Determinism and free will completely contradict each other and cannot be both true simultaneously.

My opponent has asked me to explain how free will and determinism can settle down without distorting their definitions. I however do not think the definitions of either term are clear cut. If we define determinism as "Bob would have inevitably taken the bus" and free will as "Bob might have taken the train instead" (and both are in accordance with the definitions my opponent posted in the first round), then we need to really take a close look at what it means to say "X might have been Y". This was the theme of my last argument; I broke this phrase down and gave two alternate interpretations of what it actually means, each with different implications for free will and determinism. Free will is an incredibly complicated concept, and any brief definition is only going to approximate what we intuitively understand free will to be (and each of us may have a very different idea of what it is). All of the definitions center on the concept of an unrestrained choice, which can not be influenced by any outside forces. However, in order to make a choice in the first place, the agent must be informed. Even if the agent only allows objective information into its mind, the choices it makes will at least be influenced by what observations the agent has made. What's more, we are limited in our choices to what we are aware of and what we are physically capable of. I challenge my opponent to describe a hypothetical scenario in which an agent makes a completely free choice according to the criteria of the definitions he gave. However, I believe that when people use the term "free will", they don't mean something as rigorous as the above definitions. My opponent stated: "The main problem with your cognitive-physical peace is that it relies on human abilities to perceive and understand the real world and not concern with the world itself." Indeed it does, as my argument is that the term "free will" was born out of our inability to determine the behavior of other people. Human behavior has two properties that make it unique among the behavior of any other entity. First, it is non-consistent. By contrast, most other living things tend to act through simple, predictable "stimulus response" behaviors. This trend is broken by some of the more complex animals, such as dolphins or apes, but not to the degree that we see in humans. Second, human behavior is non-random. People will usually act in ways consistent with their habits, personality, and abilities. These two contradictory qualities, I believe, gave rise to the concept of "free will". It suggested the substance of a choice was a non-physical, self contained black box. It would take in information through observations, and produce actions, but the nature of this process was inherently unknowable. The ideas of a soul and dualistic theories of the mind are ways that people have developed to try and understand what that black box really is. In this view, "Free will" is a concept we invented to describe the unique behavior of people. "Deterministic" is also a concept we invented to describe processes which can be predicted. Depending on how the issue is framed, human behavior may be both free and deterministic, or neither free nor deterministic. I realize my opponent would like for there to be an objective definition of both terms that can be shown to be contradictory. Under the definitions he gave, however, I pointed out that when you take a close look at the implications of the terms, you run into some unavoidable ambiguity that can not be resolved unless we choose to frame the issue in one way or another.