is there free will?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

That's no need to get personal. If you feel that way you can either conclude I am stupid, that I am being deliberately obstructive, or that you are not explainging yourself so that I can understand you. In option 1 and 2 I should be ignored, option 3 behoves you to either explain better or concede the point as unsupportabe.

I think you are drawing too much from some smileys :/

"Choice" implies options and the ability to choose between them, "options" implies multiple available paths. If one says "you have no choice" that indicates only one option. Ergo, it is fair for me to say, "In a truly detministic system you have no choice". Even if theoretically there are multiple possible outcomes, or multiple decisions, the total causality inherrent in the system dictates that the same choice will always be made under the same circumstances.

So there is no actual choice, only a theoretical system. In this I think your philosophy shows a flaw, it imagines a system for its morality that it claims does no factually exist.

I think you are viewing the mind abstractly here, which is very counter-intuitive*. If you present options to me, and I go over them in my mind, consider things, think about it etc and pick one because of my thoughts and feelings, I have made a choice. That's what making a choice is. The fact that I was always going to make that choice doesn't mean that I didn't have a choice.

It seems like partly a language problem. Look at the following argument:

If Paul has two sons and a daughter, then he has to have at least two children.
Paul has two sons and a daughter.

Therefore: Paul has to have at least two children.

This conclusion is a false statement. He does not have to have any amount of children. He just happens to in this case. A better way to phrase it would be:

"It has to be that (if Paul has two sons and a daughter, then he has at least two children)."
Paul has two sons and a daughter

Therefore: Paul has at least two children

And that's what determinism is saying. And the conclusion now allows for free will. The conclusion is no longer that Paul had to have two children, and thus had no choice. For human choices it would go:

It must be that (if certain conditions are met, then you will do A).
not:
If certain conditions are met, then you must do A.

*And I think in your own beliefs you don't view it that way (since you reject determinism)

No, actually fatalism says, "I will wear my seatbelt until the day I decide not to and it kills me", while determinism says, "I will wear my seatbelt unless X conditions are met". The reason that determinism produces the same result as fatalism is that in a purely deterministic system whether or not X conditions would ever be met was predetermined long before you were born by the causality of the universe; whether X condictions would ultimately lead to your death was ultimately also already predetmined.

But you are leaving out the key difference. Fatalism assumes that it doesn't matter what we do--that is patently false. What I do does effect when I will die. Fatalism says that determinism is a reason to act a certain way.

Well Greshem's Law demonstrates the problem, because not everyone hoards Gold. So, either the universe is not truly deterministic, or your laws refuse to take account of its interlocking complexity. In any case, it is not a question of being "subject" to these Laws, but to the system they seek to explain.

I don't understand what you mean with this bit. Not everyone hoards gold because Greshem's law describes a tendency on a certain scale. It's a different level of description than cause and effect on the atomic level.

No, because in your system his character is determined by his genetics and environment, he can be no more blamed for it than for his gender.

Well, I agree this is a digression from the free will argument. It has more to do with what morality is for.

I agree, that this dispute is best resolved now, since otherwise it's going to be impossible for people to understand each other. I agree that your definition of free will is the sum of the freedom which our will's possess in reality btw, but I see this as supporting purely determinsim and not free will (since I hold to the libertarian defintion of the term, which is how it has been traditionally used). I think we have the same ideas, but are just using different words for them.

I don't mind using different words if the ideas are the same