The Universe is deterministic

Thanks to Condeelmaster for the debate. I'm going to have to change up the formatting a bit for this round. (1) DefinitionsPro has objectively lost the definitions debate. Determinism mandates that *everything* which happens is fully determined by its antecedent conditions, whereas free will clearly exempts human actions from that rule. Therefore, the existence of free will contradicts determinism, and Pro has offered no substantive rebuttal to my reasoning. Instead, he just appeals to the philosophical doctrine known as compatibilism. But, as anyone who actually understands compatibilism can tell you, that doctrine doesn't actually do anything to resolve the apparent contradiction. It simply says we can pretend that free will exists for all practical purposes (e. g. criminal justice) even if it doesn't exist in reality. It still maintains that determinism and free will are incompatible on a metaphysical level, so Pro cannot defend both of them. Pro also attempts to make me defend an absolutely ridiculous definition of free will. Like he himself said, free will is "the capacity for an agent to make choices in which the outcome has not been determined by past events. " This means that *any* capacity for choice -- even if it's only between two options A and B -- counts as free will, because until the moment of decision, it is impossible to determine (with certainty) which option will be chosen. Pro says that "the outcome of that choice is already determined: It would be A or B. " That's nonsensical -- the fact that it could be A *or* B implies that it is NOT pre-determined. Free will does not grant agents the ability to transcend reality and create brand-new options -- it only grants them the ability to have some degree of control over their actions and choose between the options available to them. (2) Cosmic Fine-Tuning Pro misunderstands who has the burden of proof here. HE is the one who made this argument. It was HIS responsibility to provide the necessary support for it. Instead, he simply asserted the improbability of cosmic fine-tuning sans determinism, without providing any evidence at all. Therefore, his argument is not logically sound, and should be rejected. (3) Quantum Mechanics Pro's rebuttal to this argument is ridiculous. Quantum mechanics may be a work in progress, but that doesn't mean that our current knowledge of it is automatically invalidated. I provided three separate lines of evidence, each of which independently affirmed indeterminism, and Pro needs to directly address them in order to win the debate. On the subject of Heisenberg's Principle, he asserts that the uncertainty is only epistemic in nature, but my source (and literally every reputable authority on physics) clearly states that it has ontological significance as well. Recall that a particle's position and velocity cannot be simultaneously determined *even in theory* -- "the very concepts of exact position and exact velocity together, in fact, have no meaning in nature. " Therefore, particle movements must be random to some extent. Pro then goes on to assert that electron movements are deterministic simply because electron locations can be quantified using probability distributions. But that just misunderstands what is meant by a "probability distribution" in this context. To illustrate the concept more clearly, I will use a simplified example of one. Let's say that a given electron has a 30% chance of taking Path X and a 70% chance of taking Path Y. All this means is that if the electron is brought to that junction an infinite number of times, then the ratio of instances in which it takes Path X vs. Path Y will approach 3:7. However, for each individual trial, there is no determinant of which path the electron will take until the moment at which a path is taken. So even if probability distributions can be calculated, electron movements themselves are still spontaneous, acausal, and random. Pro also says something incomprehensible about Schrodinger's wave-function, but the wave-function is mathematically understood as a probability distribution, so whatever point Pro was trying to make is likely addressed in the previous paragraph. And Pro also completely dropped the virtual particles argument. It is undeniable -- QM falsifies determinism. (4) Basis of ScienceThe purpose of science is to investigate how reality works -- not to confirm Bertrand Russell's personal belief in determinism. If scientific inquiry reveals that determinism is false, then intellectual honesty requires that we reject it. Yes, most scientific theories tend to abide by the law of cause/effect, but that doesn't change the facts -- QM has falsified the notion that determinism holds true in all cases. However, that doesn't mean all the causal scientific theories are wrong. They deal with a totally different scale of reality than QM, so their accuracy is not threatened at all by QM's radical implications. Pro's assertion that QM's falsification of determinism somehow invalidates all of science is beyond absurd. (4) Causation undeniable? Actually, causation is easily deniable. Last round, I cited an experiment which clearly showed causation being denied by the random appearance & disappearance of virtual particles in a vacuum. b00m. This argument is refuted. (5) Free WillFirstly, note that free will doesn't have to exist in order for determinism to be false, so even if you don't buy this argument, the resolution is still negated via QM. However, if free will *does* exist, then determinism is definitely false. Recall that I have already provided a very strong prima facie justification of free will. Thus, the only reason to doubt free will's existence is if we're given an overriding reason to reject the prima facie justification. Of course, I argue that Libet's experiment does not even come close to falsifying the existence of free will. Here's a brief summary of what happened in the experiment: The experimenter gave the test subject explicit instructions to move his hand, and to record the time at which he consciously decided to do so. Equipment detected that subconscious neural activity associated with preparation for hand movement had occurred before the test subject's conscious decision to move his hand. .. . my response: so what? The fact that his body was automatically getting ready to engage in hand movement after being specifically directed to do so is not only totally unsurprising, but also to be expected. There is no rational basis for the claim that Libet's experiment falsifies free will. Also, worth noting -- I'm not claiming that quantum randomness is responsible for free will. As indicated last round, I'm claiming that free will could exist as a result of some currently-unknown neurological mechanism, which is perfectly plausible considering how little we know of how the brain works at its systemic/organizational levels. -Pro has given no valid reason to believe that determinism is true, whereas I have given several to believe that it is false.