The deterministic position says that reality unfolds according to the laws of physics.
The Free Will position says that reality unfolds according to the laws of physics and also there is something called Free Will which is a power possessed by cognitive organisms that can alter the unfolding of this reality.
Which of these 2 propositions is the more parsimonious?
It sounds like you are substituting parsimony with popularity.
I think think this issue of predictability is where people are repelled by determinism
But pre-determinism does not imply pre-dictability since the computational power required to calculate the prediction is by definition many orders of magnitude more complex than the system itself and is therefore purely imaginary.
We are guaranteed by the same laws of physics to be immune from our futures being predictable, even if they are pre-determined.
I think this can lend some succour to those reluctantly exploring the admittedly daunting idea that the future may be caused in a deterministic way by the state of the present, and the consequences this has for instinctively familiar sensations like subjectively experienced Free Will.
I think the verb intercession is perfect in this instance. The idea of the intercession of Free Will in the unfolding of reality seems analogous in some ways to the historical notions of the intercession of God.





Reply With Quote