One thing I hear quite a lot on this sub, which massively surprised me at first, is that ordinary people tend to naturally be compatibilists. That they supposedly do not think freedom requires a categorical ability to do otherwise - they just mean acting according to their own desires without coercion etc.

A large cross-cultural study by Wisniewski, Deutschlander and Haynes gives us very good reason to doubt that.....https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0221617 (full text)

The study surveyed 1800 people in representative samples from the US and Singapore. Participants were asked whether they agreed with several different definitions of free will.

The clearest incompatibilist question was:

“Free will is the ability to make different choices even if everything leading up to one’s choice - the past, the situation, and their desires, beliefs, etc - were exactly the same.” - Just to point out that is not the conditional compatibilist ability to do otherwise of "you would have acted differently if you had wanted differently.”

It explicitly holds the past, circumstances, desires and beliefs fixed. It therefore describes something very close to the categorical ability to do otherwise.

Agreement was:

76.6% in the US

83.2% in Singapore

Most participants also endorsed an “unmoved mover” conception....“to have free will is to be able to cause things to happen in the world without at the same time being caused to make those things happen.”

Agreement was:

62% in the US

70.6% in Singapore

These libertarian responses were also positively related to general belief in free will. So this was not merely people recognising a possible definition while denying that humans possess it. The more strongly people believed in free will, the more likely they were to endorse these incompatibilist ideas.

The study also found some endorsement of supposedly compatibilist definitions. Eg "free will is the ability to make a choice based on one’s beliefs and desires such that, if one had different beliefs or desires, one’s choice would have been different as well.”

This was endorsed by 57% of Americans and 64% of Singaporeans.

Another item defined free will in terms of doing what one wants without coercion or constraint from other people. I was a bit surprised in that only 27% of Americans endorsed this, and 49% of Singaporeans.

But neither of these claims is uniquely compatibilist anyway. Ie a libertarian can perfectly consistently say that

free actions normally flow from the agent’s desires and reasons, that coercion can remove or reduce freedom, and the agent nevertheless retains a categorical ability to choose otherwise.

Acting according to your wants and being uncoerced are compatible with libertarianism. They only become distinctively compatibilist when someone adds that these conditions remain sufficient for free will even if the entire action was deterministically entailed. The survey items did not clearly establish that participants accepted that stronger compatibilist claim.

Also, get this - among participants classified as endorsing a compatibilist definition -  86.19% in the US **also** endorsed an incompatibilist definition and

92.29% in Singapore also endorsed an incompatibilist definition

My interpretation is that the participants did not regard the “compatibilist” questilns as rejecting libertarian freedom at all. Ie instead they may have thought that free action comes from their own desires, without coercion, and they also genuinely could have chosen otherwise with everything held fixed.

That is a recognisably libertarian picture, even though it incorporates capacities that compatibilists also value.

Most people in this study had explicit libertarian intuitions, while many also endorsed ordinary agency conditions shared by both compatibilists and libertarians. It seems compatibilists then just jump to "so folk intuitions are mixed and often philosophically incoherent, we can't really conclude a great deal" etc. This is just a rhetorical escape hatch- the compatibilist questions weren't incompatibilist-exclusive, libertarians endorse them too, so mixed endorsement is exactly what libertarians would expect.

The argument tends to be "no no, ordinary people do not normally think free will requires a categorical ability to do otherwise." But this study provides strong evidence against that claim (remember 76.6%/83.2% of participants believed this)

It does not prove that most people are philosophically sophisticated or internally consistent libertarians. But it does show that categorical “could have done otherwise” intuitions are widespread and probably central to many people’s conception of free will.

It also backs up the claim that I, and others on this sub have made, that ordinary people are implicit dualists.

In this study a large majority believed in some form of mind-body dualism...75.7% in the US & 88.3% in Singapore!

Most participants also agreed that an immaterial soul was necessary for free will....77.1% in the US & 82.8% in Singapore

Dualism was actually a stronger predictor of general free will belief than determinism beliefs were.....

I think this also helps the confused/mixed/inconsistent views people hold (such as endorsing libertarianism and determinism without realising the conflict). Ie the physical brain is causally governed while the real choosing self or soul stands partly outside that causal system.

So I don't think the folk view is...I act from my desires without coercion. It seems a lot closer to....my brain and circumstances influence me, but there is still a non-physical self that ultimately chooses and could genuinely have done otherwise. That is much closer to intuitive libertarianism than to standard naturalistic compatibilism.

Conclusion

Compatibilism does not reflect the ordinary persons views. Ordinary people overwhelmingly reject physicalism, causal closure if the physical, the denial of categorical alternatives. So compatibilism **is not** common sense! Its a revisionary theory designed to preserve moral responsibility under naturalism.

Ordinary people are not compatibilists!!!!

Hopefully someone reads all this as it took me fcking ages to write up haha.

A lot of the free will debate seems to hinge on whether humans are the ultimate authors of their actions. If we're not, many conclude that agency is an illusion.

I'm not convinced that follows.

Here's the distinction I'm exploring.

Awareness is simply representing a difference.

I can be aware that I'm angry, aware that I'm self-sabotaging, or aware that my habits are damaging my relationships.

None of that necessarily changes anything.

Acknowledgment is different.

Acknowledgment occurs when what is represented becomes incorporated into the organisation producing future behaviour. In other words, the recognition is allowed to become causally effective.

A person may be aware they're drinking too much for years. Nothing changes.

Acknowledgment begins when that recognition starts reorganising future behaviour—not because it escaped causality, but because it became part of the causal process shaping what happens next.

That leads me to define agency like this:

Agency is the capacity of a system to reorganise its own continuation through acknowledgment.

Notice that this doesn't require libertarian free will.

The awareness is caused.

The acknowledgment is caused.

The reorganisation is caused.

Agency isn't freedom from causality. It's a feature of certain causal systems: systems capable of incorporating models of themselves into the processes that determine what they become next.

I also think this explains why narrative matters.

A coherent self-narrative isn't agency itself, but it gives continuity to the self-model. It binds memory, evaluation, and identity together so acknowledgment can persist across time. Without some degree of coherence, agency becomes increasingly fragmented or reactive.

So my questions are:

Does this describe something genuinely different from standard compatibilist "reasons-responsiveness," or is it just another way of expressing it?

Is acknowledgment a meaningful distinction from simple awareness?

- If all of this remains fully causal, is "agency" still a useful concept even if ultimate authorship is impossible?

If so, does the term free will actually clarify anything, or does it mostly keep dragging the discussion back to basic desert and ultimate responsibility?

True randomness claims that a physical state updates without a determining cause. It claims that when a physical coordinate changes its value, no antecedent rule or prior condition forced that specific outcome.

For randomness to exist in reality, a physical change must happen without any physical driver choosing or producing the new state.

Every physical update is a change in numerical value at a specific coordinate within the continuous field.

When a coordinate transitions from an initial value to a subsequent value, only two possibilities exist:

(1) The transition is dictated by the prior physical state. The new value is the direct, necessary result of the existing values and their rules of interaction. Thus, the event is completely determined, not random.

(2) The transition is not dictated by the prior physical state. The outcome is uncaused. This means zero prior physical data produced the new value.

We must ask what produces a physical update when zero prior physical data is present?

If an event is completely uncaused, the new physical value must appear without any physical force driving it. Claiming that a value changes by pure chance claims that "nothing" selected or generated the new value.

(1) "Nothing" possesses zero physical properties. It has zero force, zero dimensions, and zero mathematical structure.

(2) Changing a physical value requires physical force and mathematical structure. An entity must act to alter a value at a coordinate.

Because "nothing" possesses zero physical properties, it cannot select a value. It cannot push a coordinate to a new intensity. It cannot compute a possibility.

Stating that a value changed by pure chance claims that "nothing" performed a physical action. But "nothing" cannot act. Expecting a non-existent entity to cause a physical change is a mechanical impossibility.

Thus, an uncaused event cannot occur. Every physical update must be entirely driven by an existing physical cause.

A random event claims that out of multiple potential values, a specific value appears without being derived from prior data.

(1) If the new value is derived from prior data, it is calculated by the existing system. Thus, it is determined. (2) If the new value is not derived from prior data, then brand-new physical data has entered the universe.

To add new physical data to the universe, that data must come from outside the total continuous field. But the continuous field contains everything that physically exists. Outside the continuous field is strictly "nothingness."

"Nothingness" contains zero data. Drawing physical data from a source that contains zero data is impossible.

Because new data cannot enter from "nothingness," and existing data cannot vanish into "nothingness," every subsequent physical state is a precise, necessary continuation of the previous state.

Because true randomness is a mechanical impossibility, we must explain why humans perceive events as random.

The human mind is a limited biological processor. It can only measure a tiny fraction of the mathematical data present in its environment.

When a human observes a complex physical update, the human lacks the complete data required to calculate the result. The biological brain cannot see the precise underlying causes driving the update.

The mind labels its own missing data as "chance" or "randomness."

"Randomness" does not exist as a physical property in the universe. It is strictly a biological formatting label used by the mind to summarise its own lack of information.

Intrinsic Capacity (Free Will): The physical ability of an entity's own biological structure to generate an internal goal and execute physical movement.

Extrinsic Capacity (Freedom of Action): The presence of external physical tools, mechanisms, or open paths in the outside environment that allow an entity to alter its surroundings further.

A Rock: A rock possesses zero biological structures to form a goal. A rock also possesses zero physical capacity to move itself or build external tools. Because it lacks both intrinsic capacity and extrinsic capacity, a rock possesses zero free will.

A Human: A human is an indivisible biological structure that generates goals and executes movement. A human also possesses the physical potential to build and attach external tools, such as an aeroplane, to travel through the air.

Lacking an aeroplane does not remove a human's intrinsic capacity to choose flight. Free will belongs strictly to the total, indivisible biological system generating intent and action.

I haven't heard any convincing arguments for free will though I'm no philosopher and I wonder at what has been proposed.

A history lesson about how we got here.

First there was free will. An innate feeling, popularized by religion and culture, used to justify retribution for millennia. Then came the Enlightenment. The ancient Greeks had already sketched it out: Democritus and the atomist crowd. The Enlightenment just picked it up, polished it, refined it into a mechanical clockwork. Determinism described how the universe fundamentally works.

Societal agents, especially the Church, felt their golden goose was threatened, so they declared Determinism heresy. But the smartest minds couldn't deny the physics, so they embraced it. Laplace, d'Holbach, the whole materialist crew, they took it straight.

Others, the indecisive intellectuals, sidestepped the whole mess by claiming that even if Determinism were true, it doesn't actually threaten free will. Those are called compatibilists. Hume played that game. Schopenhauer too, in his own bitter way.

This indecisive position became the prevalent one among educated people, because it let them keep their moral outrage and their God in the gaps. There were more indecisives than honest thinkers, so Determinism couldn't shine among those circles, and it failed to bring any real change to the justice system. Retributive justice persisted because compatibilism had defanged Determinism. "So what if your actions are predetermined" — they said — "you still deserve to suffer either way".

Then Pereboom came on the scene. Living Without Free Will dropped in 2001. He declared: 'this is immoral'.

He decided to ditch the mess compatibilists turned Determinism into and build a new concept that defies moral retributivism without relying on Determinism at all.

It's called Hard Incompatibilism. He defined basic desert as the real core of retributive justice, and since then it's been the core issue, not free will.

If you think a person doesn't deserve to suffer just for what they are, you are first and foremost a hard incompatibilist. Everything else is secondary.

I have explicitly avoided redefining free will in the previous posts because the definitions of free will are irrelevant to basic desert. But all the responses were basically 'but what about free will???'

Fine. Here it is.

Agency: the capacity of an actor to act, feel and make choices purposefully and intentionally in a given environment

Supported by: hard incompatibilism, hard determinism, compatibilism and libertarianism

Free will: a type of agency that grounds basic desert

Supported by: compatibilism and libertarianism

LFW: a type of agency that includes the ability to have done otherwise under identical conditions

Supported by: libertarianism

We can discuss the implications after we settled these definitions.

Any questions?

A lack of determinism is randomness. Determined mean a specific outcome is causally necessitated, which means if you had infinite knowledge youd be able to predict what happens next. Random means, its not causally necessitated, and itd still be unpredictable even if you had infinite knowledge. This understanding of these two concepts, is itself common knowledge.

Randomness just isnt freedom. Its just not. Being unpredictable even to a person with infinite knowledge doesnt mean youre free to do whatever you want, it means youre indistinguishable from a random dice!

Being able to do what you want IS the freedom.

"But what about the thing we want? What decides that?"

Well would it make you feel more special if i said your actions arent random, but your desires are? No! Thats still being indistinguishable from a random dice!

Randomness at any point in the process makes you a random dice. A literal spiritual embodiment of a random dice. This is NOT a metaphor, you would LITERALLY never act differently than a version of you running off a random dice roll.

And is randomness freedom? Not even a little bit.

(And no, pseudorandomness isnt freedom either! Being a pseudorandom dice is just as pointless!)

Compatibilism is obviously true.

This is another common misconception about randomness. A really weird completely unsubstantiated illogical claim. I really don't understand what makes people spew out such absurdities.

People who make this claim don't seem to understand what it means. Rejecting randomness means believing in a god who decides every unpredictable outcome that people don't decide.

The logic is simple: Either someone decides everything or not.

• If someone decides everything, then nothing is random.
• If no-one decides anything, then everything is random.

"Creativity doesnt exist. All works of art are manifestations of the subconscious mind, which come from our genes, which come from evolution, which has its roots in game theory. Go to an alien planet, i bet theyd have eerily similar works of art, music, etc to ours; Thats convergent evolution in action. All creativity is, is determined patterns, plus a tiny bit of random chance."

"Love isnt real. Finding the love of your life was pure random chance. If you moved into a different apartment, got a different job, woke up at a slightly different time one morning, you wouldve never met them. And theyd be making babies with someone else as we speak. Your love is purely circumstantial, a hormonally driven call to procreate, and you chanced your way into the relationship youre in, nothing more."

"Youre a slave. Everything you do was caused by something else. Youre the product of genetics and your experiences, neither of which you chose. Everything you do is just an echo of what happened before, and if it wasnt, itd be random."

"And you are... Guys? Hey guys? Whered everyone go?..."

Off in the distance "You suck! Always a debbie downer!" "Yeah, we're trying to have fun here!" "Get out of our party weirdo!"

I tip my fedora, "So be it, then." and my swooshed away like Batman, off to spread my Nihilism somewhere else.

...

So yeah, you can live your life like this, if you want. Calling everything meaningless by reducing it down to other things. But this isnt really philosophy, not rigorously, its just pessimism, drunk on contrarianism.

But theres an actual fallacy in here.That because a thing is reducible to other things, it must not be meaningful. But, thats just how everything in the universe works. All things are made of other things, which are not, the original thing.

People tend to love Mystery. When Mystery is all they know, and they live in a cloud of Ignorance, they learn to value the Mystery, as if its Good in and of itself. So when someone bursts that bubble, sometimes it leaves them feeling empty inside. The thing thry valued is gone, so now they are sad. But they only feel this way, because they chose to value Mystery, and not Knowledge.

And this is where the Light of Compatibilism shines down on our faces. Like Jesus Christ, its here to save and redeem us from our state of darkness; Saving us from the darkness of Mystery, and bringing us into the Light of Knowledge.

Creativity isnt meaningless, its a beautiful portrait of a fractal informational reality, and if we peer inside, we see a universe of complexity, designed by nothing, but existing, miraculously. All this information, it just comes from math. And theres infinite amaxing things to discover in the realm of Math.

Love is real. You may have lucked into your relationship, but you lucked into your relationship. Youre lucky. Lucky to have an interesting person in your life, someone you can take care of and care about, someone to challenge you, someone to care about you. It couldve been anyone, and if it were, youd stand to lose a lot.

And youre not a slave. You make your own choices. Why you are you, where you came from, remain mysteries. But the fact that you are you doesnt stop you from achieving your deepest dreams and desires, and it doesnt make what you care about meaningless.

If compatibilism is like Jesus, then Determinism is like God. Alignment with this metaphorical God is all that matters, since its the essence of all thats good. Want to improve the things you care about, make sure they are good? Then use Logic and Science, which are Deterministic processes. By embracing the Light of Knowledge you can be all that you can be.

And when you realize this, the cynicism washes away, like a demon cast out of your body. Thats all we need, to be redeemed by Knowledge and Objectivity, and when we are, the pessimism has no place to live any longer.