If Free Will Doesn't Exist Then Acting Also Doesn't Exist

[Cortex]

Because that would mean that there is a will to act 

[Joseph Maynor]

Do you have the free will to ignore the issue over whether free will exists?  

Edited May 15, 2019 by Joseph Maynor

[Truth Addict]

22 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Do you have the free will to ignore the issue over whether free will exists?  

Nobody has.

However, there can be an illusion of having the free will to ignore that issue.

Edited May 15, 2019 by Truth Addict

[Joseph Maynor]

15 minutes ago, Truth Addict said:

Nobody has.

However, there can be an illusion of having the free will to ignore that issue.

Rationalize it however you want to.

Edited May 15, 2019 by Joseph Maynor

[Truth Addict]

25 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Rationalize it however you want to.

Delude yourself however you want to.

[Anderz]

Stephen Wolfram has an interesting definition called computational irreducibility which he argues resolves the free will dilemma:

"Philosophers have debated the relationship between determinism and free will for over two millennia. Two opposite stances can be taken towards the problem: compatibilism maintains that free will is compatible with a deterministic world, which incompatibilism denies (see the entries onfree will and compatibilism). Surprisingly enough, both Daniel Dennett and Stephen Wolfram argued that adopting the CA perspective can provide a solution, or perhaps a dissolution, of the longstanding mystery of free will.

... Stephen Wolfram addresses the phenomenon of free will in his book on CA, with an ambitious tone:

Quote

From the discoveries in this book it finally now seems possible to give an explanation for this [free will]. And the key, I believe, is the phenomenon of computational irreducibility. (Wolfram 2002: 750)

" - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cellular-automata/#3.2

What computational irreducibility means is that even with a deterministic system it's generally impossible to predict how it will behave. And that's true for even many very simple systems, and it's definitely true for the universe as a whole and human behavior.

This is NOT the same as Laplace's mechanical determinism: "... it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes."

Instead what computational irreducibility says is that we actually have to perform our actions, including personal choices, as a part of the manifestation of reality. It's impossible to fully predict the future and impossible to do short cut calculations about the future with computational irreducibility.