Parts of the future are fixed by our actions. Our actions are fixed by our choices.Good .. but do you really mean it?
Now, are our choices fixed? COULD we have chosen otherwise or is it simply an illusion that we *feel* like we can?
And what fixes what we choose?Yes .. fixed by what we choose.
The problem is what fixes our choices. Are we actually free to make a different choice? if the future is known, then the answer is no. We could only choose what we actually did choose...but it is not the fact they are "fixed" that troubles you..
You just agreed that our actions can be "fixed" by what we choose.
But is there only one possible future? If so, then we don't actually have a real choice, only an illusion of such.They are "fixed" whether the system is deterministic or not.
i.e. the future must be something
Does it? Does the future of NOW actually *have* to be something fixed? if so, there can be no free choices.It's the same thing .. just another way of saying it.
In my opinion, you see the passage of time as "ruling the roost".
..so this talk about it being "fixed"
As I say .. it HAS to be something !
If the choices can be known, then they are not truly free: we could have done no other. The very fact that the choices are *known* for a being outside of time and space means that they could not have been otherwise and that means they were not truly free.Perhaps, see it in the light of the choices that we will make freely, can be known by an agent who is
not part of this universe?
The choices are not affected by the knowledge of an outside being. But whether the choices are free certainly is...but that's hardly the point .. the point is that it is NOT necessary for our choices to be affected
by knowledge that we do not possess .. such as what we will choose.
but what makes our will what it is? Is the will also fixed? Could it be otherwise?The choice is NOT necessarily affected by another's knowledge .. there is no such mechanism, that
invisibly makes us choose against our will.
if the will is determined, it is not free.
Nope. if it is known by an outside entity, then it could be nothing other than what it is. And that means that I don't truly have a free choice, only an illusion of one.That makes little sense from a global perspective .. "already determined" is constrained by the passage of time in this universe.
And what determines what they want?Yes .. if they had wanted to.
Responsibility is a legal fiction. it is useful for societies to order themselves.No illusion .. responsibility is not an illusion.
OK, so it is fixed and ALL of our choices are also fixed. And that means we could not choose otherwise. And that means we do not have free will.No .. I don't agree.
There IS only one future, just like there is only one past.
Yes, and that freedom requires that there be more than one possible future.What I think you mean, is that we must be free to choose what that future will be .. right?
But 'our control' is also fixed if there s only one future. We don't have a choice on what we want.Well, if they were "predetermined" by some unknown force(s), then our choices would not be free.
..but I do not believe that they are. Not to the extent that our choices are beyond our control,
in any case.