I agree.

I agree.

Yes, we have conscious volition, but this volition is not free from determinants and constraints. My definition of free will is a will that is free from determinants and constraints.

I agree.

I disagree because it's a domino effect starting from the beginning of the universe to the present. If you remove any of the dominos from the trail of dominos the chain of causation breaks.

I agree.

Our choices are determined by the effects of our genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences. We are never free from these groups of variables. If you had the genes of a banana tree would you be posting messages in this forum? If your zygote was baked in an oven instead of being nurtured in your mother's womb would you be reading these words? If your zygote was deprived of all the nutrients from your time in the womb to the present day, would you have come this far? If you didn't experience learning English, would you be able to read these sentences? No. You would not. Your present is the result of your past.

Allegedly, this happened in 1976. The experiencer was hit by a car and was left in the morgue for three days. He became a pastor after his NDE.

He woke up as soon as the first incision was being made on his abdomen. No video of the event is shown. It's just someone narrating the story. I don't know if they were telling the truth or not. So sorry about the crane operator's injuries and pain.

Thank you Corvus. Even drinking coffee instead of tea or reading instead of going for a walk is not free from hard determinism. Our preferences and the resultant choices are products of hard determinism.

Sorry, I hadn't noticed your question until now as I am suffering from depression and CPTSD and consequently my concentration is poor. The answer to your question is: no, I would not. I let my kidnapper, my rapist, the thieves who stole our belongings, and the murderers of my relatives and my best friend get away with their crimes. I think what all living things did in the past, what all living things are doing in the present and what all living things will do in the future are all according to hard determinism.

Thank you.

I don't think anything can turn our subjectivity into objectivity. When two people see the same thing e.g. a rose, and confirm to each other that they are both seeing the rose, then they may think that their perceived rose is part of an objective reality but it is not necessarily so. They could both be plugged into the same simulation which has a rose in it!

Thank you for letting me know. Now, I know something about your subjectivity - the fact that you agree with me about it.

I know my own subjective experience of being me. Just as you know your own subjective experience of being you. We can share our experiences - that way we can know about each other's subjectivity. For example, I have nightmares every night. Now you all know the fact that I have nightmares. Something you did not know until I shared it.

I didn't say that objective moral values exist. I said that morality does not have to be objective to be valid. How can we possibly know about anything objectively? Everything we know is subjective. Our sensory perceptions are subjective. Our thoughts and emotions are subjective. Our values are subjective. There is exclusive subjectivity e.g. only I know my thoughts and dreams and hallucinations, etc. There is shared subjectivity e.g. many people can know what this post says.

No, we can still have moral values. Morality does not have to be objective to be valid. For example, I am a vegan egalitarian. I think being a vegan is more ethical than being an omnivore or carnivore. I think being an egalitarian is more ethical than being an elitist ableist misogynist racist speciesist plutocrat. If the world ran according to my wishes, there would be no suffering, inequality, injustice, and death. All living things would be all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful. We would all be forever happy.

I agree.

I thought demons were evil spirits - according to the Bible, Jesus cast out lots of demons. Christians still do exorcisms of demons to heal people. I have witnessed several exorcisms but did not see any demons.

I agree.

How do you know that demons exist?

There are two levels of explanation for this. The social-level explanation is that most people believe that people have free will and are actually culpable even though they are not actually culpable. The molecular-level explanation is that all behaviour occurs according to hard determinism, including believing that hard determinism is false even though it is true, which leads to assigning culpability to people who are not actually culpable.

We assign culpability to people who are not actually culpable.

I think hard determinism is true.

I am conflicted about whether to accept anecdotes as evidence. It's not always possible to have concrete evidence. This video is an anecdote of a man who woke up in a morgue during his autopsy. I don't know if this story is true or not. I don't have any way to assess the claims. The narrator claims that the story has been medically verified but does not present any evidence of the verification.

As far as I know, morality is made up by humans. This is why it varies across time and place. Morality is a matter of subjective opinions. People ascribe morality to various deities who allegedly communicated with us through religious books. I have read many religious books and I am not convinced that any of them were authored by one or more deities.

I understand what you mean. In the video, the doctor said that the patient was able to read the doctor's thoughts even though he never verbalised the thoughts. How could this have happened? Assuming the doctor is telling the truth, doesn't that count as evidence for something extraordinary?

Did you watch the video and read the research paper in the first post on this thread? Are you saying that they don't count as evidence? If so, why don't they count as evidence?

The problem is that our wills are not free from determinants and constraints. As we don't have free will, any culpability is merely assigned culpability, not actual culpability.

I prayed for the prevention of all suffering, inequality, injustice, and deaths. I prayed that all living things (including the dead ones and the never-born ones) became all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful. Neither of the prayers were answered. I prayed in multiple languages. That didn't make any difference. I am agnostic about the existence and nature of deities.

I don't know the answers to your questions because I have never met any God or Goddess or Gods or Goddesses. It's possible that they are all fictitious. I am agnostic about it.

Yes, I know what Calvinists believe. It's not based on evidence. It's based on their interpretation of the Bible which is mostly fiction. Please see: https://www.evilbible.com and https://skepticsannotatedbible.com

I love the song. Thank you for sharing.

Your answer is up to you. What it means for you is not necessarily what it means for others. I am completely certain about many things. I have already listed some of them in my previous posts.

I have studied most of the religions on Earth but not all of them. I have tried praying to many gods and goddesses. None of them answered my prayers. If God or Goddess or Gods or Goddesses made me all-knowing and all-powerful, I would be convinced that it is possible to be all-knowing and all-powerful and I would then know that God or Goddess or Gods or Goddesses exist and what God or Goddess or Gods or Goddesses are actually like.

Yes, they happened to me. I am sorry you are feeling uncomfortable. Don't worry - I will spare you the gory details.

You can do the experiments on yourself - it's not necessary to take my word for it.

Thank you for taking an interest in the book.

I have studied most of the religions on Earth. The Gods in various religions differ from each other. For example, the Allah of the Quran is very different from the Jesus of the Bible. They are both very different from the Hindu God Brahma who is very different from the Hindu Goddess Lakshmi. They are all very different from the Norse Gods such as Thor or Odin.

I don't know if any god or goddess exists. I have never met any. I don't know what they are like except for how they are portrayed in religious books.

If God or Goddess or Gods or Goddesses made me all-knowing and all-powerful, I would be convinced that it is possible to be all-knowing and all-powerful and I would then know that God or Goddess or Gods or Goddesses exist and what God or Goddess or Gods or Goddesses are actually like.

I carried out experiments to test the roles played by our genes, environments from conception to the present, nutrients from conception to the present, and experiences from the womb to the present. These experiments were not published in any journals because I carried them out alone and I was my only test subject. I compared myself with myself under different situations e.g. how lack of oxygen affected my decision making, how lack of water affected my decision making, how lack of food affected my decision making, how lack of sleep affected my decision making, how cold and heat affected my decision making, etc. I also compared myself to how I was before significant life events with how I was after significant life events. By significant life events I mean being kidnapped, being raped, watching people murder each other, being in natural disasters which killed lots of people, relatives being murdered, etc. The more I experimented and compared, the more it became clear to me that our wills are determined and constrained by our genes, environments from conception to the present, nutrients from conception to the present, and experiences from the womb to the present.

How much do you know about neuroscience? Have you ever seen PET scans and functional MRI scans of humans? I have. If you want to learn more about how choices arise in brains, I recommend that you start by reading this book: "Determined: Life Without Free Will" by Robert M. Sapolsky. It is available on Amazon Kindle. If you want to discuss the book with me, I am happy to discuss it.

We can't change all determinants and constraints but we can change some determinants and constraints. It varies from person to person depending on their genes, environments from conception to the present, nutrients from conception to the present, and experiences from the womb to the present. I have not assessed how efficiently we deal with our determinants and constraints.

I don't know if Gods exist and if they are all-knowing and all-powerful. I am agnostic about the existence and nature of all Gods. Humans have believed in and still believe in many Gods. That does not mean that they exist.

Thank you for your sympathy. I understand what you mean by "freedom to act on one's own will" but the problem is that our will is never free from determinants and constraints. I don't know if any all-knowing and all-powerful being exists. If such beings exist their Wills won't be constrained the way our wills are. I don't know whether or not their Wills will be determined by variables or not.

You asked "If my actions are not based on my free will where are they based on? What exactly is that determines them?" Our wills are determined and constrained by our genes, environments from conception to the present, nutrients from conception to the present, and experiences from the womb to the present. This is why most of the choices made by me when I was 4 years old were different from most of the choices made by me when I was 18 years old even though our genes have not changed. Please note that epigenetic changes also affect our wills.

In my explanation above, I am assuming what we see, hear, touch, taste and smell actually exist and are not simulations or hallucinations or dreams or illusions.