Determinism: Free will is an illusion

I will defend myself in chronological order of the defences given by pro The important fact of the subconscious that you, as I will refer directly to Los_Altos_JW, seem to ignore one I came outright with saying that the subconscious is apart of our self. You claim that we have no direct control over it, yet still concede that it is apart of our "self". I find this to be contradictory. While we may not feel that we have no control over the subconscious, the subconscious is still apart of us, and thus we do have control over it, though we may not be aware of it. No more aware are we of the actions of our subconscious than we are of the acids being released in our stomach, or the complex circulation of blood from our hearts through the vanes and back again. We, in terms of our whole body, are still going through these processes, and while our active minds may not have a direct hold over them, they still work. Everything inside us is us, and can not be negated of being apart of us. To the second point: Yes, going to the bathroom is an action caused by a previous one, but was still not caused by the succession of events that followed the drinking of water. Should our fates be determined, every action would need to be effected by every preceding event. This argument did have its flaws, I will admit, and I will not precede with this case unless further argument is called upon it. As to my second example: I do not feel a strong argument was made on this point. I did not say that there where any pre-causes following up to this stop of nourishment, only that they simply stopped. If an scenario is needed: A man is hungry, but simply did not eat. There where no outside influences, nor previous thought processes, he simply did not eat, and had no thoughts about it even up till death. While highly improbable, this is a perfectly possible scenario. In this case, what past event influenced him, also assuming he had no brain disorders or illnesses? On the final argument: I do not misunderstand this point. I will work on your example "I will murder someone on Dec 16. 2007". At the time the statement is uttered, there is neither a true nor false, as the event has not occurred. As the event has not occurred, there is still the time period of "possibility". Anything can happen within this period, literally, anything. You could end up killing the person, whether intentional or not, and very easily you could not. BUT, until the event has happened there is still the shadow of a doubt, and that is all that's needed. Once it is Dec 17, 2007, then the event can properly be marked "true or false". To summaries: the statement itself does not necessitate the accuracy of it. The nature of truth cannot be determined until the action has passed, therefore verifying it to be true, all other prediction, whether proving true or not, are by default false until having actually happened. One my note: I do not say we cannot know the past, but that we can never prove the existence of one. However, I have shown empirical and logical proof that determinism is flawed, via the natural world. Should this discussion reach to religious territory, it would make all previous arguments null and void. My first and second rebuttal proves that the actions controlled by the chemicals in our brains are still apart of us, therefore, we are still making the choice, whether aware of it or not. The causality argument is still not 100% settled either way in my opinion, though I'm sure you, Los_Altos_JW, think otherwise. Mankind can never know the future as there is no way to prove there is one, only the actions and consequences of the past. WHile past events may have a hold over certain aspects of the here and now, and the events that are yet to come, not all are. We must all remember, that while it is still uncertain how, there was a beginning, and nothing preceded it to work off of.