Nimos
Well-Known Member
You are correct in that.Whether we actually have a degree of free will or it's simply that our brain tricks us into thinking this, people still act as if they have a degree of agency, even those who nominally claim to believe the universe is deterministic. People who don't believe in free will still get annoyed at ignorance, rudeness, arrogance, violence or whatever behaviours they personally dislike. This is either because they judge the person could have done otherwise or because they had no other choice other than to get annoyed. The result is identical though.
For that reason I've never really found it a particularly interesting question worthy of much deeper contemplation as it seems somewhat pointless (or maybe I was always predestined to not find it a particularly interesting question )
If we live in a truly deterministic Universe where we have no agency, then the most important question becomes regarding morality. If humans have no free will, then we can't really morally judge others. As that would be rather absurd as we in theory are judging the cards the person was dealt by the Universe
It is no longer a question of morality, it is simply the extermination of "conditions" that the majority of us don't agree with. Meaning that there would be no moral justification to punish a murderer. Besides us simply stating that we don't like what the Universe determined for this individual, and even our choice to get rid of them is equally determined, so we didn't make the choice either.
Things become pretty absurd in a truly deterministic Universe in my opinion.
Yet, if we do have free will or even just limited free will, I still don't see how it could come into being, maybe it is just me, but that is probably one of my biggest interests. If we have free will, then the answer to how it could have evolved is crucial in my opinion.
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