Free will probably exists in humans.

Thanks MTGandP for your thoughtful arguments. This is indeed turning out to be an enjoyable debate. ===== Determinism. I now understand Con's argument to be that because every event is predictable, free will is impossible. However he has already stated in a previous round that some human actions are "more difficult to predict, and perhaps even impossible [to predict] in practice." He seems therefore to be conceding that, while free will may be theoretically impossible (because all events are "still theoretically predictable given all relevant information") for practical, human purposes, events are unpredictable so free will may indeed be a possibility. Additionally I do not think there is any foundation to my opponent's assertion that an "entity with free will must be capable of acting unpredictably". He needs to explain why a predictable action can not be selected freely by it's agent. ==== Randomness. My opponent seems to be confusing action with outcome. A calculated action can have a random outcome. --- Con: "if an entity is merely selecting a choice in a completely random manner, this is not a free, rational choice." Agreed. This entity may however make a free choice to perform an action that creates a random event as per my keyboard splurge in the previous round. --- Con: "randomness (unpredictability) is the only alternative to determinism (predictability), this leaves no other option." Saying it does not make it so, there is another option: choice. --- Con: "A rational actor cannot choose randomly and still be in control." He does not need to be in control, he (or she) may choose to relinquish control. --- Con: "It was in my second paragraph in round 2." The fact that my opponent's supposed proof "does not require that every cause has only one possible outcome" in no way refutes that the most probable cause for the wide array of responses available to Ben is free will. --- "I was referring to randomness in terms of information theory."..."It begs the question to assume that humans have free will." It seems a more reasonable assumption to me than to assume that human beings will behave in the same way as numbers. --- "My opponent's example only serves to prove that a decision was made that appeared to be random." The point is not that the decision appeared to be random but that it appeared to be chosen. Of course it's not truly random if my decision is based on balancing my financial restraints against my desires but it is a decision I have freely chosen to make. --- "Predictability is not compatible with free will: if an outside entity with absolute knowledge is capable of predicting every move you make, then you're not really choosing freely, are you?" Personally, I don't think entities with absolute knowledge are likely to be possible so I'm not sure why we should create such an unnecessary entity in this debate. My opponent accepts that human actions can be impossible to predict in practical terms, therefore "in humans" not everything is predictable or truly random therefore free will probably exists. --- "I have logically proven that free will is impossible." I disagree and I think anyone reading this debate thoroughly will conclude that my opponent has proved nothing. === Con's sources. I read the articles on Libet's experiments with great interest and was forced to wonder whether my opponent had read them from top to bottom himself. [2] http://www.consciousentities.com... despite unashamedly supporting Libet's theories raises many prudent questions about the research and in particular how the findings are interpreted. The most notable being: "Is the RP really a signal that a decision has been made?" "Might not the RP merely signal a quickening of attention, rather than a moment of decision? " "isn't it possible that we need a certain amount of time just in order to report the awareness to ourselves?" Libet himself is reported as believing in free will in this article if only at a limited level. "He rightly points out that free will is important partly because it underpins the idea of moral responsibility: but morality, he suggests, is mainly a matter of vetoing things we have a built-in tendency to do." The fact that a decision is formed unconsciously, milliseconds before it is perceived by the conscious mind does not disprove free will. The decision is still arising within the brain of the individual and humans have the power of veto over their own decisions. [1] http://www.nytimes.com... ] confirms this further, again quoting Libet: "Dr. Libet said his results left room for a limited version of free will in the form of a veto power over what we sense ourselves doing. In effect, the unconscious brain proposes and the mind disposes." This seems to be similar to what I have been maintaining within this debate, I do not dispute that determinism and randomness exist and I do not believe in the "Libertarian Free Will" described in these articles but I have proven the extreme probability of "a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives." There is more from my opponent's two sources to back up my own position: "Mark Hallett, a researcher with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said, "Free will does exist, but it's a perception, not a power or a driving force. People experience free will. They have the sense they are free." "The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, as Einstein paraphrased it, that "a human can very well do what he wants, but cannot will what he wants." If you can do what you want that means you can choose a course action. Obviously you can't will your way to success but you can choose to do the best you are able. "A vote in favor of free will comes from some physicists, who say it is a prerequisite for inventing theories and planning experiments." --- http://en.wikipedia.org... The butterfly effect proves some level of determinism which I do not dispute, it does not disprove free will as I have already argued. ==== Some sources of my own: Daniel Dennett, ( http://en.wikipedia.org... ) a US philosophy professor who was also quoted in my opponent's source, has researched the subject thoroughly coming from a determinist background and has made some excellent arguments about free will. In Elbow Room ( http://en.wikipedia.org... ) he argues that because humans do have the ability to act contrary to how we might expect or predict them to, they do in fact have some degree of free will, some room to manoeuvre, (hence the elbow room of the title.) Does this argument sound familiar? --- http://books.google.co.uk... "the question of whether determinism is true is not the only question in free will debates. One must also consider whether determinism really does conflict with free will" etc. It won't let me copy paste and I'm running out of characters but the point is extended on page 6 of this book. ===== My previous examples. To successfully counter my examples my opponent needs to show why it would be impossible for an individual not to decide against performing an action just before it is performed. At the point of pulling the trigger a gunman can decide not to. At the point of putting a pizza in the oven, I can decide to phone out for one instead. At the point of putting on one record, I can decide to put on a different one. I can choose to submit this argument now or wait for the last possible moment to do so. There were more but that will do for now. Thanks again to MTG and I look forward to the final round.