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Free Will

Free Will
Noun. The quality of being able to make decisions for oneself, free from active coercion or other external factors.
compare: Subjectivity
Determinism
Noun. The quality of being subject to cause and effect.
Imperfect Knowledge
Noun. The quality of having incomplete or incorrect knowledge of all relevant variables and processes in a given context.

I'm writing this down in case it comes up again, as I've made the case for this multiple times in private conversation. The basic gist of it is:

Free will depends on determinism and imperfect knowledge to be possible.

If we take for granted that conscious beings are subject to cause and effect (have determinism), it must follow that they would form a perspective specific and unique to their previous experiences and decisions. This unique perspective which will guide their future decisions and choices.

On the other hand, what would the opposite look like? If one's previous experiences and decisions had absolutely no bearing on your current and future decisions? If one made decisions completely at random? This would lead to a lack of identity. A lack of agency and a complete slavery to the whims of chance and randomness. Something enslaved to chance and randomness can't be said to have free will at all.

If one had perfect and complete knowledge of anything and everything, it would make sense to base one's decisions on what one comes to know through this perfect knowledge. It doesn't mean that one would necessarily choose to choose the "right" decision, if there even was one, only that all of their decisions would be in one way or another affected by the very presence of this knowledge. Your understanding of any given situation would be as close to reality as possible. This certainly sounds powerful, and yes it is.

However, the closer one's knowledge matches "reality", entire classes of choices would be closed off from them. The thought wouldn't even occur to them, and there would not be any space for speculation, "throwing stuff at the wall until something sticks" and "taking a chance" would not even exist as possibilities. You'd be able to steer situations according to your will, but your will is compromised by the awareness of what choices will have which consequences. One would become a god, at the cost of losing one's humanity.

So anything that divorces one from one's past experiences and decisions on the one hand, and the acquisition of complete and certain knowledge of the present and future on the other, would compromise one's free will. Amnesia on one side and Omniscience on the other. I'm sure there's a pattern here somewhere, hahahahaha

These are all the thoughts I have so far about the issue of free will, and I am likely gonna change and update this page as I continue to learn.