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All effects have causes. Can we agree on that framework?
Happily.
Then there is no free will. It requires an effect without a cause.
No, the cause of my free will appears to be me. You can then ask what the cause of me is, and I don't know.
What's the alternative? According to you, the cause of my "free will" is the physical laws. Cool. What's the case of the physical laws?
The cause of "me" as you say is just your genetics and your experiences, or more simply, the state of the universe before now. That is how our universe works, for better or worse. All your choices come from that. They can't not.
If I were to grant that this was true, then what is the state of our universe caused by? and let's cut to the chase and go with the Big Bang, which is the back of the chain as far as I'm aware. What was the big bang caused by? What causes the physical laws to exist?
Further, I don't grant that this is true. I've agreed that all effects have causes. I have not agreed that any specific thing causes anything else. I believe in physical laws because I can see confirmation of them. I haven't seen confirmation that physical laws cause consciousness or an illusion of free will.
So let's say the big bang happened. Who cares what caused it? Everything we know precedes from it and was always going to happen exactly as it did. There is no reason for the future to behave differently than the past, so things will continue to unfold in the only way they ever could have. Since everything has a cause everything is causal. There simply is no room for the concept of "free will", I can't even fathom what it could look like.
Physical laws cause everything.. that is also all there is. If there was more, that would also be a law, and we could understand it and incorporate it into knowledge base. There is nothing outside of what exists (because their literally by definition, can't be), everything is causal (as we agreed), and thus there is no free will.
I do, because it demonstrates that at least one unobservable cause clearly exists. If the universe and everything in it can have an unobservable cause, I don't think it's too unreasonable to claim that the self can have an unobservable cause as well, given that no observable cause is available.
You are free to assume that the unobserved cause of both the universe and the self are just more physics, but this belief is neither empirical nor falsifiable. It is simply a statement of faith, an axiom you have adopted to direct your reasoning and to filter evidence.
And of course, further evidence can change all this. Demonstrate mind reading and mind control, and I'll agree that Determinism appears to be correct. In the meantime, I'll continue to point out that confident assertions are not evidence.
Free will does not violate causality any more than the big bang does. We observe the big bang, and you ask "who cares what caused it". We likewise observe free will and the self, and I ask "who cares what caused it?" Why is that answer fine from you and a problem from me?
The thing is, we don't observe "free will". If you can hit a pool ball into a pocket then free will is a fantasy.
Not knowing everything about the universe right this second doesn't mean determinism is based on faith, because everything we can observe points to it being 100% true. That is 100% better than the zero evidence for the other side of the coin.
I think it is time to leave this particular picadillo alone. I'm never going to logic you into determinism and you're never going to faith me into...whatever it is you think free will is. There is no way to even describe it since it literally can't even exist tautologically, let alone in the world as we see it.
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