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You might not agree with his conclusions, as they're fairly radical, but it answers the question of the original post.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
sigh. i was really hoping you were trying to take this in another direction. free will is an objectively observable phenomenon, and the burden of proof is on disproving existence or providing an alternate explanation for the observable. we might not be able to show the mechanisms for why it exists, but we can show that it exists. god is not objectively observable, and so the burden of proof is on proving existence.
> free will is an objectively observable phenomenon Not true. To observe free will, you must have a really big picture view. You must have enough information at hand to be absolutely confident that the action was not a direct result of all prior experiences of the actor. Until you have that kind of measurement, free will is a matter of faith. > god is not objectively observable That is a very human-centric view, and…
why? can you justify this statement?
beyond that, that is not how the scientific method works. you make conclusions on observable data, and if more data becomes accessible, you reconsider conclusions. you can't dismiss conclusions you disagree with by simply saying "you don't have enough data yet to justify my conclusion".
> Again, it is all about having an appropriate instrument to observe Him.
could you elaborate on an appropriate instrument to appropriately observe and identify him in a way that is reproducible for others to also observe objectively?
Our future may be fixed, but our nature is not. We don't have a 'God's eye view' that sees all our past and future laid out before us. From our perspectives conditions change and we change to adapt to them to the extent possible.
It seems to me the confusion mainly arises if you consider your mind as being not subject to nature's laws...
I have yet to hear a definition of free will that isn't circular. I am not convinced the term means anything.
I do what I want, so that's all I care about. I may be part of a deterministic system, but that's what defines my will.
2. While there may indeed be scientific evidence against free will, the article that you linked doesn't seem to provide it. Just because decisions happen at a preconscious level doesn't mean that the decision was unfree. For instance, if I'm playing a very intense video game, I tend to make split-second decisions with no conscious decision making. That doesn't mean I didn't choose what to do in the game. It just means that discursive thought isn't essential to free choice.
3. If you're religious, then you could consider God a sort of "guarantor" of free will.
I remember beating myself over this idea in college, that there is no such thing as free will. I came to believe it. Then I realized something that was even more important: it does not matter if it is true. This is not a form of enlightenment that actually helps me or anyone. Really, work through it. Congratulations: you discovered that everything you think and do is preordained by the first energy patterns of the un…
In other words, it would be irrational to not operate on the assumption that you have free will. Religious people might say something similar about God's existence.
It is also interesting to note that scientific studies may show us things that influence or make some of our choices for us, but this will not cover all kinds of choices. We are running into areas where we do not yet have the right tools to study this stuff.