ruby sparks
Contributor
Not quite. You still have trouble wrapping your head around compatibilism, apparently because you equate "free" with "uncaused" rather than "unobstructed".
Actually, 'uncaused' would effectively be 'random'.
The future is where the real freedom lies.
Really? How?
Think about how we use the word "automaton". An automoton is a robot that always predictably performs the same actions under the same circumstances. It cannot change its behavior. It has no "free will". We are essentially automatons that can change our behavior to effect different future outcomes under the same circumstances. We do so to avoid punishment, pain, and grief. Or to achieve reward, pleasure, and happiness.
I think you are confusing 'very very complicated' with 'free'. At every point, everything is determined (barring random effects). It doesn't matter how complicated the decision 'algorithm' is. Given the past a machine (including a human one) would do exactly the same again if the same past were rerun. Or at least it appears there is no way to explain events otherwise. Determinism (barring random effects) rules, with an iron fist, it seems, and free will is not compatible with it. To say otherwise would arguably be an oxymoron.
And the issue isn't just 'free' but 'will' also. So 'free will' implies both. That's an even higher bar than 'free'. It implies conscious volition to enact the supposed freeness.
Compatibilism is, imo, essentially a dodge, or at best a (supposedly) pragmatic way to avoid what seems to be an inconvenient truth, one that you may still have trouble wrapping your head around (touche). I wouldn't have finished with that if you hadn't started with it.
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