My view is that determinism must be true.

At the most basic level, things happen because they are caused by other things.

If you roll a pair of dice, the result is not random, but determined by the laws of physics. If you knew all relevant information (e.g. force of throw, distance of throw, angle of throw, nature of surface, etc.), you could figure out what the result would be.

Take that simple example and apply it to everything. The fact is that you couldn't have all the information to determine what could happen, for example, with human behaviour. But hypothetically if you did, then you would be able to predict it with ease.

How different are we from ants, really? Ants are just less complex. How different are ants from dice? Think about it.

Free will must be an illusion. You only do things because something in your brain told you to. If you understood all the chemistry and physics behind the operation of your brain, you would be able to see why you do things.

Ultimately, the free will vs. determinism debate is useless and probably harmful. If you believe in determinism, people become depressed and feel hopeless because they view themselves as prisoners. From a practical standpoint that isn't a useful way to live a life.

If you believe in determinism, people will ask what happens of criminals who commit atrocious crimes. Well, that is still determined. Should they bear the blame though? Absolutely - because otherwise civilisation would not work.

But putting aside morality, etc. -- if you think about this question on the most fundamental cause/effect level, it is undeniable to me that determinism simply MUSt be true. What exactly is truly random? Events in the universe only occur as a result of the operation of physical laws.

Boltzmann once wrote in his preparatory notes to a series of lecture hes gave at Cambridge regarding a topic that was considered by many scientists to be nonsense – the existence of atoms – that:

“It’s easy to go to atoms from representations, but it is hard to go from appearances to atoms.”

The problem, Boltzmann contends is that we have to somehow “...choose the most suitable expression” despite “...want[ing] to define things which cannot be defined”. Because of this, Boltzmann claims that “...it is not merely accidental if one should despair about how to explain nature and spirit”, we are simply – as Wittgenstein would say – running up against the walls of language.

Why do I mention this segment from Boltzmann? Because, he recognized that, in some sense, we are forced to use certain expressions to picture reality, yet at the end of the day, these are simply words we’ve created, and we are really just picking the best expression. If I set up a dichotomy between “free” and “determined”, and ask “which should I apply to myself?”, I’ve in some sense created the problem. Is “free” vs “determined” a meaningful way to set up the problem? Especially if I am inclined to disavow the very possibility of anything in the entire universe as being “free”? What then is the meaning of the expression? Clearly, there are “degrees of freedom” since we never truly encounter anything which I can contend is “truly free”, yet I can meaningfully delineate between those things which have some degree of freedom and those which have none. So, “freedom” is not an absolute term, but a relative term – something is more or less free than something else. Using your manner of speaking, we might say something is more or less “predictable” such that some things are fundamentally unpredictable despite being determined, and some are.

My point, is that this whole debate is really a tangle of words. We invent the expression and then apply it, and then are confused by the application – asking, at what point does this break down? Clearly, I am more free than a rock, or an ant, and this has meaning that we all agree to. But, when we ask, “well, are we ‘trulyyyyy’ free???” We are just caught in the illusion of our words, thinking they mean more than their application.