There is no Free Will: A Secular Argument

identity is governed by our experiences and how we react to them.

No matter how your identity came into being, you are you and not someone else.

Our experiences are not under our control

Our experiences are certainly not under our own full control, but they are partly under our own control - when you make a choice. If your choice is determined by anything, that which determines your choice is you (is included in your identity). Your values is exactly that: Your values, an important aspect of your own identity. If every persons values were exclusively given by the parents, then where do values originally come from?

Not that your arguments is irrelevant, but they only show, that we as individuals don't have an absolute free will. Some might say, that only God has that, I suppose?

Although it is not directly relevant here, I have a more general remark about determinism: A consequence of some possible interpretations of Quantum Mechanics is, that the identity of a living person in this world is not pre-determined since the Big Bang, but the universe as a whole is actually 100 pct. determined. Meaning that it is even theoretically impossible to deduce the present existence of a given person - or planet Earth for that matter.

This is all very interesting, and I've not much to contribute, not having pondered it much... But...

You speak of choice and emphasise you, your, etc a lot. These are all perceptions of the conscious mind. They're not necessarily evidence of any kind of actual free will. Just because you perceive a choice as having been made, doesn't mean it was.

But you do have a choice.

1) How does a trivial choice differ from a momentous choice, except in the possible effects? If I have free will for one, I have free will for the other.

2) I can choose to reject my learned value systems (or any portion thereof). In fact, none of us are carbon copies of our parents, school teachers, etc.

For example, in the mid 20th century, many people were raised in families where the attitude and teaching was that blacks and whites should be segregated. The children of that segregationist environment rejected their environmental training. Their rejection of segregationist notions represented a choice against their environmental training.

Their rejection of segregationist notions represented a choice against their environmental training.

No, it means that there were more important factors in their decision than just parental influence. The argument is not that one's parent and initial environment eliminate free will, but that everything has a cause, a set of circumstances that explain the decision. If these circumstances are known, then the decision can be accurately predicted. Since the decisions are therefore known ahead of time, they were predetermined and so not subject to free will. Since it is practically self-evident that every effect must have a cause, there is effectively no counter-example which will falsify this claim.

However, as I've been trying to point out, this is primarily due to a misunderstanding of what free will is. It does not mean that people must act without cause, since no one ever advocated such a position as the meaning of free will. Rather, it is because people have some control over the effects of their circumstances and how new events are incorporated. It may be that this is predictable to the extent that people are rational or their irrationality is predictable, but it is still them and them alone that performs this.

I agree with Jpark.
Consider this. I make a small insignificant decision to read a book, that book may influence my life. I make several hundred more small decisions each one effects my life and every consecutive decision in a small way. These micro decisions I make change my life and make me an individual. I think that this concept of individuality pokes a huge hole in the idea that there is really no free will.

Sure one could argue that my family, society and culture guided and influenced me to read the first book, but what I get form the book is different then what my brother or father might glean from it, and the micro choices I make and take from it are what make me an individual.

Influences are just that, they are not forces.

Loved the article.

jpark: "But you do have a choice."

Yes, you have a choice. But you don't have a free choice.

Free will, existence of, implies that it is rational to think that, if all the circumstances of a decision were exactly duplicated, one might have done something different from what one in fact did do. Think about it. Go back in your mind to any moment in time and rethink a choice. At that past moment all that you had at hand was what you had at hand. No more, no less. The values were what they were. The neurosynaptic relations were what they were. And so you decided as you did. You made a choice on the basis of all the relevancies that came to bear at that moment. All the relevancies, macro to micro. So duplicate that moment, down to every detail. Can you really think that you could have chosen differently from what you actually chose? That is life, moment by moment, always summed in terms only of what one is, and has. And so we choose, on the basis of what we are, and have at hand, moment by moment. All you can be is what you are, and what you are at a given moment in time will drive, completely, what you choose.

Or, to think of it another way, the past is fixed. It is what it is. Or what it was. And what is the future but something that will come to be regarded as something past? Tomorrow seems free. A blank slate. But by the day after tomorrow it will be as fixed as yesterday is now. Or, as Janis Joplin once famously proclaimed, "it's all the same @!$%#ing day".

Question: if there is no free will, what does that imply for our conceptions of virtue and justice?

Tentoglou:

Not so fast: here above you are assuming that you can decide to perform each "small insignificant decision."

each one effects my life and every consecutive decision in a small way.

There you go: here you are supporting the article's case yourself and capsizing your own argument. Each decision "you" make is made by the previous pattern of decisions along with the current environmental pattern. In actuality the decision just happens, it is not you making it, assuming "you" being "your body and mind limited by your skin and psyche".

By the way, have you ever realized that most people do not even know how to stop thinking?

Try and complete a small, honest survey of 100 or so people and ask them whether or not they are able to stop thinking.

Unless they are skilled at meditation, most will say no.

If one cannot control their thoughts, how do you assume they will be able to control their decisions?

It is more likely we are closer to robots--a complex series of reaction patterns--than the other way around.

It is just wishful thinking to believe that you decide what you do, no matter how trivial or life-changing the decision is.

But no worries, you are not the one deciding to think this way ; )

pseudonihilist:

Indeed. Well put.

Or, to think of it another way, the past is fixed. It is what it is. Or what it was. And what is the future but something that will come to be regarded as something past? Tomorrow seems free. A blank slate. But by the day after tomorrow it will be as fixed as yesterday is now. Or, as Janis Joplin once famously proclaimed, "it's all the same @!$%#ing day".

Yes:
1. We have no control over the past, it's past.
2. We have no control over the future, since it has not happened yet.
3. All we have control over is the present moment. Or so we believe. Our actions are similar to a motion picture: a succession of pictures projected very fast give the illusion of motion. A succession of infinitesimal reactions to the environment at a cumulative level appear as something decided by us.

Libet's research gets uncomfortably close to these philosophical conclusions:

It is concluded that cerebral initiation of a spontaneous, freely voluntary act can begin unconsciously, that is, before there is any (at least recallable) subjective awareness that a 'decision' to act has already been initiated cerebrally. This introduces certain constraints on the potentiality for conscious initiation and control of voluntary acts.

pseudonihilist,

Your argument is a non-argument. Of course, the past is dead. We only live in the current moment.

Your argument is essentially this: "If everything now were precisely as it was then, would everything happening now proceed as it did then?"

This presumes a static individual who by definition cannot change. No such individual exists.

Behind My Screen,

I do understand that is precisely what he said. You don't understand what I said.

Since that is only a hypothetical situation, one which cannot be real, it is irrelevant. I am not the same person I was yesterday and neither are you.

We make choices based on many factors. But we make the choices. If all our choices were made randomly, we would still make the choices. And we are still free to choose.

Behind My Screen,

Hypothetical situations can be valuable. Einstein conceived the concepts in General Relativity using hypothetical thought experiments -- which could be real. Not thought experiments which could not be effected. The thought experiment that a human could not discern the difference in acceleration and gravity if confined to a box was a thought experiment which could be realized.

The hypothetical situations you posit are not possible.

What you eat for breakfast is not a life impacting decision nor is it necessarily based on any value choice

Are you saying that some decisions are possible, but only trivial ones? How can you tell which decision is trivial? In the case of a man with arteriosclerosis, his decision to eat bacon and eggs for breakfast could be fatal, releasing a cloud of LDL cholesterol into his arteries that blocks off that last tiny passage for blood. But that deadly meal depended on the previous fatty meal laying down that last layer of plaque, over the last layer of plaque, etc., so each of those meals was life-changing, and based on a value choice, valuing the flavor of fatty foods over the healthy effects of low-calorie foods.

Since those were life-impacting decisions, you'll have to say that they weren't choices at all, but simply responses to the environment. Every other trivial decision could start or end the some sort of chain reaction, so there's no way to tell what a life-impacting decision is until later, and thus, to protect your thesis, you have to say that none of them are decisions at all.

Behind My Screen,

You may believe that if you choose to. You will be wrong. You do not know me better than I know myself.

I was born in the South in the 1950's. I grew up in the presence of many people who, to a greater or lesser extent, held a segregationist attitude. I never saw that as appropriate or correct. I experienced no life changing event to see that.

Genetics or mutation.

Aha! The A-bomb is responsible for integration!

Hmmm...
Maybe now that you have thought about it you might not choose Guiness. Wait, is thinking about it freely making it free will?
Who knows?

Could one make the argument that subconscious choices are not made with free will, and that conscious choices are?

I think therefore I am, maybe not?!

Great! I'm not sleeping again!!!

I think therefore I am, maybe not?!

To answer that, the question you should ask yourself is who are "you"?

Are "you" the body and mind, and your skin and psyche is the boundary?

Is your immediate environment, that influences your reactions, a part of "you"?

Or, if you are able to observe your own thinking processes from a more "internal" perspective, are you the observer, while the body and the thoughts are "outside" of you along with the environment?

"I think therefore I am" is relative to how "internal" your perspective is...

You are arguing that without complete control, you have no control. Just because choices are constrained does not mean there are no choices. For example, if I have a bottle of Miller and a bottle of Red Hook, I still have a choice of beers, even though there are thousands of other beers not available to me. You are arguing from the excluded middle.

Jack: This argument assumes a mechanistic universe. However, we live in a probabilistic universe, and so even if you reconstructed the exact same circumstances in the entire universe, there is a good chance the outcome would be different.

"you can adjust your sails", but only in accordance with some other "wind".

pn: you don't sail, do you?

The significance down the road is not what makes a choice significant or not. What makes it significant how it affects your life right then.

Since everything that happens is cause-in-fact of everything that is, everything that is could not be but for everything that happens. Therefore, each thing that happens is absolutely critical.

Your argument here is that because we can't see the results of any decision, we are not actually making decisions. You've defined "decision" to include perfect knowledge of results, but that's not the definition of "decision" at all, except in your idiosyncratic definition.

There can be no "it" that is anything more than a pawn of its circumstances

Except, perhaps, for the very first "it."

I keel you.

You made me hear that in my head.

If we don't have some degree of free will, then consciousness is useless, since it is through consciousness that we make our decisions.

Consciousness is not the same as free will. Why would consciousness be useless just because it is also deterministic?

Furthermore, can you even define consciousness? I'm never sure what exactly people mean when they use that word. Is a monkey conscious? What about a cat or a dog? I've never heard a clear definition of consciousness that wouldn't also apply to every animal with a brain. How can you determine which animals have free will?

The most interesting thing to me about the free will debate is trying to figure out how free will works physically. If the human brain is capable of overriding an otherwise deterministic flow of events in the physical Universe, then what mechanism does it use to do that? People are quick to use quantum mechanics to justify belief in free will, but they never seem to try to explain how the physics of the brain actually could interact with quantum mechanics. I don't think it even makes sense.

I think you misunderstand my argument. I am saying that without free will, there is no reason for consciousness. Consciousness (whetherr we can define it strictly or not) is an effect of free will, and would not exist without it.

The brain works by transfer of electrons between nerve cells. At that scale, you are talking about quantum effects.

Perhaps what we refer to as free will is simply the playing out of probabilistic effects at the synapse level in our brains.

The only problem with this argument is that when it is over, no matter what, I am going to decide whether to eat lunch now or wait a while. It won't matter if we can determine if that was free will or not.

Consciousness (whetherr we can define it strictly or not) is an effect of free will, and would not exist without it.

This is exactly what I don't understand. In what way is consciousness "an effect of free will"?

Regarding quantum mechanics, again, what does it mean to say that quantum mechanics creates free will? For the "eat lunch now or wait" example, how are "you" controlling that decision? Are "you" influencing the low-level quantum mechanics of the electrons to cause them to flow in the correct way in order to effect your decision? That implies some kind of spiritual aspect to your consciousness which simply has no evidence to support it.

I agree that it doesn't matter whether we have free will or not. If we don't, then we're still compelled to pretend that we do. Still, I have yet to see any convincing reason to believe that free will actually exists.

Consciousness is how we direct our will. We are aware, predict the consequences of future actions, and choose which one to take. Thus, if there is no free will, there is no requirement for consciousness.

As I said, perhaps what we call "free will" is simply the probabilistic effect of quantum mechanics at the cellular level. If you accept the multiple universe scenario, then there is a universe for every possible decision, and we exist as one branch on that tree of possibilities.

So the definition of consciousness is important, since you've defined it as "that which directs our free will". That's not how most people define it, though. Most people define it in terms of self-awareness. I don't think that defining consciousness in terms of free will is particularly useful or even makes much sense. When you say that someone "lost" or "regained" consciousness you're not referring to their free will. You're referring to their state of awareness.

Still, with the definition you've given, is a dog conscious? What about an ant? How do you determine if something has free will?

If you accept the multiple universe scenario, then there is a universe for every possible decision, and we exist as one branch on that tree of possibilities.

I think using the term "decision" in this context is misleading. A decision is a term which would apply on the macro level. By that I mean that many thousands of brain cells may be involved in making a decision, which would be a combination of millions or billions of random quantum-level movements. Using the word decision implies that it's the human-level outcome which is different in each universe, when in fact it would be the individual quantum change which is different (and the macro-level result may be completely the same).

I also don't think that calling probabilistic effects of quantum mechanics "free will" makes any sense unless, again, you can explain some cause-and-effect relationship between our desires and those results. Randomness is not free will. Even with the randomness that people assume is a part of quantum mechanics, our Universe (as one of the many multiverses) is still deterministic in the free will sense (meaning we have no control over it).

Basically what I'm getting at is that any use of the term "free will" in a context that does not imply that we are the ones in control doesn't make sense, and there's no evidence that we are in control.

Somebody said that you can argue away gravity if you try hard enough, but then you still leave by the door instead of the window.

I wonder how many people would be willing to empty out the prisons based on the argument that there's no free will, so none of those people are responsible for their actions?

If you don't have free will, how can you be responsible for the things that you do? You can only have responsibility for what you have control over, and if you aren't in control of your actions, how can you be responsible for them?

It seems to me that you are using the term "free will" in an idiosyncratic way. If our choices are not under our control, how can you call them "choices?"

But you are wrong in positing a deterministic universe. It's probablilistic, due to the interaction of chaotic systems (ones that show large changes in response to small influences) and quantum dynamics. Even if you put every particle in the whole universe in the same position and velocity as an earlier state, you wouldn't be able to predict what came next. That's in integral part of the laws that the universe operates on.

If you don't have free will, how can you be responsible for the things that you do?

No, if you murder someone then you are still responsible because it was still you who did it. You may as well ask why we punish dogs for crapping in the house. We do it because it corrects the behavior.

Additionally, consider this: Just as the murderer lacks free will, so does the policeman who arrests him and the judge and jury who convict him. It doesn't make sense to argue that we should "choose" to not hold people responsible because they don't have free will, because if they don't then neither do we. Therefore, we can't "choose" to not punish them any more than they can "choose" to not do the crime.

We can't "choose" to act different because we don't believe in free will. Even if there's no free will, then we still act as if free will exists because that's how we're wired to act.

Those values may act as a compass that points North but the decision to go in any direction, and how far, - or to just stand still - is ours.

How? Just explain to me how it works. How do you "decide" to do something?

Human reactions to events are not probabilistic at the time the event takes place.

What do you base that statement on?

Many experiments have demonstrated that the world is not deterministic. Human beings are part of the universe, and subject to the same probabilisticl aws that every other part of the universe is subject to, therefore, we are probabilistic entities.

Nerves are triggered by the passage of electrons across small gaps. The movement of electrons is a quantum level event, therefore, our nerves operate in a probabilistic manner, therefore, we are probablistic entities.

Considered in agregate, humans can be understood by probalilistic mathematics. Therefore, we are probablistic entities.

Human behavior is inconsistent. That inconsistency follows probablilistic patterns. Therefore, we are probabilistic entities.

ust as the murderer lacks free will, so does the policeman who arrests him and the judge and jury who convict him. It doesn't make sense to argue that we should "choose" to not hold people responsible because they don't have free will, because if they don't then neither do we. Therefore, we can't "choose" to not punish them any more than they can "choose" to not do the crime.

So evven though you've demonstrated that there is no gravity, you still leave by the door instead of the window...and claim that further proves there is no gravity.

Sam:

The physical brain does not create thought but acts as a platform for
the mind. If I could explain the abstract process of the mind and it's relation to the brain I would probably not be talking to you - maybe, telepathically.

What you're claiming is disputed by experimental evidence. As far as we have been able to tell through observation, the brain is the mind. It encompasses your thoughts, actions, emotions, personality, memory, etc. There is nothing in "you" that is not part of your brain. Dualism is a failed theory. There's no evidence to support it and plenty that contradicts it. It might make you feel good, but it's a completely untenable belief (scientifically).

Jimmy:

So evven though you've demonstrated that there is no gravity, you still leave by the door instead of the window...and claim that further proves there is no gravity.

I don't understand what you're saying.

Our existence is evidence of the force of which I speak.

No, it's not. Our existence can be explained through purely naturalistic means through the theory of evolution. There is zero evidence for any spiritual side of the mind, while there are mountains of evidence to support the theory that the mind is purely physical.

Until you can provide some evidence that your claims are true, then they're nothing more than wishful thinking and guesswork. In essence, you've simply made an untestable assertion and demanded that I disprove it. That's not how it works in science or in any other field.

No, my theories aren't "proved". They are, however, strongly supported by mountains of evidence. Yours are completely unsupported by anything. That makes my theories far better.

Yet your saying that I made an untestable assertion should tell you something.

Yes, I did say that, because that's what you did. My theory is testable. It has been tested, and the tests have confirmed it. Testing is not the same as proving. No theory is proved, but any scientific theory is testable. The theory that the mind and brain are one and the same has been tested and confirmed by those tests. Your "theory" is completely untestable, not just unprovable.

I don't have specific experiments to link to, but I can point out some basic indisputable facts that you can verify through your own research. First, all mental activity has a physical effect. We can watch thought processes in MRI scans. We can see which parts of the brain are used for various types of thoughts. Memory goes in one place, image recognition in another, memories in another, desires, sex, pain, etc., etc. all have specific areas of the brain. We know that if those areas of the brain are damaged then those functions cease to exist. We know that chemicals influence those areas of the brain, and in turn influence the behavior of the person. We know that a severely damaged brain leads to someone with no mental capacity, even if the rest of the body and enough of the brain is left intact so that the person can survive (like Terri Schiavo).

In short, we have evidence that every mental activity is completely dependent on the physical brain. If there was a "soul" responsible for human behavior then we would expect that soul to be unaffected by the physical world. We would expect that chemicals could not change behavior, that brain damage could not destroy memories, and that a personality could not be changed by brain damage. None of that is true. So what evidence do you have that a soul exists and has some effect on the human brain?

Just because philosophers like to talk about stuff doesn't make it reality. Philosophers seem to want to talk about everything except reality. The reality is that biology controls human perception, emotion, consciousness, and everything else. The reason philosophers have argued about it for centuries is because they refuse to look at anything based in reality or anything testable. It doesn't matter how smart someone is, if they ignore evidence then they're just guessing. I was astonished when I went to a philosophy club meeting about love and one of the people there actually told me that we shouldn't bring up biology. That's the kind of blatant anti-reality mindset which causes philosophers to waste their lives on arbitrary assertions. That's why they can't agree on anything.

Thanks for the elaboration/clarification. It still supports the naturalistic viewpoint.

I echo BMS's question. MRI scans don't only register for humans. They register for monkeys, dogs, birds, and anything else with a brain.

You've essentially stripped the concept of a "soul" down to be even more vague, arbitrary, and therefore useless. I bet you can't even define what this "force" is in a way that makes sense. Again, that's the problem with pure philosophy. It's all talk with nothing to back it up.

Until science can come up with irrefutable proof of how we came into existence, and real comprehensive laws explaining reality, there must be a place for philosophy

Science has a pretty good theory of how life began, and many ever-improving theories about how the Universe works. While I'm not dismissing all philosophy as a useful field (I was a member of a philosophy club, after all), I will say that science always trumps philosophy. If a philosopher makes a claim that's untestable and that contradicts a scientific claim with evidence to support it, then the scientist wins.

If you want something "irrefutable" then you'll never get it from anyone. No general rule is proved by observation. That's impossible. Even so, to believe in something completely arbitrary like a "life force" in the face of mountains of evidence that life is purely physical is childish. It's like believing in the Tooth Fairy even after seeing your parents put the money under your pillow, simply because no one has proved that there is no Tooth Fairy.

You cannot explain how existence began yet you believe it did begin. Why is my belief that that phenomena, which I label "force" aka "truth", arbitrary and childish? What do you call the event or phenomena that gave birth to existence?

Actually, I don't believe that existence had a beginning. I believe that the Universe is eternal (but not unchanging).

Your tooth fairy analogy is lame. My parents may be agents for the tooth fairy.

That actually demonstrates perfectly the flaw of a supernatural claim that can't be tested. Any evidence can be forced to fit the belief. Nothing can possibly contradict a belief which can just be modified however you want. In essence, you've decided that your theory is true until proved false, and due to the nature of your theory it can never be proved false. So what's the point of even discussing something that you can't possibly change your mind about regardless of evidence?

Dylan Thomas's poem is nice, but it doesn't seem at all relevant. Even if you're interpreting it right (which I'm not sure), it only demonstrates that he believes in the same "force" as you. So what? That doesn't make it any less ridiculous in the face of contradictory evidence.

The theory that the mind and brain are one and the same has been tested and confirmed by those tests.

Please cite the test that validates this assertion.

Every psychotropic drug is a test of that assertion. So is a sharp blow to the back ofyour head.

quantum effects do not have influence over the macro world.

Most quantum effects average out into macro phenomenon which then appear (due to the averaging) to be deterministic/Newtonian. However, when small numbers of quantum events are a factor in a macro level event, (e.g. a hall-effect sensor), then quantum effects do come into play. My contention is that the small number of electrons involved in neural triggering is a condition that brings quantum level effects into play. Whether that translates into "free will"or not is problematic, but it does translate into a non-deterministic model of animal behavior, one that has a cerrtain level of randomness within it.

I am arguing for a lack of control over the events in our lives. lack of mean no free will, but does not need to exist in a deterministic universe.

I addressed this above myself. Your argument is that because we do not have complete control over all events, we have no control over any events, and thus, no free will. That is the fallacy of the excluded middle. Just because my choices are constrained to a certain set, that does not mean I have no choices. If you want to argue that "choice" and "free will" do not refer to the same concept, then we are not arguing in the same language.

Adam:

So even though you've demonstrated that there is no gravity, you still leave by the door instead of the window...and claim that further proves there is no gravity.

I don't understand what you're saying.

You say that punishing someone for their actions is an act just as devoid of free will as the actions for which the punishment is meted out. That is to say, you claim that acting as if there is free will demonstrates that there is none.

The argument is as circular as any for the existence of God.

Jimmy: Those particular comments weren't meant to be a proof of free will. I was explaining how the question of whether we should punish someone for crimes if there is no free will doesn't even make sense if there is no free will. In other words, I'm just saying that there are no moral implications to not having free will. If there is no free will then moral considerations are out of our hands. We will continue doing what we're doing (punishing criminals) because that's what we're programmed to do.

My argument is that if the self-perception of free will makes no difference in our actions, then it wouldn't exist at all. But because we are self-willed, we need to perceive that fact in order to exercise it. Thus the perception of free will is a proof of free will, rather than meere illusion.

My argument is that if the self-perception of free will makes no difference in our actions, then it wouldn't exist at all.

You haven't yet explained why the perception of free will makes no difference. I think that it does.

You are defining "free will" as being will unconstrained by any external factors whatsoever. By that definition, yes, there is no free will. But your definition of free will is completely idiosyncratic. No one else shares it.

That is not my definition. My definition of free will is that the Universe (and specifically human behavior) is non-deterministic, and that humans specifically (and individually) have the ability to make some decisions that are not determined purely by physics. In other words, I define it like everyone else: the ability to make choices that are not pre-determined.

Well, the world is non-deterministic, that's well-established. On the other hand, everything, including human decisions, is subject to the laws of physics. Furthermore, the future is not predetermined. In addition, we have no way of actually knowing if we make decisions, or only think we make decisions, since we can't repeat a situation exactly as it was before, and see if the results are different. So where does that leave your argument?

You are looking at the world as if it was Newtonian. It is not. Newtonian physics are the result of the averaging out of quantum effects...but those quantum effects don't always average out. For instance, one single neutron can give you cancer if it hits the proper point in a strand of DNA. That neutron was emitted completely at random from some atom. If you reassembled the universe back to the same state it was in the moment before that neutron was emitted, it wouldn't necessarily either come off that nucleus, or fly in the exact same direction, and so you wouldn't necessasarily get that cancer.

A major aspect of quantum dynamics is that every object has a slight uncertainty in the product of its position and momentum. The larger it is, the smaller that uncertainty, but even the Earth has that uncertainty, even though in the case of the Earth, it is much smaller than the diameter of an atom. But over time, those uncertainties cause every object to diverge from a Newtonian path.

So while deteriistic physics is very attractive, the truth is, it is only an approximation, and that approximation is only valid over short periods of time, even for macro phenomena.

Well, the world is non-deterministic, that's well-established.

No, it's not "well established". It is strongly believed, but it is not established as fact. The theory of quantum mechanics is still in its infancy. People should not be drawing philosophical conclusions from a theory that is still hardly understood by even the experts. I, like Einstein, do not believe that our inability to make predictions implies non-determinism. I don't think any logical argument can be made to go from "we can't predict things with certainty" to "there is randomness in the Universe". That is just as much an argument from ignorance as the belief in God.

Now, even if the future is non-deterministic, the question remains whether we actually make decisions ourselves or whether we are at the will of the non-deterministic matter/energy in our brains. If we don't actually make the decisions ourselves, then I would argue that we don't have free will. Therefore, even with quantum mechanics and probabilistic outcomes, I don't think free will exists.

Sorry, you are both wrong. Not much more to say about that. I linked to a discussion of uncertainty, something that is very old news.

It took me two years of study in college to get to the point where I could understand the physics that was being done at the turn of the century, so it's not a big surprise that most people reject it.

That would be, "the turn of the twentieth century."

Heisenburg's uncertainty principle is a limitation in our ability to measure (and therefore predict) something. It is not about determinism. You can accuse me of being ignorant of the science, but there are still plenty of physicists (granted a minority) that believe determinism and quantum mechanics are compatible.

If you'd like to explain how an inability to measure or predict implies non-determinism, then feel free.

Heisenburg's uncertainty principle is a limitation in our ability to measure

The inability to measure is not a failure of the observer, it is a characteristic of the universe.

I don't care what Physics says.

Say no more.

The inability to measure is not a failure of the observer, it is a characteristic of the universe.

And how, exactly, does this lead to free will? I still don't buy this "the Universe is random" argument. I grant that it is the popular scientific view at present, but it doesn't make any logical sense to me (what is the source of the randomness?). Even so, assuming that you're right and there is randomness, how does that imply free will?

Given this fact one can not look to QT or GR as the final word on the nature of the universe.

No, just the current word. You can make up stories about the final word all you want, and they won't be the final word either.

assuming that you're right and there is randomness, how does that imply free will?

It doesn't necessarily. But it means that an argument that proceeds from determinism is invalid, just as an argument that proceeds from any false premise is invalid.

I've made my argument for free will: consciousness is useless unless it is there to guide the will, and useless things do not persist for long in an evolutionary setting.

My argument doesn't stem from strict determinism. It stems from that fact that all human consciousness works physically at a level that cannot interact directly with quantum mechanics. As far as our brains are concerned, they're deterministic. We cannot use our brains to influence electrons to flow one way or another in order to control our neurons. So regardless of whether quantum mechanics is deterministic or not, our thought process is completely out of our control. That means no free will.

I've made my argument for free will: consciousness is useless unless it is there to guide the will, and useless things do not persist for long in an evolutionary setting.

I've asked you repeatedly to explain how consciousness is useless without free will. Again, explain why you're making that argument instead of merely asserting it.

I've asked you repeatedly to explain how consciousness is useless without free will.

You defined consciousness os self-consciousness earlier, and I unfortunately failed to correct tha definition. Consciousness is simply awareness, and self-consciousness is one possible facet of consciousness.

Why are we aware of the world? If we look at the spectrum of awareness, from simple organisms to our own complexity, we see that awareness allows us to respond to the world. We use our consciousness for the single purpose of making choices between different courses of action. If we do not actually choose, then that single purpose does not exist as anything more than an illusion, and thus there is no purpose to awareness.

How does a lack of a choice make awareness pointless?

Using your definition, consciousness is merely the ability to recognize that there is a choice to be made and to make that choice. You can look at that in terms of "a more complicated system of determining what to do". That doesn't imply free will.

Let me give an example. Computer algorithms are usually relatively straightforward. Given an input you do some sequence of steps to produce an output. Sometimes, though, achieving a satisfactory output would take far longer using a traditional algorithm. So, as a substitute, we make what are called "stochastic" algorithms. These algorithms work non-deterministically (in theory) by sometimes making "random" guesses. Despite the unintuitive nature of using randomness, these usually get pretty good (though not ideal) results in a reasonable amount of time (read: pretty fast). The thing is, though, they're not really random. Computers don't really make random numbers; they make pseudo-random numbers (often using the clock as a seed). As a result, these algorithms are actually deterministic, but they're highly reactive to a (volatile) variable which is not part of what would normally be considered the input to the algorithm.

So, to put your reasoning into this example, you might ask "what is the point of the algorithm if it's deterministic"? The point is to introduce some level of complexity which gives better results.

Now shift back to human consciousness. What if a brain that has consciousness is just a complex (but deterministic) system which is capable of achieving better results than a non-conscious brain (where "better results" means "better able to survive")? I find that pretty likely. Consciousness seems pretty well suited for exactly that kind of process.

Given a non-conscious brain only to work with, it would take far longer for a species to evolve which is as good at surviving as we are. That's because much of our ability to reason is based on the complexity of our brain, which includes our consciousness. Consciousness, therefore, is likely an evolutionary adaptive trait. It does serve a purpose, even in a deterministic world.