Due to quantum mechanics, we know this is not true. There is a level of uncertainty and probability and the smallest level of our universe. The deterministic model of the universe has been put to rest a century ago.
From all the discussions I’ve read about Free Will, I’m convinced the term actually doesn’t mean anything at all. What would a world with free will look like? What would a world without free will look like? How would a person with/without it behave? Would there be any tangible difference between them?
As far as I can tell, free will is supposed to be a property of a person, which may or may not have something to do with physics, either everybody has it or nobody has it, and nobody has a definition that would let them measure it (without reducing the question to a disagreement over semantics). I think that whether someone believes in free will is a trick question; you can’t believe or disbelieve in a something that isn’t even a real concept to begin with.
There are so many cases like that. For example, define intelligence. If you try to, you’ll run in loops of equally undefined abstract concepts.
And that’s basically what philosophy is about.
Even though intelligence isn’t precisely defined, people still have enough of an idea about it to have some consensus about how it should be measured. An animal that keeps running into a wire fence trying to get through is showing less intelligence than an animal that notices an opening a few feet away and walks through that instead. Free will is much less defined than even that.
Well, intelligence is defined as what the intelligence test measures.
But lets try a different one: sentience. Or consciousness.
