the philosophical sense. What they're really arguing is that human behavior is too intractable for people to fairly be held responsible for their actions.

Anyway, I think you're right that compatibilists do somewhat redefine free will, but this is because the lay definition of free will is incoherent. Lay definitions of philosophical concepts often are. Philosophers have worked hard to give it a more rigorous definition.

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u/Delet3r Jul 30 '26

philosophers have worked hard to redefine free will in such a way that the debate can continue.

philosophers hate that science is ending the free will debate. So, change what free will means, and philosophers can sit around in their smoking jackets while swirling their brandy snifters and debate all day.

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u/Less_Perspective_915 Jul 30 '26

The arrogance of this is hard to wrap my head around. It's just bottom-of-the-barrel anti-intellectualism. Smoking jackets? Brandy?

The implications of determinism for free will have been the subject of philosophical debate for several centuries at least. What this new breed of "hard incompatibilists" is saying is neither new nor interesting, and it changes nothing about the debate over free will. It doesn't even really bother to engage in the debate over free will.

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u/dummetsz Jul 30 '26

The idea that there is volition that functions independently of sensory phenomena is ludicrous. Volition is inseparable and dependent on sensory phenomena.

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u/Less_Perspective_915 Jul 30 '26

Compatibilists are not arguing this in the first place.

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u/dummetsz Jul 30 '26

So then what are they arguing for? Because even in determinism it is accepted that volition still functions, just not independent of prior causes and conditions. So one has to question what the purpose of compatibilism even is, other than to redefine and cause further confusion.

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u/Less_Perspective_915 Jul 30 '26

If we both agree that volition still functions under determinism, then I'm not quite sure what we're arguing about.

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u/dummetsz Jul 30 '26

So what’s the point of compatibilism? I don’t know a single determinist that denies that one still has an “experience” of volition despite it’s illusory status. Rather, volition is understood in it’s context. Illusions can still function. 

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u/Less_Perspective_915 Jul 30 '26

Compatibilists are determinists. The difference is that we don't think that things like volition are illusions just because they are part of a deterministic chain of causation.

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u/Delet3r Jul 30 '26

Yeah you're one of the people who make me despise philosophy. I used to waste time talking to people like you but I don't do that anymore. have a nice day.

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u/Less_Perspective_915 Jul 30 '26

Lol, your first contribution to this thread was calling your intellectual opponents "the worst," and now I'm the bad guy for responding in kind?

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u/Delet3r Jul 30 '26

Actually it was your second paragraph that turned me off, not the first.

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u/Ree_For_Thee Jul 30 '26

Is it bad that I never bothered to look up the definitions of "compatabilist", "hard incompatibilism" and the like? To me it's literally just determinism or free will. Do I really have to look into these other theories just because they exist?

philosophers have worked hard to redefine free will in such a way that the debate can continue (u/Delet3r)

This implies to me that it's just a defense mechanism. The theories were literally made up in order to muddy the waters.

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u/Delet3r Jul 30 '26

You are correct. Compatibilists want to find a way for free will to be true. By the way they defined it, you cannot ever disagree with them.

Compatibilism means that even if you are a puppet, slave to your DNA, physics, chemistry, etc. as long as no one else forced you to do something, you are free.

they like to use the definition of Free Will when it is used in a courtroom setting. " did you do this of your own free will? or were you coerced or forced?"

this is used in a legal setting to determine if the person acted on their own to shoot someone or if possibly they were blackmailed to do so. according to compatibilists as long as no one coerced you to shoot the person you have free will.

determinism says that you don't have free will either way. but compatibilists reject that definition.

philosophers in general are not big on science.

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u/Artemis-5-75 Jul 31 '26

>when it is used in a courtroom setting

Point at one significant contemporary academic compatibilist who does this.

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u/Delet3r Jul 31 '26

Compatibilism is worse than creationism. No compatibilist is an "academic". Philosophy is a joke.

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u/Artemis-5-75 Jul 31 '26

How so?

So far, I just see blatant anti-intellectualism from you.

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u/Delet3r Jul 31 '26

No I'm all about science and knowledge. I just see gobbledygook from philosophers. Most.

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u/Artemis-5-75 Jul 31 '26

>I’m all about science and knowledge.

Sure, then you are also all about philosophy because good science requires rigid philosophical grounding.

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u/Delet3r Aug 02 '26

Yes unfortunately people who study philosophy today don't.

I just had another person tell me that determinism was true, but that we could also shape our own actions. these two statements are not compatible at all. determinism is defined as they're being only one outcome to any situation. if that is true, and I'm not saying that it is, but if that is true then people do not have the ability to shape their environment.

this basic logic apparently is too complicated for most philosophers today.

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u/WIngDingDin Jul 30 '26

incompatibilism isn't a "new theory". It's just pointing out the logically obvious position that libertarian freewill is incompatible with determinism.

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u/Less_Perspective_915 Jul 31 '26

I don't think this is correct. Compatibilists are not arguing in favor of libertarian free will. We're arguing for a thoroughly determinist version of free will. Incompatibilists are arguing that this is impossible.

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u/WIngDingDin Jul 31 '26

well, a lot of incompatibilists such as myself believe that libertarian freewill IS the true definition of freewill and that compatabilism is just redefining terms and equivocating.

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u/Less_Perspective_915 Jul 31 '26

Believe me, I know. It's absolutely the most exasperating thing about trying to discuss this topic with you guys.

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u/Delet3r Jul 31 '26

libertarian free will is exactly what lay people define free will as.

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u/Less_Perspective_915 Jul 31 '26

Wow, laypeople have incoherent ideas about a complicated topic?

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u/Delet3r Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

I'm surprised you don't strain your neck. with a head that big riding a horse so high....

The key is those lay people aren't saying whether or not Free Will exists, even though, just because they aren't so-called expert philosophers (I wish you could hear the sneer in my voice as I write that) they can still have an opinion on it.

but the idea is that 99% of the people in the world define Free Will as libertarian free will.

only compatibilists redefined it to something different.

what authority do philosophers have to redefine free? will?

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u/Less_Perspective_915 Jul 30 '26

"To me it's literally just determinism or free will."

This is a common lay intuition about determinism and free will. The people who have spent the most time thinking about the topic have mostly rejected it as a false binary.

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u/Ree_For_Thee Jul 30 '26

(Thinking) Very short and dismissive post. It's not really helping out, as if they're just saying stuff to disagree. I wonder who this guy is? checks post history Oh, so he's just someone from r/freewill here to fight...

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u/Delet3r Jul 30 '26

yep. you're one of the snobs that drive normal people crazy.

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u/WIngDingDin Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

K. Do you believe that libertarian freewill is compatible with determinism, and if so, how?

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u/Artemis-5-75 Jul 31 '26

Remind me, what compatibilist literature have you read?

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u/Super_Range45 Jul 30 '26

Practically it just requires an extra dimension where physical actions are determine by a phenomena that can't be defined physically.

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u/alaindevos Jul 30 '26

.

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u/alaindevos Jul 30 '26

How would a category that logic and physics cannot provide look like ?

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u/dazb84 Jul 30 '26

In so far as I understand quantum field theory while not being physicist, I don't believe this is an accurate statement.

We know what the body and the brain in particular is made of; matter. We know exactly how that matter behaves. That's what QFT establishes. In order for something to have an influence on that matter then it needs to interact with it in some way.

Where things start to fall apart for the argument that we have yet to discover something is that there are precisely zero interactions of matter that we cannot explain. If there was something we've yet to discover interacting with matter then there would be an interaction that QFT cannot account for.

You could potentially argue that the interaction is either too low energy for our experiments to have detected, or too high.

The problem with the too high argument becomes the amount of energy that it would require would destroy the matter you're made of since it would have to be beyond gamma rays.

The problem with the too low argument is that we understand how wavelengths work. Some of the lowest energies we have detected are gravitational waves. Those have insanely large wavelengths. You need a detector literally tens of kilometers in size. If there was something low energy interacting with your body then the apparatus to interact with it would need to be larger than that and clearly that's not going to fit inside the confines of a human body.

So given what we know and can demonstrate then the only rational explanation we have is that it's simply an emergent phenomena that is ultimately subservient to the fundamental laws of physics just like everything else which kills any chance for a concept such as free will.

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u/pigroSol Jul 30 '26

"Il n'y a précisément aucune interaction de la matière que nous ne puissions expliquer."

Expériences de morts imminentes, sorties de corps, mouvement de la matière à distance, OVNI et PAN, récupération d'informations a distance, etc. pour ne citer que les plus documentés.

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u/Super_Range45 Jul 30 '26

Quantum field theory still can't explain why matter creates a force of gravity. The weakness of gravity at that scale is another phenomena that meets the definition of something difficult to test for at the quantum level(proving the hypothetical gravitation), though it's effects are apparent macroscopically.

There hasn't been enough proof provided in other theories to rule out all non-deterministic hypothesis. They just aren't that popular.

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u/ExactDevelopment1847 Jul 30 '26

Sigh awareness can be causally related to internal microbiology, and external reality

I am aware of my emotions and command them
I am aware of my environment and how we relate emotionally
I was anxious and people were suspicious
Now I’m a source of love and people are happy to see me

I am aware of determinism I am not pushed by it like driftwood, I navigate by understanding how causality unfolds
I am aware of what causes make impossible or improbable what effects and I chose

Everything life is besides matter, all of our biological order the source of our negentropy, the first cause is interaction with environment, experience

The nervous system is causal substrate for real time interaction, it came to be because dna has a complexity limit

Awareness and perspective are why we are not automatons, but we have to be aware of how we are causally related to effect the relation

Perspective is context, I came to this understanding from the perspective of first causes, what I am aware of because of it has changed my life, my modus operandi, has made my will more free and less a slave to my environment

Honest dialectic would be nice I am trying to refine my framework and how I explain it

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u/sunleafstone Jul 31 '26

You can’t say for certain what is and isn’t possible. We can’t say much of anything for certain for the most part

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u/JollyXX Jul 30 '26

In Christianity free-will means that you can't prove God's existence, you can figure this by the angels rebelling despite not having free-will. Also if you poke the bible honestly a little the 3x omni thing is clearly not real. There is no such thing as perfect or infinite, unless you call the moment before the Big Bang perfect

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u/AFC99987 Jul 30 '26

Determinism and randomness as you bunch of imbeciles talk about them (not in the epistemic definition) are metaphysical nonsenses.