• SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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    12 hours ago

    I figured out recently from Lemmy discussions that people have different concepts of what free will means. Humorously, one of them operates within a deterministic mindset, while the other points out the determinism.

    Best analogy that I can think of at the moment is the difference between a drill press and a 4-axis CNC mill. The drill press has one degree of freedom, down and up. It’s locked in. The mill has 4 degrees of freedom, and it can run code that makes its behavior highly complex. For some people, that’s good enough: The mill has free will while the drill press does not.

    The view of free will that recognizes determinism says that humans have innumerable degrees of freedom, so our behavior looks complex, but our conscious choice is just the various competing influences shaking out.