Free will?

[Biovail]

Here's my take on it:

Free will is an illusion. The decisions you make were decided the moment the universe came into existence. Nothing that is part of the universe can change how events in that universe play out.

Every decision you make is determined by chemical balances of your brain. That chemical makeup was determined by your parents and the way the molecules in world around you (including other humans) have interacted with you. Those interactions were determined, if you look back far enough, by the forces that created the earth. The earth was also created by chance, by the forces and matter of the universe before it.

So in the end, everything you say, do, think, etc, were already set to play out the way they will since the beginning of time.


So does that make this discussion pointless. Or does this discussion make reality pointless?

 

[freehugs]

What about when you have an argument with yourself in your head, weigh the pros and cons, and decide one way?
That doesn't seem predestined.

 

[psood0nym]

So does that make this discussion pointless.

If it's true, yes. It would also be impossible to have any normative realm or to "reason" or know (the experience and understanding of these activities would just be the product of a determinant or indeterminant flux, and so in what sense it would have meaning I don't know, as any description of how it would gain meaning would likewise be a product of the flux, ad infinitum). If it's true than in believing in free will I am not "wrong," just doing what "I" must. However, if you're wrong and there is free will you are arguably in danger of rationalizing in a way that evades personal responsibility.

You might check into Laplace's demon, which strikes me as emblematic of the sentiment or your post.

 

[ninjadanslarbretabar]

were decided

determinism makes sense if you believe that time is going forward more than backward
but what if you start the universe at 0
and then when times enters the picture space enters the picture...at the same time !!!
hehe
get it ?
so that when point 1 comes along it comes in 2 different flavor : +1 and -1
+ being time and - being space
so that as time moves you forward toward + infinity, space moves you backwards toward - infinity
making space : time in reverse
so look at a clock, if you would make that arrow line from turning clockwise then its the clock that would turn anti clockwise around it
if that arrow line is representative of time than the clock is representative of space
if space stand still then time moves forward, if time stand still then space move backwards

so lets go back to the begining, if from that 0 point the space time continuum goes from + to - then determinism only happen when you go forward
but what if 0 isnt the past but the present, it was the present back at the begining of the universe and its the present now and its gonna be the present in the future
then that means that the past is going step by step towards - infinity
so only half of whats going on can be determine via determinism
can you determine why the universe started ? and what was before there was a before ?
0 is the present but you cant experience time if you are 0 (nothing), you need to be at least 1, and that will include +1 (future) and -1 (past)
if free will arises from the present (0) then it ends up being as influential as determinism in relation to whats going on
determinism goes forward, free will goes backward

its like saying is it the egg(-) or the chicken(+)
which came first time or space ?
how about they both came at the same time since they make a continuum
-1 is space and +1 is time and 0 is the center of that spacetime continuum : 1

if determinism works from 0 to where we are now then we should be able to use determinism to go backward back to zero, but then why would it ends at zero, or why did it started at 0 ? was that influence by determinism ? why did determinism came to be ?
if you say that "Nothing that is part of the universe can change how events in that universe play out." that means that if the universe was nothing before being something determinism couldn't account for its own creation
does that means that the universe came to be out of free will ?
and if so then why does determinism works ?
did free will died once it gave birth to the universe ?
free will seems to be the opposite of determinism, if free will was alive from -x to 0 then determinism took on from 0 to +x
if space is time in reverse then the universe before 0 is the universe in reverse
and if the only way you can experience the universe is by being 1 then you end up being +1 and -1, back n forth between free will and determinism

if you dont choose to be free then free will is forced upon you then you aint completely free
and if the only thing you can really determine is the past up to a point then its incomplete
they both half work, they are opposite and complimentary just like space and time, past and future

you are as free as what you can determine to be freedom
and you can determine that as far as what you allow yourself to

 

[hiphophippy]

Heisenberg, thread=over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

 

[Biovail]

What about when you have an argument with yourself in your head, weigh the pros and cons, and decide one way?
That doesn't seem predestined.

But the outcome of that argument is a result of chemicals in your brain, and what pathways and connections your brain has created due to previous experiences with those chemicals. If somebody is pointing a gun at your head, the decision of whether to comply with his demands or to knock the gun out of his hands is a result of various neurotransmitters and how strong of a pull they have on you. It doesn't seem predestined until you realize that your thoughts are at the mercy of serotonin, dopamine, and an assortment of many other chemicals.

If it's true, yes. It would also be impossible to have any normative realm or to "reason" or know (the experience and understanding of these activities would just be the product of a determinant or indeterminant flux, and so in what sense it would have meaning I don't know, as any description of how it would gain meaning would likewise be a product of the flux, ad infinitum). If it's true than in believing in free will I am not "wrong," just doing what "I" must. However, if you're wrong and there is free will you are arguably in danger of rationalizing in a way that evades personal responsibility.

Well, I believe I'm "right" in this belief, but I don't believe that's actually of any relevance. Thinking about the implications of this a bit more...

The concepts of "right" and "wrong" are also illusions. Whenever we act, we believe our actions to be "good" or "right" at that moment in time, even if in retrospect we decide such a decision was poor or bad. I can not crash a car, chop off my own arm, lie to a friend, kill an animal, unless I believe that action to be in some way beneficial to somebody or something, for some period of time, and unless those possible benefits outweigh the possible negative results for said people and time. That said, humans only look so far into the future when weighing pros and cons, and we foresee only a limited fraction of the possible consequences of our actions. So right and wrong are relative and dependent on both time and scope. My decision might be right for the next 10 seconds, 10 days, or 10 centuries. It might be the right decision for me, or for my neighborhood, or all of the universe. But eventually my decision will be wrong.

So one must accept this fact, that every decision one makes is, by nature, the correct decision at the time, for that person at least, but will eventually be the wrong decision at some point in the future from some perspective. And so sure, a person can justify every decision they make through the belief that they were predestined to make that decision from the beginning of time, and that they could not have made any other decision. And they would be no more incorrect in that belief than you or I would be for believing their decision is the wrong one. But here it becomes obvious how "right" and "wrong" don't have any objective meaning the way we typically hold them to. They're words used to describe logic, from a limited perspective, and only from a limited perspective.

So maybe my decisions have no meaning. The universe will play out the way it will play out regardless of what I do. Maybe "I" have no meaning. I am the universe, and the universe is me. And the universe will play out the way it will, because of me, as a part of me, and despite of me. But does that mean I should base all the decisions in my life around the fact that eventually they will have no meaning? In my opinion, no.

You might check into Laplace's demon, which strikes me as emblematic of the sentiment or your post.

Weird, I've considered that before, but didn't know it actually existed as a theory or anything. I also came to the conclusion that to store information about every atom of the universe, you would need every atom in the universe. And to calculate what would happen at T+1000 years, it would need T+1000 years to do those calculations. So interesting, but fairly useless with our current understanding of the universe.




Sort of off topic, but I would also consider a "god" to be something that operates outside of the universe. Something that isn't part of the universe, and whose actions aren't decided by what has happened thus far. As such, I'm have a feeling (though I'm not certain) that a god would be incapable of altering his actions based on what has happened in the universe. He (or she or it) would be capable of observing the universe, but wouldn't be able to affect anything in it, because by interacting with the universe and changing it's outcome, the universe would have interacted with the god and changed the god's outcome. That is unless the god is capable of being every and all outcomes, simultaneously, and thus unaffected by any interactions with the universe.

 

[Biovail]

determinism makes sense if you believe that time is going forward more than backward
but what if you start the universe at 0
and then when times enters the picture space enters the picture...at the same time !!!
hehe
get it ?
so that when point 1 comes along it comes in 2 different flavor : +1 and -1
+ being time and - being space
so that as time moves you forward toward + infinity, space moves you backwards toward - infinity
making space : time in reverse
so look at a clock, if you would make that arrow line from turning clockwise then its the clock that would turn anti clockwise around it
if that arrow line is representative of time than the clock is representative of space
if space stand still then time moves forward, if time stand still then space move backwards

Ok, I'm with you up until here..

so lets go back to the begining, if from that 0 point the space time continuum goes from + to - then determinism only happen when you go forward
but what if 0 isnt the past but the present, it was the present back at the begining of the universe and its the present now and its gonna be the present in the future

So you're saying that the present is always the present, and space is the thing moving backwards with respect to the constant, time?

then that means that the past is going step by step towards - infinity
so only half of whats going on can be determine via determinism
can you determine why the universe started ? and what was before there was a before ?

So you're saying that for determinism to exist, there has to be a starting point. But if the present is always zero, the past can always be a bigger negative, forever. And without a staring point (since we go on forever to - inf), nothing can be determined?

0 is the present but you cant experience time if you are 0 (nothing), you need to be at least 1, and that will include +1 (future) and -1 (past)
if free will arises from the present (0) then it ends up being as influential as determinism in relation to whats going on
determinism goes forward, free will goes backward

its like saying is it the egg(-) or the chicken(+)
which came first time or space ?
how about they both came at the same time since they make a continuum
-1 is space and +1 is time and 0 is the center of that spacetime continuum : 1

Ok, now you lost me...

if determinism works from 0 to where we are now then we should be able to use determinism to go backward back to zero, but then why would it ends at zero, or why did it started at 0 ? was that influence by determinism ? why did determinism came to be ?
if you say that "Nothing that is part of the universe can change how events in that universe play out." that means that if the universe was nothing before being something determinism couldn't account for its own creation
does that means that the universe came to be out of free will ?
and if so then why does determinism works ?
did free will died once it gave birth to the universe ?

Well I can't tell you where the universe came from.. I think that's beyond the understanding of any human at present day. I don't think the universe "started" the way "now" starts (ie snap you fingers and that is a beginning). But all events can be traced back to the big bang (supposedly). And from our current understanding, there was nothing, and then there was something. And we don't know what happened. But at some point, the universe existed, and it still does.

free will seems to be the opposite of determinism, if free will was alive from -x to 0 then determinism took on from 0 to +x
if space is time in reverse then the universe before 0 is the universe in reverse
and if the only way you can experience the universe is by being 1 then you end up being +1 and -1, back n forth between free will and determinism

if you dont choose to be free then free will is forced upon you then you aint completely free
and if the only thing you can really determine is the past up to a point then its incomplete
they both half work, they are opposite and complimentary just like space and time, past and future

you are as free as what you can determine to be freedom
and you can determine that as far as what you allow yourself to

I still think "free will" is an illusion, just like "chance" and "random." We simply can't explain it, for many number of reasons, so we call it luck. The roll of a die or the flip of a coin isn't any more random than the orbit of the earth around the sun, there are just fewer variables involved (and more time to calculate the outcome).

Another argument of the limits of hypothetical free will, is that we cant control some things consciously, such as the level of neurotransmitter concentration directly, like I cant say "Let my serotonin levels be increased" and it will be increased, I would need to introduce an external agent (drug) to cause change.

Even if you could alter you serotonin levels, something still predates that decision to alter them. Chemical reactions made you believe that altering your serotonin was a good decision. And those chemical reactions were predated by other reactions and other variables

Heisenberg, thread=over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

Uncertainty principle = why.

This thread = so what?

 

[freehugs]

But the outcome of that argument is a result of chemicals in your brain, and what pathways and connections your brain has created due to previous experiences with those chemicals. If somebody is pointing a gun at your head, the decision of whether to comply with his demands or to knock the gun out of his hands is a result of various neurotransmitters and how strong of a pull they have on you. It doesn't seem predestined until you realize that your thoughts are at the mercy of serotonin, dopamine, and an assortment of many other chemicals.

That is fight or flight, a instinct. Instinct and free will are totally different.

 

[ninjadanslarbretabar]

what im saying is that determinism makes sense if you see time as a straight line going forward
but if every point along that line is a point zero with lines coming out from it at every angle in every direction then everything inside the spacetime continuum is relative to its observer
because all option are at all time possible

so for instance if you think about a situation where you could turn left or right youll think that determinism dictates that there is only one answer and that if you turned right it was determined that you would have turned right from the start
but if the universe works in a self duplicating way which is to say the same way a cell acts while in mitosis then it is written from the start that one part of you will turn right while the other will turn left because the universe will duplicate itself into two version of itself, one where you turn left and one where you turned right
but the thing is that you can only experience one of the two version of you
which one are you ? you are the one you choose to be by either making the decision to turn right or left
so that free will is all there is from one perspective and determinism is all there is from another perspective

its like those old "you are the hero" book where if you do that you go to page 32 and if you choose to do this then go to page 54
the book has already being written down from the start but the way you read it hasnt


hopefully thats a easier way to make sense of what i meant in that other post

 

[Biovail]

what im saying is that determinism makes sense if you see time as a straight line going forward
but if every point along that line is a point zero with lines coming out from it at every angle in every direction then everything inside the spacetime continuum is relative to its observer
because all option are at all time possible

so for instance if you think about a situation where you could turn left or right youll think that determinism dictates that there is only one answer and that if you turned right it was determined that you would have turned right from the start
but if the universe works in a self duplicating way which is to say the same way a cell acts while in mitosis then it is written from the start that one part of you will turn right while the other will turn left because the universe will duplicate itself into two version of itself, one where you turn left and one where you turned right
but the thing is that you can only experience one of the two version of you
which one are you ? you are the one you choose to be by either making the decision to turn right or left
so that free will is all there is from one perspective and determinism is all there is from another perspective

its like those old "you are the hero" book where if you do that you go to page 32 and if you choose to do this then go to page 54
the book has already being written down from the start but the way you read it hasnt


hopefully thats a easier way to make sense of what i meant in that other post

I see what you mean now. Every point in time is the starting point of time (in a sense). If you look back in time, you're really looking forward in space, and effect predates cause (in other words, your actions are the results of the results of your actions, which seems like a paradox at first, but really isn't). Eating dinner earlier is the result of feeling full now.

But I can still ask, what makes me choose door A or door B? Isn't that just chemicals and electrical pulses in my brain?

And also, the universe doesn't make decisions. It's governed physics, a set of laws. In the universe, 1+1=2. The universe can't choose to make 1+1=3. So how can alternate continuum exist outside of human "choice"?

That is fight or flight, a instinct. Instinct and free will are totally different.

No, you're confusing conscious and subconscious thought. Your decision to post in this thread was a result of curiosity, boredom, and differing opinions. All of those emotions are a result of various chemical processes and electrical process that resulted from chemical processes. That's all any of your thoughts are. Fight or flight responses are the same thing, only you're not aware of them.

 

[hiphophippy]

Uncertainty principle = why.

This thread = so what?

I can't really speak against non-secular determinism. But as far as secular determinism goes though things are going to effect the outcome of a situation like serotonin, alcohol ect. on a quantum level you cannot account nor predict where every molecule and energy is. Thus adding to the randomness of each decision we make. I.E. "free will"

 

[CoffeeDrinker]

Heisenberg, thread=over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

hahahah and a very merry christmas to you too

 

[Lost Ego]

Here's my take on it:

Free will is an illusion. The decisions you make were decided the moment the universe came into existence. Nothing that is part of the universe can change how events in that universe play out.

Every decision you make is determined by chemical balances of your brain. That chemical makeup was determined by your parents and the way the molecules in world around you (including other humans) have interacted with you. Those interactions were determined, if you look back far enough, by the forces that created the earth. The earth was also created by chance, by the forces and matter of the universe before it.

So in the end, everything you say, do, think, etc, were already set to play out the way they will since the beginning of time.


So does that make this discussion pointless. Or does this discussion make reality pointless?

that all may be true except i dont believe free will is an illusion. things may have already been decided forever ago however... free will wasnt influenced, our actions are all choices, i believe our choices were already accounted for but it was still us who decided them. if you did something bad, its still your fault. besides all that time is an illusion. there is no such thing as the future, all there is, is now. therefor if they are all determined by something else then you have to realize there is a something else. maybe all our decisions culminate into something bigger then us. perhaps the universe is part of something bigger - maybe its a molecule in a bigger picture. unless that previous statement is true, i doubt any of it really matters

 

[psood0nym]

So maybe my decisions have no meaning. The universe will play out the way it will play out regardless of what I do. Maybe "I" have no meaning. I am the universe, and the universe is me. And the universe will play out the way it will, because of me, as a part of me, and despite of me. But does that mean I should base all the decisions in my life around the fact that eventually they will have no meaning? In my opinion, no.

When you ask, "should I base all the decisions in my life...?" you are using normative language. If all is determined, whatever you do is what you can't help but do. There is no motivation or reason for what you should or shouldn't do, and so there is no argument for or against determinism from the perspective of hard determinism. The recognition in the human mind of truth and falsity is whatever causes the "subjective" recognition -- as a domino effect -- that leads to the mere feeling of the recognition of truth or falsity (as in, "I recognize the truth of determinism"). You can't even ask "but does that mean I should ... ?" as you do above. This is because we don't consider our behavior at all in a deterministic world, as consideration and understanding is a mere description of what happens ineluctably, and that description we are "making" isn't made by us, it just happens by adherence to physical law.

In any event, if free will exists and you have it, there are arguably strong negative consequences for your believing in hard determinism. If free will doesn't exist, we don't have any control over the consequences that entails for us. It is a logical fallacy to believe it is justified to believe something because the consequences are emotionally unacceptable, of course, but what about when not believing in something (free will) in the event that it is true undermines the very foundation of truth and falsity (because under determinism the experience of the recognition of truth and falsity in a subject owes totally to any number of possible permutations of matter and energy that the recognition could consist of), and in the event that it is not true results in what was going to happen inevitably? In that case, does argument by appeal to consequence succeed? I don't think you'd call it "logical" if it does succeed, but does it?

 

[Biovail]

that all may be true except i dont believe free will is an illusion. things may have already been decided forever ago however... free will wasnt influenced, our actions are all choices, i believe our choices were already accounted for but it was still us who decided them. if you did something bad, its still your fault. besides all that time is an illusion. there is no such thing as the future, all there is, is now. therefor if they are all determined by something else then you have to realize there is a something else. maybe all our decisions culminate into something bigger then us. perhaps the universe is part of something bigger - maybe its a molecule in a bigger picture. unless that previous statement is true, i doubt any of it really matters

People often excuse mentally retarded people from acting in a way we would normally find unacceptable, ie shouting profane language at a child. This is under the pretense that such a person is not in control of their actions or that they aren't aware their actions aren't appropriate. Well, would any human shout profanities at a child if they were in control of their actions and aware they were inappropriate? I would argue no. In order for somebody to act in such a way, that person must be lacking in judgement in some way.

My point, I find the general human concept of fault to be flawed. Take this biblical reference for example. Jesus said of those who had condemned him, before death, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." He believed that the action of killing, of perfectly sane men, was excusable because they did not know what it was they were doing. Jesus believed that if those men had the same knowledge as he, they would not have done what they had done. So by lack of knowledge, even the action of murder is excusable. And by acting as they did, they in fact demonstrated a lack of knowing.

So how can one define fault? If somebody is aware their actions are wrong, but they carry out those actions in spite of this knowledge, surely that is fault? Well, humans do not carry out actions they believe to be wrong. If you act, you must believe, on some fundamental level, that those actions are justified. Thus is the nature of the human mind. So how can you fault somebody for any action? Well then, it seems that fault is simply a perspective. We do not condemn murder because the murderer believes their actions to be wrong. We condemn murder because murder disagrees with our opinion of what is justified. The murderer's opinion is irrelevant in every way.

So the fact that the Jews were unaware their actions were unjust does not excuse them from fault. In fact, it is the very reason they were at fault.

Likewise, belief in determinism does not excuse you from fault. Whether your actions are justifiable to you is irrelevant in this way. The knowledge that your decisions are the only decisions you can make does not change the opinion of others around you, is completely disconnected with any ideas of fault, and should have no effect on your actions. So really, determinism shouldn't be a dangerous concept at all.

 

[Biovail]

When you ask, "should I base all the decisions in my life...?" you are using normative language. If all is determined, whatever you do is what you can't help but do. There is no motivation or reason for what you should or shouldn't do, and so there is no argument for or against determinism from the perspective of hard determinism. The recognition in the human mind of truth and falsity is whatever causes the "subjective" recognition -- as a domino effect -- that leads to the mere feeling of the recognition of truth or falsity (as in, "I recognize the truth of determinism"). You can't even ask "but does that mean I should ... ?" as you do above. This is because we don't consider our behavior at all in a deterministic world, as consideration and understanding is a mere description of what happens ineluctably, and that description we are "making" isn't made by us, it just happens by adherence to physical law.

In any event, if free will exists and you have it, there are arguably strong negative consequences for your believing in hard determinism. If free will doesn't exist, we don't have any control over the consequences that entails for us. It is a logical fallacy to believe it is justified to believe something because the consequences are emotionally unacceptable, of course, but what about when not believing in something (free will) in the event that it is true undermines the very foundation of truth and falsity (because under determinism the experience of the recognition of truth and falsity in a subject owes totally to any number of possible permutations of matter and energy that the recognition could consist of), and in the event that it is not true results in what was going to happen inevitably? In that case, does argument by appeal to consequence succeed? I don't think you'd call it "logical" if it does succeed, but does it?

Determinism shouldn't be looked at as a belief, in my opinion. It really shouldn't have much effect on your actions at all. Determinism doesn't say that your actions aren't your actions. It is simply an explanation for why your actions exist in the first place. Determinism tells you that when you make a decision, you are making that decision, but that is the only decision you can make, and that's the only decision you would ever have made. Decision itself is the sum of various forces, and those forces can only exist as they do. The only way a different decision could be made is if the laws of physics and the universe were different than they are.

Determinism doesn't relieve you of responsibility any more than ignorance relieves you of fault.

 

[Psyduck]

Every decision you make is determined by chemical balances of your brain.That chemical makeup was determined by your parents and the way the molecules in world around you (including other humans) have interacted with you. Those interactions were determined if you look back far enough, by the forces that created the earth. The earth was also created by chance, by the forces and matter of the universe before it.

This presupposes materialism and reductionism. The above mentioned "scientifc ideas you have about the world" remain captured in a representational theory of mind. It's always you (a human subject) who is making representations (thoughts, images, ideas, scientific models,...) "about" the 'outer' (material) world. In such a philosophical position you don't have access to the world without human concepts. Even if one were able to go beyond the epistemological troubles in such a scheme, endless different representations of the world can always be made. Compare for example the difference between classical mechanics and modern quantum mechanics, which stresses determinism respectively chance. It doesn't matter what scientific paradigm we have right now, the basic philosophical problem always remain -- and must be dealt with first. The problem is how to conceive of the relation between thought and world. And how to go beyond the representational theory which says that our only access to the world is by representing it with our human ideas (i.e. scientific models)? One may not forget that saying "thought corresponds to the activity of neurons" already functions within and presupposes a representional theory of mind, which is then consequently claiming that "neurons [as a human concept] corresponds with such and such grey matter [representation of sensation] that is responsible for subjective thought [representation of our own subjectivity]." Philosophy of mind has made absolutely no progress since Descartes. How do you know you are not a seperate mind (cogito) that is re-presenting the outer world (res extensa). This is Descartes all over again.


I have always trouble when people are throwing in the scientific big-talk in discussions which are first of all philosophical. Why don't we deal with this problem first instead of mentioning difficult concepts from physics such as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, or things from quantum mechanics,... Scientists (and people who read scientific pop-magazines even less) are not questioning their own basic presuppositions.

 

[psood0nym]

Determinism shouldn't be looked at as a belief, in my opinion. It really shouldn't have much effect on your actions at all. Determinism doesn't say that your actions aren't your actions. It is simply an explanation for why your actions exist in the first place. Determinism tells you that when you make a decision, you are making that decision, but that is the only decision you can make, and that's the only decision you would ever have made. Decision itself is the sum of various forces, and those forces can only exist as they do. The only way a different decision could be made is if the laws of physics and the universe were different than they are.

Determinism doesn't relieve you of responsibility any more than ignorance relieves you of fault.

I don't understand. There can be no "should" in a deterministic world for determinism to tell us or not tell us how to form a perspective on determism or anything else. There are no beliefs, nor actors, nor responsibility -- the only ontological category of being is physical law, if that even makes sense to say about such a world. What gives a decision or action or perspective normative meaning or any meaning without the Principle of Alternate Possibilities? What makes it a decision? I also don't understand how we can have determinism as an explanation without having it as a belief as you argue we should think of it, because what is the substance of an explanation that is not meant to be considered for belief? What is the substance of a "perspective," as you call it, that can't be changed, or perspective without belief? What is the substance of a debate that can't come out any other way? This is why you suspected in your first post that discussion might be pointless from your perspective, if it's true. Free will would give it a point, and would give belief, for or against free will, meaningful consequence. Determinism, if true, by definition can have no consequence, it can only be whatever is and only that, which is why it is a complete nonstarter in life. To warn you ahead of time, I've never comprehended how various compatablist arguments are supposed to succeed either.

 

[MattPsy]

We might also be physically determined, but we are of a construction that enables our behaviour to change despite this because our programming changes from interaction with the environment and each other. For this reason, punishment or rehabilitation for bad actions we undertake, for instance, is still warranted.

 

[Biovail]

I don't have time to respond in length at the moment, but I feel I must define the word "decision" the way I've been using it.

I touched on this earlier, but decisions are, at a basic level, a simple "true" or "false" based on a plethora of input, much of which we can't consciously comprehend. Yes, any decision I make could only have been made that way, but that doesn't mean I ("I" being the physical parts my being consists of, mainly my brain) didn't make that decision. I have the ability to weigh the pros and cons of every potential outcome and act in the way that makes the most sense logically. Everything around me influences each decision, including the words (and posts) of the people I interact with.

So when I say "should", it is simply the vocalization of what I believe to be the correct decision.