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r2k-in-the-vortex t1_jbopfyx wrote

If something is not provable or disprovable by evidence then the entire concept may as well be discarded out of hand as it has no relevance to our experience of reality. What is real can be demonstrated by evidence, what cannot be demonstrated at all is as good as fiction.

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Drakolyik t1_jbpie2l wrote

It's more like people with religious and political motives like to frame this as if there's genuine debate around the issue rather than mountains of scientific evidence that keeps piling up about the nature of existence and all things residing within it.

I say political because believing in free will is correlated with believing in both extrajudicial and judicial retribution. In other words, people often choose to believe that people made terrible choices in lieu of their actual available choices according to a deterministic universe and that those people deserve to essentially be tortured in utterly inhumane conditions.

I think it's a mistake to even give these free will proponents a platform, same as fascist ideology. Belief in free will seems situated on a moral axis more often than it does a scientific/objective front. Many of these people I feel aren't arguing in good faith, which is ironic given the propensity towards a concurrent religious belief system.

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bildramer t1_jbsk8sn wrote

It's not just reliigous and political motives. I have a "compatibilism is obviously the most sensible approach" motive. Also wtf, your last paragraph is unhinged.

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slickwombat t1_jbpy2i6 wrote

The claim isn't that a position on free will can't be justified by any evidence, it's that it can't be justified by "empirical experiments" specifically.

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zms11235 t1_jbqakgm wrote

Evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.

Scientific evidence is not the only form of evidence.

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