If there is no free will, then all arguments about what should be done are irrelevant, since every outcome is either predetermined or random, so you have no influence on whether the project at work will choose Rust or C++. This choice was either made 13 billion years ago at the Big Bang, or it is an entirely random process.
> If there is no free will, then all arguments about what should be done are irrelevant, since every outcome is either predetermined or random, so you have no influence on whether the project at work will choose Rust or C++.
This is not correct. Whether or not you have free will, stuff influences and is influenced by other stuff, so these arguments are not meaningless or worthless.
> This choice was either made 13 billion years ago at the Big Bang, or it is an entirely random process.
I had thought of this before, and what I had decided is that both of these are also independent of having free will. For example, if the initial state includes unknown and uncomputable transcendental numbers which can somehow "encode" free will and then the working of physics is deterministic, then it is still possible (although not necessarily mandatory) to have free will, even though it is deterministic.
Depends on whether you consider facts or theory. Facts don't prevent logical arguments from seeming to work, but lack of free will is theory. When theory doesn't match facts, theory is wrong.
Fuzzy logic deals with truth values between 0 and 1. You can for example map water temperatures in such systems without having arbitrarily important cutoff points.
Such system often deal with uncertainty quite well including random noise on their inputs. The output ends up a function of both logic and randomness, but can still be useful.
Agreed, I don’t believe a system like that can access the platonic realm of mathematical truths. It’s clear that an electron doesn’t carry the laws of physics with it as it travels.
Something is orchestrating the decisions that the brain executes in the conscious realm though. (As opposed to or in contrast to the mathematical realm and the realm of the physical laws). We are clearly surrounded by invisible realms, unless you believe electrons are carrying lookup tables of how to respond to invisible electric fields.
This is a strawman argument extended by those who rely on supernatural explanations. In reality, people's utterances and actions are part of the environment that determines future actions, just like everything else.
Sure, but that still doesn't matter: the fact that I wrote my previous comment is what caused you to write your response, but it's not like I had a choice to write that comment or some other: the fact that I wrote that comment, as well as everything that led to me writing it (conversations with teachers, my parents letting me watch English cartoons so I learned English, etc), were predetermined the moment the Big Bang happened, or they're just a quantum fluctuation.
What I'm saying is that there's no logical point to the concept "should" unless you have some concept of free will: everything that happens must happen, or is entirely random.
