In my opinion it is almost trivial to see that something is fishy with the idea of free will - just try to formalize it.
Assume you are sitting in a restaurant facing the decision to either order a steak or some pasta. One possibility is that your decision is a deterministic choice, a function of the current state of your body (What nutrients do you need?), your brain (What are your past experiences with steak and pasta?) and your environment (What does the steak on the neighboring table look like?). This does not resemble what I would call free will.
The other extreme is that your decision is completely random and not influenced by anything. This assumes that there is real randomness in our universe which is, as far as I know, an open question. There is no real randomness in classical mechanics, only apparent randomness due to ignorance of microscopic degrees of freedom. Quantum mechanics seems to have probabilistic features but they are, as far as I can tell, at odds with the unitary evolution of quantum systems and it remains to be seen whether there is real randomness in quantum mechanics or not.
But lets just assume there is real randomness, at worst, if there is only apparent randomness, this option becomes deterministic and degenerates into the first option. There is still some freedom in this option, namely the probability distribution over the different choices. This probability distribution may just be what it is for no deeper reason, a fundamental property of the source of randomness. In this case I wouldn't call it free will, too, because the choice is entirely random.
It may also be the case that the probability distribution gets shaped in a deterministic way. The steak on the neighboring table looks really good making it more likely that you choose it but there is still some probability that you will choose pasta. This is kind of a middle ground between the first two options, the final choice is random but the probabilities reflect your current and past states and the state of the environment in a deterministic way. But again I would not call this free will.
So what would free will have to look like? The choice must not entirely depend on the current state of you and your environment but it must also not be completely independent of it, i.e. be completely random. I spent quite some time thinking about this but I am completely unable to come up with something that is in some sense between deterministic and random (including deterministically shaped randomness). Am I - or even everyone - missing a (fundamental) third option? Is thinking about free will in terms of systems and states and state changes in some way inappropriate? For the moment I will side with the people denying the existence of free will, if someone can formalize what free will really means I will reconsider things.
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In my opinion it is almost trivial to see that something is fishy with the idea of free will - just try to formalize it.
Assume you are sitting in a restaurant facing the decision to either order a steak or some pasta. One possibility is that your decision is a deterministic choice, a function of the current state of your body (What nutrients do you need?), your brain (What are your past experiences with steak and pasta?) and your environment (What does the steak on the neighboring table look like?). This does not resemble what I would call free will.
The other extreme is that your decision is completely random and not influenced by anything. This assumes that there is real randomness in our universe which is, as far as I know, an open question. There is no real randomness in classical mechanics, only apparent randomness due to ignorance of microscopic degrees of freedom. Quantum mechanics seems to have probabilistic features but they are, as far as I can tell, at odds with the unitary evolution of quantum systems and it remains to be seen whether there is real randomness in quantum mechanics or not.
But lets just assume there is real randomness, at worst, if there is only apparent randomness, this option becomes deterministic and degenerates into the first option. There is still some freedom in this option, namely the probability distribution over the different choices. This probability distribution may just be what it is for no deeper reason, a fundamental property of the source of randomness. In this case I wouldn't call it free will, too, because the choice is entirely random.
It may also be the case that the probability distribution gets shaped in a deterministic way. The steak on the neighboring table looks really good making it more likely that you choose it but there is still some probability that you will choose pasta. This is kind of a middle ground between the first two options, the final choice is random but the probabilities reflect your current and past states and the state of the environment in a deterministic way. But again I would not call this free will.
So what would free will have to look like? The choice must not entirely depend on the current state of you and your environment but it must also not be completely independent of it, i.e. be completely random. I spent quite some time thinking about this but I am completely unable to come up with something that is in some sense between deterministic and random (including deterministically shaped randomness). Am I - or even everyone - missing a (fundamental) third option? Is thinking about free will in terms of systems and states and state changes in some way inappropriate? For the moment I will side with the people denying the existence of free will, if someone can formalize what free will really means I will reconsider things.
Which leaves criminals where?