Philosophy Now Forum

Free will, the Holocaust, and The Problem of Evil
David Kyle Johnson

Those known as skeptical theists might also deny premise 2 -- Evil does exist. Or, at least, that we can know that premise 2 is true. “Since God’s knowledge is beyond us, and we cannot see all ends, for all we know the things that we think are evil will ultimately work out for the good, and thus for all we know evil does not exist at all.” (This, in essence, is an a academically sophisticated version of “God works in mysterious ways.”).

That's exactly what it is. And the "skeptical theists" among us merely have to believe this. Either because they were indoctrinated as a child to accept it or "on their own" they thought it up and it seemed to work best for explaining away the horrors that have existed throughout human history. Both man-made and as a result of Nature thumping us up one side and down the other.

Again, here, the key is not what you can demonstrate that you believe is true but that in believing it, it comforts and consoles you. That may well be the most important component of the human condition. It certainly is for those like me unable to believe it anymore.

But this answer also falls short. I have refuted skeptical theism in a different context elsewhere (showing why its probabilistic calculations are erroneous), but the objection most relevant here is that it leads to moral agnosticism—it makes moral knowledge impossible.

Actually, none of us can really refute skeptical theism because none of us can demonstrate unequivocally that a God, the God does not exist. God is, after all, one possible explanation for why existence itself exists. And if He does exist, what can we utterly insignificant mere mortals on this utterly insignificant planet in this utterly insignificant galaxy given the staggering vastness of the universe...

"When we look in any direction, the furthest visible regions of the Universe are estimated to be around 46 billion light years away. That's a diameter of 540 sextillion (or 54 followed by 22 zeros) miles." BBC

...possibly know about His "Ways".

If I cannot know that something has horrific and consequential as the Holocaust is in fact evil—because, “for all you know, six-million murdered Jews might actually turn out to be a good thing”—then I cannot know anything, at least in regard to moral truth.

This, of course, is what we are reduced down to noting. Better to attribute the Holocaust to God. Then, one way of another, it it is ultimately a good thing. Or we are left with...what exactly? That in a No God world it "just happened" given the "brute facticity" of an utterly indifferent universe? And that if the fascists manage to prevail in a world where that can hardly be ruled out these days, it can happen again?

Then the next extinction event wipes out the human race and it is as though we were never around in the first place?

Or some determinists arguing that if it does happen it happened only because it could never have not happened in the only possible "human condition"?

For Whom Does Determinism Undermine Moral Responsibility? Surveying the Conditions for Free Will Across Cultures
From Frontiers in Psychology

Determinism doesn’t merely entail the absence of alternate possibilities. In a deterministic universe, the laws of nature together with a complete description of the state of the universe at time t1 entail the state of the universe at time t2.

Then the part where philosophers, scientists and theologians have for centuries discussed and debated whether or not this is true for all matter...except us.

For the theologians, we are the exception because God created mortal man and woman with free will. For the philosophers the endless arguments revolving around one or another world of words in which human autonomy comes down to how the words in the arguments are defined. And for the scientists grappling with actual functioning brains in order to pin down how chemically and neurologically it might be possible for biological life to have evolved into matter here on planet Earth capable of embodying volition in the things that human beings, at the tail end of it [so far] think and feel and say and do.

Thus me typing these words in my now [t1] and you reading them in your now [t2] are merely inherent manifestations of the only possible reality.

Thus, agents never initiate the causal sequence resulting in their behavior; rather, people’s intentions, desires, and reasons are themselves the result of prior events. Hence, determinism also precludes what is known as ultimate sourcehood of one’s own acts: For example, if in a deterministic universe I make a salad instead of a burger for lunch, the causal chain of events that can be traced back from my action does not stop at my intentions, desires, and beliefs, but regresses to events that predate my own existence.

The sort of thing that intellectuals like to say instead of, "I made a salad for lunch instead of a hamburger going all the back to the Big Bang or whenever matter and its immutable laws came into existence setting into motion the only possible reality."

The same is true of people’s achievements and crimes: In a deterministic universe, agents may proximately cause them, but their ultimate source traces back to the beginning of time.

And that's what some here tend to focus in on. The fact that even in a determined universe we "cause" things to happen. Had we not "chosen" to do what we did then the consequences of what we did would never have transpired. This [to me] still encompasses a no less compelled distinction made between "internal" and "external" factors in our lives.

Some incompatibilist philosophers view this lack of sourcehood as undermining free will and moral responsibility, while some compatibilist philosophers do not. In turn, non-philosophers have been shown to endorse incompatibilism when given an abstract description of a deterministic universe, and to endorse compatibilism when given a concrete description of a deterministic universe.

We'll need a context of course.

Free will, the Holocaust, and The Problem of Evil
David Kyle Johnson

Indeed, inspired by the failure of both of these objections [above], we can build into the original argument a kind of separate argument for the truth of premise (2), that uses the holocaust as evidence.

(1)If God existed, evil would not.
1* The holocaust occurred.
2* If the holocaust occurred, then evil exists.
(2) Thus evil does exist (from 1* and 2*).
(3) Therefore God does not exist. (from (1) and (2))
Let us call this argument “ the problem of the holocaust .”

This is where I interject and truly muddy up the morality waters. In other words, while most would indeed insist the holocaust is clearly an example of evil, others, instead, see it as an example of good. Adolph Hitler and the Nazis for instance. And unless it can be shown that they are, say, mad or insane, then their frame of mind is one conclusion that human beings can come to embrace as rational. That, either genetically and/or memetically, there is a "master race". Indeed, we have those around still today [right here] who seem to argue that.

Whereas from my frame of mind in a No God world, there does not appear to be a definitive scientific or philosophical assessment that pins down deontologically that the holocaust is in fact essentially, objectively, universally evil.

I have my own rooted existentially in dasein moral and political prejudices rejecting and denouncing it. But how exactly would I go about demonstrating that all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to think as I do? After all, unlike God, I am not omniscient. In the end, it basically comes down to me saying that "I just know it's wrong!".

Because premise 2 is not only obviously true, but denying it would require one to deny either that the holocaust occurred or that it was evil, premise (2) seems firmly established.

Really? Again, run it by the Nazis. Who really knows, maybe we are programmed genetically to make distinctions between those who [for whatever reason] are different from us. After all, that's one possible explanation for why racism and sexism and heterosexism and classism, etc., persist centuries after the so-called Enlightenment.

And that's why Gods and religions are so crucial. With them you almost always have access to an omniscient/omnipotent frame of mind that ever and always gets to decree what is ultimately good and evil on Judgment Day.

Or to argue that in a wholly determined universe good and evil are interchangeable because if you are never able to not think and feel and say and do other than what your brains compels you to, what does good and evil really mean?

The more common response to this kind of argument, therefore, is to deny premise (1)—to suggest that, for some reason, even if God did exist, evil still could occur.

The Harold Kushner Syndrome for example. Evil exists because God is simply not omnipotent. He set creation into motion and it just got "beyond My control."

For Whom Does Determinism Undermine Moral Responsibility? Surveying the Conditions for Free Will Across Cultures
From Frontiers in Psychology

Thus, existing empirical evidence reveals that laypeople hold agents morally responsible, even while acknowledging that the agent could not have done otherwise, and did not originate the causal sequence resulting in action.

You know what's coming...

Yes, some hold agents morally responsible even while insisting the agent could not have acted otherwise. But that is only because they were never able not to hold them responsible as well. That's the critical thing for some determinists: Nothing at all is excluded from the laws of matter. And that includes the only matter with minds able to delude themselves that they are not deluding themselves.

However, past studies share an important limitation: With one notable exception, they have been administered only to relatively small and homogeneous samples of respondents in the United States. Since cultures differ considerably in their values and philosophical judgments, whether past findings generalize across cultures remains very much an open question

Nope, makes no difference. The fact that there are different cultures with different values is no less wholly determined by nature. After all, the biological brains of all homo sapiens are the same. And if brain matter is just more matter to nature, the fact that it is embodied in conflicting value judgments doesn't make it any more autonomous. Look at nature itself. Biological life on Earth has resulted in what has been estimated to be millions of animal species.

Unless, of course, "somehow" the brains of the human species are in fact truly, truly extraordinary matter.

First, motivated by evidence of cultural variation in explanatory style, we examine whether Asians and Westerners differ in their reasoning about free will and moral responsibility. Numerous experiments on social attribution have shown that people typically allude to an agent’s internal characteristics, such as her skills, desires, or personality, when attempting to explain why and how she behaves – a tendency known as dispositionism.

Again, this assumes that if, on average, Asian and Western brains differ in regard to free will and moral responsibility that one or the other is closer to the actual truth. But what if they differ only because that is simply how brains evolved among human beings on Earth. They differ but they were never able not to differ. Neither in the East nor in the West are assessments of moral responsibility other than then what they could only have been.

Though, sure, I've got to figure that since the authors here themselves don't raise that issue, perhaps I am simply unable to grasp why it is unreasonable for me to.

Free will, the Holocaust, and The Problem of Evil
David Kyle Johnson

One possible way to defend this idea is to suggest that God is not perfect. God either lacks the power to prevent evil, the knowledge to know how, or the will to do so.

Sure, why not. After all, that's one of the prerogatives of believing in a God that you accept as existing only in a leap of faith. You can imagine Him any way you want to. Since, in my view, the whole point of religion is to comfort and console you on both sides of the grave, make Him such that you are most comforted and consoled.

Though for most a less than perfect God doesn't seem all that comforting and consoling at all. If He is not perfect then how sure can you be about your own fate through all of eternity.

Thus...

But, needless to say, in Western philosophy, where the assumption that God is perfect in every way is firmly entrenched, this is not a popular option. What’s more, as I suggested before, this solution is uninteresting. Anyone can tweak their conception of God, after the evidence is already in, to avoid having to give up their belief.

Of course, here God basically becomes a philosophical entity for those like AJ and IC. And perfection for them revolves largely around the definitions and the deductions that they anchor God and religion in up in the spiritual clouds. That way, pertaining to their own lives, they can avoid altogether the part where they connect the dots existentially between morality and immortality. The part that for many reflect religion in a nutshell. The part I root subjectively/subjunctively in dasein, the part they root didactically, pedagogically in "serious philosophy".

The Scandal of Compatibilism
TOM CLARK

It isn’t difficult to get people talking about free will. Just suggest they don’t have it, or that their conception of it is mistaken, and you’re in for a long, often entertaining and sometimes fractious discussion in which people’s fundamental ideas about human nature come to light.

Of course, if someone suggests to you that you don't have free will doesn't that mean that they lack free will in turn in suggesting it? We're all stuck here regarding what we think and feel and say about it. None of us are really qualified to grasp the limitations of our own brains. Even brain scientists themselves go around and around in circles eventually.

Nearly everyone (in the West at any rate) has at least a vague notion that free will is tied up with justifying moral responsibility, so the serious ramifications of the question add urgency to what otherwise might be dismissed as a mere philosophical puzzle.

Then that part. Is it all really just something that puzzles philosophers in exchanges that can go on and on and scarcely make any references at all to the other part: our going about the business of actually living our lives. Lives that can and do come into conflict over right and wrong, good and evil. We "just know" that we have at least some measure of control over the things that we do. And that will do?

The discussion might reveal that opinions on free will are divided. Some people have strong intuitions that to have it, and thus be morally responsible, we must not be fully determined in what we do, in which case free will is incompatible with determinism. Free will is thus contra-causal (or libertarian, as philosophers often call it) in that it transcends, overrides or goes against the ordinary sorts of causation we suppose obtain above the level of quantum phenomena.

Intuition. That comes up time and again with some here. Okay, they might admit, they are unable to pin down scientifically or philosophically that they do in fact have free will. But really, really, really and deep, deep, deep down inside them they do "just know" that they do. As though intuition itself is not rooted existentially in dasein. After all, in regard to any number of moral conflagrations, those on both sides can insist that their intuition tells them abortion is "just wrong" or "just right".

Intuition:

...the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.
...a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning.

Okay, where does this ability come from...God? Is it genetic? Or -- click -- as with our reasoning capacity, and our emotional reactions, isn't it too the embodiment of our childhood indoctrination and our own uniquely personal experiences out in a particular world?

From my own frame of mind, some here like to fall back on intuition because they can then connect to their "intrinsic self". Given either free will or determinism reconciled with moral responsibility, they need not defend their moral conviction beyond what they "just know" is true.

Again, it's the perfect moral philosophy. Others aren't you so how can they possible refute what you believe?

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"there are numerous factors to consider"

Indeed, but the question is, am I free to consider the factors that I do, or even to desire to consider the factors that I do?

Discuss.

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On the other hand...

ismailkho wrote: ↑Sat Apr 29, 2023 2:34 am Although it may be convenient to attribute a subsequent action to a preceding one as its "cause," this approach is secondary. In essence, an action's cause is determined by the inherent nature of the entity carrying it out. For instance, the movements of atoms or ions are caused by their mass, electric charge, and other intrinsic properties, which dictate how they respond to the external forces acting on them. If the nature of these entities were different, their behavior in reaction to the same external forces would also differ.

So, by all means, given free will -- click, now you have it -- take that factor into consideration as well.

[quote=iambiguous post_id=556831 time=1642958567 user_id=4948]
From [i]Free Will and Determinism: A Dialogue[/i] by Clifford Williams.

[quote][b]Frederick [Mr. Free Will]: Can you explain why in your sense a person can be both free [i]and[/i] determined?

Carolyn [Ms. Compatibilist]: Yes. A person can be free and determined because what he does can be caused by something that goes on inside him even though he is not forced by some circumstances outside of him to act as he does. If he is not forced by circumstances outside of himself to act as he does, then he acts freely. Yet his action could nonetheless be caused by something inside him, such as an unconscious motive or a brain state.

Frederick: ...a person could have freedom in your sense even though he had no control over anything he does. Let me explain. If everything a person does is caused by unconscious motives, as you say, then he would have no control over anything that he does. Unknown to him, he would be buffeted about by the workings of his unconscious mind. Yet such a person would have freedom in your sense of freedom because no external circumstances would prevent him from doing what he consciously wants to do. That means your conception of freedom is a sham --- a person who has freedom in your sense does not have control over what he does.[/b][/quote]

Yep, that is basically my own reaction to compatibilism. We have "conceptual"/"theoretical" freedom, but, for all practical purposes, we have no control over what we do because "internal" and "external" are seamlessly intertwined re the laws of matter.

As Frederick notes...

[quote][b]"You can call that freedom if you want to, but it is a psuedofreedom."[/b][/quote]

And that, in my view, is often where the compatibilists go: letting it all revolve around what you call something, name something, define something. As though the inner "I" here was not the equivalent of all that is out in the world able to compel you to "choose" this instead of that.

Here I always come back to "I" in our dreams. The "freedom" we are convinced we have all the way up to the point when we wake up. The waking "I" no less a manifestation of the laws of matter. Only, far, far, far more inexplicably.
[/quote]

There is no sense in which the will is actually free, but we feel free to the extent we are ignorant of causality.

The Scandal of Compatibilism
TOM CLARK

Who’s right about free will, and how do we decide? If there were a clear, easy answer to this question, it would have been settled long ago. As it stands, the free will debate continues both inside and outside the academy, with perhaps more public visibility these days as science weighs in on human nature.

Of course, this frame of mind -- my own -- can be particularly vexing to some here. For me, it always comes back around to the gap between what any of us "here and now" think we know about the human brain and this...

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

Then those here who actually believe that what they believe about all of this reflects, what, the ontological truth about the human condition itself?

Then those who are compelled in turn to insist on a teleological component as well. Usually in the form of one or another God.

Meanwhile, philosophers and scientists and theologians have been grappling with this profound mystery now for thousands of years.

Either in the only possible reality in the only possible world or of their own volition.

We just don't know.

Except, of course, for those among us who insist that they do know. Indeed, they might even explain to you how the existence of existence itself came about. Some skipping straight to God, others to all manner of No God intellectual contraptions. Defining and deducing free will, determinism, compatibilism into existence.

The empirical evidence is mounting that human beings are likely not causal exceptions to nature, so if you’re an incompatibilist (and many are), it’s getting harder to suppose we have contra-causal, libertarian free will.

Then those among us who seem to concur with this...but insist that nonetheless we are still morally responsible for our behaviors. Why? Because while we have no free will it is still us who "choose" to do what we could only possibly have done. In other words, no one puts a gun to our head. Unless, some determinists suggest, you count your brain.

If we don’t, this might mean that some beliefs having to do with moral responsibility need reconsideration.

Okay, but if we -- i.e. our brains -- are not causal exceptions then how would any reconsiderations on our part not in turn be wholly determined by those brains wholly in sync with the laws of matter?

The pressure from science might also be felt by compatibilists, since as the causal story of human behavior gets filled in the question about moral desert gets sharpened. Do people deeply deserve praise and blame, reward and punishment, for what they are fully determined to do? If so, why?

Science? Same thing. The pressure from scientists is no less compelled by their brains applying only the pressure that ever could have been applied. It's then a question -- profoundly mysterious -- of how nature managed to evolve to the point where matter could become something as astounding as human brains.

Uh, "on its own"?

No, inisist the religionists, the obvious explanation is a God, the God, my God.

The Scandal of Compatibilism
TOM CLARK

Robert Kane (University of Texas) is an incompatibilist who defends philosophical libertarianism, the view that we have free will because determinism doesn’t hold full sway in our choosing and deciding; he claims there’s a crucial indeterministic element that makes us deeply and ultimately responsible for ourselves and our actions.

Yes, and what he must now do is to take this claim to the "hard guys and gals" and ask them to confirm it scientifically in regard to pinning down how the human brain functions chemically, neurologically and electrically to produce this "indeterministic element".

Or, instead, as with most of us here, is that element merely "thought up" -- defined and deduced -- into existence? Ultimately coming down to something akin to "well, I just know I have autonomy".

Derk Pereboom (Cornell), another incompatibilist, disagrees. He thinks it’s unlikely we are exceptions to determinism (and if we weren’t this wouldn’t help us be morally responsible), and so ends up in what he calls “hard incompatibilism.” He forthrightly, and in my view rightly, recommends that we should rethink some of our beliefs and practices related to moral responsibility since we aren’t free in the way such beliefs and practices require.

Same thing though ultimately. It's what he has "thought up" philosophically that may or may not actually correspond to the functioning human brain. Thus when he recommends that we rethink some of our beliefs, even if we did we would have done so only because we were never able not to.

Then again [to me] the most surreal point of view of them all:

Oppositely, John Martin Fischer (U of CA, Riverside) defends a version of compatibilism (“semi-compatibilism”) which suggests we are justified in our moral responsibility practices even if determinism turns out to be true.

The only way this makes sense to me is that he thinks we are justified in our moral responsibility practices even if determinism turns out to be true because he was never able autonomously to think otherwise in this regard either. I'm just ambivalent myself here [compelled to be or not] because I admit I night not be thinking compatibilism through correctly...technically?

What matters is that human agents still have reasons-responsive control (“guidance control”) over their behavior, even if there are not alternative possible futures genuinely open to them.

Back to that again. We are the ones choosing our behaviors. No one is putting a gun to our head and really giving us no choice if we want to live. But from my frame of mind the brain itself is the gun. It's only the psychological illusion of choosing freely. Or like when we "choose" in a dream.

As he puts it “a semi-compatibilist need not give up the idea that sometimes individuals robustly deserve punishment for their behavior, whereas on other occasions they robustly deserve moral commendation and reward”.

Or maybe one day his brain will compel him to give up on that conclusion.

Free will, the Holocaust, and The Problem of Evil
David Kyle Johnson

Varieties of The Problem of Evil

The kind of problem that the problem of evil presents is usually thought of in two ways: it’s either a logical problem or an evidential problem. If it is a logical problem, it suggests that there is a logical incompatibility between the existence of God and the existence of evil.

I don't understand this. And perhaps that's because when it comes to things like God and evil [intertwined or not] what on Earth does it really mean to be logical? Is the existence of God logical? Is a world without God logical? Is abortion logical or is it illogical?

God and evil cannot co-exist any more than a triangle can have four sides. Evil is deductive proof that there is no God.

On the contrary, if you "logically" believe that because God works in mysterious ways we mere mortals simply do not possess the capacity to grasp that these things...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... _eruptions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... l_cyclones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tsunamis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landslides
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_floods
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... ore_deaths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_diseases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events

...are not really evil at all, then that need be as far as it goes. After all, it's not like anyone can prove that "logically" they are evil.

If it is an evidential problem, however, then the occurrence of evil is evidence that presents a sufficient reason to doubt that God exists. It does not deductively prove that God does not exist, but it does render belief in God irrational. Such versions usually add the words“ probably” or “almost certainly” to the conclusion.

"The evidential problem of evil is the problem of determining whether and, if so, to what extent the existence of evil...constitutes evidence against the existence of God, that is to say, a being perfect in power, knowledge and goodness."

How is this not basically the same thing? How does one go about providing teleological evidence in regard to a God that is Himself beyond demonstrating evidentially? Since mere mortals have no complete understanding of why God chooses to do what He does how can it realistically be argued that it is irrational to believe in God? What we construe to be evil either logically or evidentially is merely the embodiment of the gap between us and God's own loving, just and merciful Divine Plan.

It's all only a problem for those unable to accept that "God works in mysterious ways" is all the justification the True Believer or one taking a "leap of faith" needs.

Same thing with reconciling an omniscient God with human autonomy. He's God. He can do anything.

Yet again -- click? -- I'll make an attempt to actually understand compatibilism...

Reconciling Determinism and Free Will: A Compatibilist Perspective
Innocent Ociti

Free Will vs Determinism

Compatibilism is a philosophical position that suggests that free will and determinism can coexist. In other words, people can have the ability to make choices and act freely, even if their actions are determined by prior causes or circumstances.

In a nutshell?

Well, for starters, in describing it as a "philosophical position" the first thing that pops into my head is, "okay, up in or down out of the intellectual contraption clouds?"

It's one thing to argue philosophically that "people can have the ability to make choices and act freely, even if their actions are determined by prior causes or circumstances", and another thing altogether to confirm this empirically by pinpointing how the behaviors we choose are both in sync with the brain as matter...and yet unlike any other matter which is wholly in sync with immutable physical laws. How exactly does autonomy come about in the brain? Unless, of course, you "argue" that "God puts it there".

Whereas with No God, how exactly does Nature accomplish it?

According to compatibilists, free will is not the same as being completely unconstrained or free from external influences. Instead, they believe that free will is the ability to act according to one's desires and motivations, without being coerced or forced to act in a particular way.

Of course, according to some determinists, the compatibilists themselves are duped psychologically by their brains into thinking this only because they were never able not to think it. As though one's desires and motivations are "somehow" immune to the laws of matter. Then back to those like Schopenhauer: "A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants"

Compatibilists argue that determinism does not necessarily negate free will because determinism only means that events in the universe follow a predetermined course based on previous causes and conditions. This does not mean that human beings cannot make choices or that their choices are predetermined.

This is the part that may well reflect the crucial point that I am simply unable to grasp "here and now". Assuming, of course, that I possess the free will needed to, perhaps, grasp it one day. Especially in regard to moral responsibility.

I know that I make choices. And I know that in any number of ways those choices revolve entirely around the laws of matter in the either/or world. Excluding sim worlds or dream worlds or Matrix scenarios.

But what about the part where, like everyone else, I "just know" that "somehow" I am able to choose to do something other than what I am now doing. Me typing these words. You reading them. How to explain the part where I am more than just my brain...the part where my brain itself becomes something that I command.

Reconciling Determinism and Free Will: A Compatibilist Perspective
Innocent Ociti

Some compatibilists argue that free will can be understood as the ability to act by one's desires and motivations while taking into account the constraints and limitations of the external environment. They suggest that free will is not a metaphysical concept but a practical one and that it is possible to have free will in a world that is determined.

Okay -- click -- let's think this through.

Back to the aliens in the free will sector of the universe observing us in the determined sector.

They note that we think about things. They note that we desire and feel motivated about things. They note that we choose to behave in different ways.

But they also note this: that everything we think and feel and do is all derived entirely from the same brain. A brain wholly in sync with the laws of matter. It's not like one part of the brain compels us to think while another part allows us to feel motivated "on our own". And that "somehow" when combined there is at least a part of our behaviors that we command.

Unless of course they are able scientifically to demonstrate that in fact this is precisely the case.

However, not everyone agrees with compatibilism, and some philosophers argue that determinism and free will are incompatible. They suggest that if the universe is completely determined, then there is no room for a human agency or choice.

That's me. Only over and again that is not me at all. On the contrary, just like most others here, I post on threads convinced that of course I am choosing to post what I do of my own volition. I "just know" I have free will. Soon I will stop typing these words, and I will put my pad thai dinner into the microwave. And how could I possibly really believe that this is only as a result of how, when matter came into existence along with the Big Bang, I was then fated and destined to do all of this.

Or that a God, the God is somehow involved. Instead, the more I attempt to think it through the more mind-boggling it is that I am even here at all!