Single Shot said:
-Mostly Snip-
At the end of the day this debate comes down to weather you believe humans are just a construct of organic and inorganic molecules arranged in a form able to comprehend higher thinking and maintain the chemical balance needed for 'life', or if you think we are somehow special and able to exist on a plain higher than the physical world. I myself think we are purely physical constructs and thus believe in determinism.
I'm responding to everything, but it's an interesting view so I kept it.
The universes will continue to be identical at the macro, physical level, but there's no way to prove that any organic life won't eventually diverge, and no way to absolutely determine what caused it.
I agree that humans are physical beings, but sometimes humans are arbitrary. Language, for example, has a specific quality called arbitrariness. There is nothing connecting the word "dog" to the physical creature. I think that if one of the most fundamental functions of human beings can have an arbitrary origin, it's hard to say that humans can't be arbitrary, and thus have free will.
Thirdly: Doesn't the entirety of most modern legal systems hinge upon the idea that people have free will? If they don't, if everything is going to fall into place eventually with no deviation, then how can you hold anyone accountable for anything? They committed the action, but they are just reacting to forces nobody can see, and so it's not their fault.
In the end, I don't think any of this matters because we can't really tell one way or the other. I like to think we have free will because it means people can be arbitrary, and thus make the world an interesting place, but there's really no way to prove it one way or the other.