In a very real scientific sense, free will (being able to make a choice that isn’t predetermined) isn’t real. We can’t make a choice any more than a rock “chooses” to fall down a cliff. Essentially the outcome of every single thing in the universe was decided at the moment of the Big Bang. Uncertainty won’t save us here either as I wouldn’t describe an electron being able to freely choose an outcome just because it is a probability cloud. You quite literally need magic to recapture free will.
However, hard determinism has the frustrating features of both being counter to our actual experience and a philosophical Ouroboros. Certainly we subjectively experience free will and there is no mechanism by which you can extricate yourself from that experience. And it is utterly useless as a tool because everything just reduces to “because it was predetermined”. In that framework, should and ought have no power because no alternatives can possibly exist. You can’t make a moral judgement about the motion of a proton. When your very thoughts and feelings are predetermined, talking about alternatives is simply writing fantasy. You have the same ability to choose as a character in a story has the ability to rebel against the author.
In short, free will doesn’t exist, but our experience of it is universal, unchangeable, and useful. You might as well operate by it (as if you had a choice lol) as you get to recover morality and other helpful things.
In a very real scientific sense, free will (being able to make a choice that isn’t predetermined) isn’t real. We can’t make a choice any more than a rock “chooses” to fall down a cliff. Essentially the outcome of every single thing in the universe was decided at the moment of the Big Bang. Uncertainty won’t save us here either as I wouldn’t describe an electron being able to freely choose an outcome just because it is a probability cloud. You quite literally need magic to recapture free will.
However, hard determinism has the frustrating features of both being counter to our actual experience and a philosophical Ouroboros. Certainly we subjectively experience free will and there is no mechanism by which you can extricate yourself from that experience. And it is utterly useless as a tool because everything just reduces to “because it was predetermined”. In that framework, should and ought have no power because no alternatives can possibly exist. You can’t make a moral judgement about the motion of a proton. When your very thoughts and feelings are predetermined, talking about alternatives is simply writing fantasy. You have the same ability to choose as a character in a story has the ability to rebel against the author.
In short, free will doesn’t exist, but our experience of it is universal, unchangeable, and useful. You might as well operate by it (as if you had a choice lol) as you get to recover morality and other helpful things.