An argument for Free Will and why it simply doesn't matter anyway
Definitions are important.
Therefore,let me start right away by defining what I do call"Free will".
"Free will is the capacity to elaborate an intent without significant external interferences"
Let's dig into the details of the above definition:
1)It's about intent not necessarily about action,for example,It's my intent to lift a mountain but realistically I cannot lift a mountain but nobody would say that I cannot lift a mountain because I lack free will,because I do sincerely have the intent to lift one,but that doesn't magically make the impossible possible.
2)By"Significant external interference" I do mean that realistically speaking nobody lives in a vacuum,we're constantly influenced by external factors therefore if free will was based on the ability to be 100% oblivious to the surrounding universe it would be a dead argument from the start.
Now how someone would define"External",it's a whole different problem as there's no clear line between"You",and"All the rest",it's"You",just your brain?,or the whole body?,does the fingernails you trim are also technically part of you?,and at which point something you ingest becomes part of you?,a biscuit for example it's not"You",but after you eat it does it become"You"?;it's a very plastic concept - do you known that pretty much all the atoms of your body are replaced multiple times through your life?
(https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/18427/are-all-the-atoms-in-our-bodies-replaced-on-a-regular-basis)
If that's true,then there's no"Definitive",you,there's"Just",the you of here and now,tomorrow you won't be completely the same as today,you,your boundaries are constantly changing.
With this premise out of the way - let's dig into the main course - does free will exist?
Materialism says no,everything is determined by a mathematically precise Universe - everything it's bound to happen in a precise way,and thus,if you known everything down to the subatomic particles you'll also known how they will interact towards the future indefinitely.
Other people(I don't recall the name of their position),claim that humans have some sort of special in-built randomness of some sort and therefore cannot be predicted with a 100% accuracy.
If I were to cling to my definition of free will,then there wouldn't be any problem either way whether we live in a deterministic universe or not as it's not a matter of being predictable but it's a matter of freely being able to elaborate an intent.
But let's suppose we do live in a deterministic universe(despite there are things to appear to be random to our current understanding - the so-called quantum fluctuations / particles that"Pops in and out of existence in an apparent random fashion",or something like that),let's put this to practice with a simple thought experiment:the "Magic TV" experiment.
It's a relatively simple experiment:Let's suppose we have a magic TV that constantly shows 10 seconds ahead the future of the room it is in;We put this TV in an empty room with another person and we ask him to look at the TV and write on a piece of paper a single digit number(0 to 9),there's only one condition: he doesn't have to write down the number the TV shows.And since the person can see the TV showing 10 seconds in the future...what number will the TV show?,no number?,all 10 numbers?
The point of this thought experiment is to expose a very obvious paradox:If you know the future,you alter the future,there's no way you can both predict and show to someone what number he will pick as he can just pick any other number and make your prediction invalid,the only way to not alter the future is to simply
1)Not being involved
and
2)Not letting those involved know
Let's make the usual reference that anyone that talks about free will does: Minority Report(the movie);for those who don't know,in the movie,there's a futuristic police that,with the help of a few persons with future-predicting ability,arrest people before they even commit a crime(hence the name "precrime" police);but if this police was real - why would it arrest people,when it can just stop them?,let me explain,image that the police predict that you'll kill Person A today,it can
1)Come visit your house and tell you that you get life in jail if you kill person A
or
2)Arrest him straight away
Realistically speaking,most people would be like"Oh damn the police would get me well then never mind this",but surely some would do it anyway since usually people don't plan to kill someone else on a rational basis to begin with - but then if we could predict this then we could also predict who is going to commit the crime anyway and who would not;therefore we could indeed arrest people who would still commit the crime...except that now they can't because they're under arrest.
This is a paradox as if we truly can predict the future but prevent it then the prediction was wrong,therefore,isn't also the punishment itself wrong?,the most problematic aspect of this is that there would be no way to be sure that the prediction was correct as it never came true,therefore police could literally arrest anyone with this excuse and there would be little to no defense against it as you cannot prove a negative - you cannot prove that you would not have done something if you weren't arrested - how would you do that to begin with?
So in short,whether free will exists or not,there are no practical uses to it as you would invalidate any prediction(that regards you),as soon as you known about it - obviously the argument would be a little different if it was about to predict the future in general as you could prevent casualties in disasters like fires or earthquakes or on a smaller scale,car accidents; and surely in those situations would be very useful to know the future in advance;but when it comes to free will,to predict human behavior is only possible in theory but you can't do anything practical about it without invalidating the prediction.