@Fil Albuquerque,
in the context of being committed to rationality, causality is not only compulsive it is exclusive.
Conceptually free will is usually considered a force. In the language of causality (above), at that moment of definition free will ceases to be anything to do with freedom. It is locked into the chain of cause/effect. That there may be more than one possible outcome to a particular cause, and that that outcome is statistical (probabilistic) in nature makes no difference. The force had no freedom to choose which of the possible outcomes that actually occurred. There is no choice in throwing some dice and getting the number that actually occurs. In the language of causality there wasn't even a choice as to whether the dice were thrown either. The force rolled the dice and thats it. Free will as a concieved force within such a narrative is no different to any other force. It is machine logic train, whether deterministic or non deterministic. It is written into the narrative itself. If you wear deep red shades...... everything is coloured red. There is no freedom to see blue.
Why do people commit themselves as supporters of the game of scientific and philosophical rationalism? There are many reasons..... intellectual, emotional, spiritual, our characters, our environment, power and so on.
One of the most powerful and compelling (
) intellectual arguments is that a human being has yet to be observed to perform a physical act that violates the laws of material science. Therefore the logic goes, man is restrained to the physical, and is a machine. This is a perfectly reasonable argument. A supernatural human force of free will is thus dismissed by a lack of any 'evidence' (scientifically biased of course, but all supporters are biased.). Thus what we thought was free will is the illusion of a machine (but perhaps a compelling and necessary illusion for social cohesion).
Classical determinism was complete in its dismissal of the supernatural. All matter behaves deterministically, all history was predetermined. The cause/effect chain rolled no dice. Post modern scientific indeterminism (lol) ie QM has gaps in it. Science admits defeat at least temporarily with regard to a complete prediction and understanding of the universe. But that does not alter its cause/effect deep narrative. There still remains no scientific evidence of the supernatural. Nevertheless, for the watchers of the game the gap created by probability is interesting.
With our present philosophical understanding of narrative and language, coupled with that present gap in the scientific narrative, there now exists the possibility of a narrative belief in the supernatural force of free will without contradicting the validity of the narrative of science and rationalism. (we 'the game watchers' are not compelled to choose
) This is especially true since QM is recognised as rampant on the small scale, of which conceptually the large scale is constructed. Thus free will remains a possible supernatural (ie unscientific) force of nature, that although constrained by the laws of physics, nevertheless has room to manouevre.
But all that is just considered wishful thinking to someone who is a full on supporter of scientific rationalism. Cause/effect and probability rule ok. The rest is semantics.
"But i have free will!" ...... what do you mean by the nature of 'I'. That is the crucial narrative point.
