patrick.net

Dan8267 says

Artificial Intelligence

Indeed. I guess the atheists finally got bored, without any resolution.

Dan8267 says

Computers don't have a nervous system, and you said they can have free will. This contradicts the above statement.

Absence of nervous system in Amebas => no choice for Amebas.
The same is not true in a computer for obvious reasons.
This is the kind of silly answer you get all the time from Dan. Not addressing anything that is argued, but trying to force his way throwing massive amounts of BS in all direction.

Dan8267 says

Oh, so now free will is free-ish will.

Dan has some limited amount of intelligence. It doesn't mean that intelligence is not a well understood concept. It just mean there are border cases.

Dan8267 says

I think you are confusing the concept of free will with the concept of consciousness.

No I'm not. I defined it clearly, and everything I said is related to this definition.
There is a link with consciousness which I'm not going to debate with you. I don't have that much time.

Dan8267 says

Heraclitusstudent says

This is like saying: it doesn't matter that there are high level languages and APIs, all developers should code in machine language because that's all it is eventually.

No, it's not at all like saying that. It is useful to use a high-level language because developer are more productive that way.

Using a high level language is more productive for a simple reason: some concepts are more easily understood on a higher layer. i.e. the layer matters.

Let's take an other example: you would expect arithmetic to be correct at the CPU level using machine language. However I could write a program that "manually" calculates sums, multiplications, divisions, manipulating only arrays of characters '0', '1', ...'9'.
This software layer in turn could have a bug that means that it would give the wrong results.
Or it could work, and have unlimited precision, compared to the limited precision of CPU arithmetic.

The point: here different layers have different characteristics. The layer you use to look at a problem matters.

Heraclitusstudent says

Dan8267 says

Computers don't have a nervous system, and you said they can have free will. This contradicts the above statement.

Absence of nervous system in Amebas => no choice for Amebas.

The same is not true in a computer for obvious reasons.

This is the kind of silly answer you get all the time from Dan. Not addressing anything that is argued, but trying to force his way throwing massive amounts of BS in all direction.

Pointing out a contradiction in another person's argument is certainly not b.s.

You argue that a nervous system is a requirement for free will, then you say something without it can have free will. This is a direct contradiction. If a nervous system isn't required for a computer to have free will, then why should it be a requirement for an amoeba to have free will?

Heraclitusstudent says

Dan8267 says

Oh, so now free will is free-ish will.

Dan has some limited amount of intelligence. It doesn't mean that intelligence is not a well understood concept. It just mean there are border cases.

A weak insult does not prove your point. Some things form a continuous spectrum and others do not. There are not degrees of pregnancy. Free will, as talked about for thousands of years, cannot be throttled. And if it could, your job of demonstrating its existence would be much, much harder. You'd have to provide a means of measuring it, or one could just assert that dogs and starfish have more free will than humans.

Heraclitusstudent says

Using a high level language is more productive for a simple reason: some concepts are more easily understood on a higher layer. i.e. the layer matters.

Once again you have entirely missed the point. You argued that a computer could have free will. I argued that the digital circuitry in the computer is essentially the same mechanism as a cell blinding following the laws of electrodynamics. Organic molecules and digital gates do what they do precisely because they are following the same laws of the electromagnetic force. So if a computer can have free will, so can a single-celled organism.

You then tried to argue that the knowledge contained in a high-level program, using chess as an example, makes free choices. However, the high-level program is not what is executed by the computer. Low-level machine language is executed by digital gates. If the chess playing program is making free choices then it is doing so with simple binary logic gates. The high-level language and the source code are not at play. They don't even have to exist on the computer running the chess program. So whatever choice is being made by the computer is being made mechanically and without the slightest deviation from blind obedience to causality as specified in the laws of nature. This is no different if you replace the binary logic gates with neurons, gears, or any other physical device.

This is the central point of my argument, and it is something you refuse to address.

Heraclitusstudent says

Let's take an other example: you would expect arithmetic to be correct at the CPU level using machine language. However I could write a program that "manually" calculates sums, multiplications, divisions, manipulating only arrays of characters '0', '1', ...'9'.

This software layer in turn could have a bug that means that it would give the wrong results.

Or it could work, and have unlimited precision, compared to the limited precision of CPU arithmetic.

The point: here different layers have different characteristics.

Your analogy is flawed for several reasons. First, any mistake in logic you make in a high-level language is simply carried out in machine language code that reflects that exact same error in logic. Second, there are no characteristics in the upper layers that aren't generated by the lower layers. Atoms aren't sentient, but collections of atoms can form a sentient system. Sure. I've said that many times. However, sentience does not violate the laws of nature. Free will does. Atoms cannot violate the laws of nature, and thus cannot be used to build systems that do.

Sentience and free will are not the same thing. One does not imply the other, and they do not have the same characteristics.

Not having ever delved deeply into this question before, other than touching on it in a college philosophy course, I have to admit I was more interested in reading the arguments philosophers and scientists have made, than in reading every back and forth between Dan and Heraclitusstudent. I won't bother making an argument at this point, based on what I found, but I will say this. Even the idea that we may not have free will is very provocative, at least to me. More so now, for whatever reason than when I thought about it long ago.

It gets me thinking (even more than I already did) about what I can do to improve the biology of my brain, by meditating, by reading more, by practicing self discipline in certain decisions in situations that I see on a regular basis, and possibly even through the use of supplements.

OF course, if I do this because of being triggered by this thread, then I guess my reading this thread was always in the cards for me, since it may make some arbitrarily small difference in who I am, and yet still impact on some future decisions. That is, if indeed we have no free will.

I will share this one which is interesting, although not addressing the question of your argument. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/theres-no-such-thing-as-free-will/480750/ Harris' view is is included in the piece.

If one believes this thesis (that believing we have free will is beneficial), then it's not too big a leap from there to seeing the value of seeing ourselves as having some agency, perhaps something along the lines of a soul (but not requiring it's existence to outlive us in any form we might imagine).

marcus says

I have to admit I was more interested in reading the arguments philosophers and scientists have made, than in reading every back and forth between Dan and Heraclitusstudent.

The back and forth did go on way too long for such few actual points. A lot of repeating.

However, what philosophers say on free will doesn't matter. Just because they are famous, doesn't mean they are right. I'd go with modern science over philosophical diatribes any day. And what Sam Harris and other scientists have said or published is far more convincing.

marcus says

If one believes this thesis (that believing we have free will is beneficial

I would argue that the belief in free will has done considerable harm and no good. It's used as a justification for inflicting needless suffering on others because "they deserve it".

However, even if there were a net benefit to believing in a false idea, to advocate such a belief in something you know is false is to say that people should be manipulated and that honesty is not the best policy. I would disagree with that assessment. Ultimately lies are self-defeating. Any moral foundation based on lies can be corrupted by other lies. Only moral foundations based on truth can withstand any assault.

Dan8267 says

However, what philosophers say on free will doesn't matter. Just because they are famous, doesn't mean they are right

In many cases they are making rigorous logical arguments.

Dan8267 says

Ultimately lies are self-defeating. Any moral foundation based on lies can be corrupted by other lies.

This is true, but what if it's true that believing we have agency and free will, makes it true in some way ?

Also, what if believing we have no free will is truly damaging to many people not enlightened enough to not become fatalists becasue of the belief (see Atlantic article I linked a couple comments back).

And finally, since there is in fact no way to prove there is no free will, which even Harris seems to admit (he just wants to take it as an axiom). If we don't know, then it's not a lie. I believe that the reason that both you and Sam Harris insist that it's provable (actually Harris doesn't - he invokes his meditation experiences as proof - which is ironic) that we have no free will is linked to the fact that your bias of atheism disables you from being in the most honest possible - "I don't know" camp, when it comes to certain matters. And no, I'm not invoking super natural phenomena. I'm just embracing mysteries that are not yet understood, and the "I don't know" truth that I live by, when I in fact don't know.

Dan8267 says

I'd go with modern science

Modern science still knows very little about consciousness, human intelligence or how the complex sense of self we possess occurs.

Dan8267 says

Pointing out a contradiction in another person's argument is certainly not b.s.

You argue that a nervous system is a requirement for free will...

....for an ameba. Any 4 yrs old kid can understand why a living being requires a nervous a nervous system to think while a computer doesn't.
Dan could generate enough BS to fertilize the Sinai.

Dan8267 says

Free will, as talked about for thousands of years, cannot be throttled.

An assertion without any support is not an argument. I wasn't talking of your definition obviously but mine.

Dan8267 says

Organic molecules and digital gates do what they do precisely because they are following the same laws of the electromagnetic force. So if a computer can have free will, so can a single-celled organism.

A computer can have free will because it can contain a complex representation of a given universe, including a simplistic one like a chessboard.
A single celled organism cannot.
I think this is obvious and only an idiot would need to push the point more than we have already.

marcus says

Modern science still knows very little about consciousness, human intelligence or how the complex sense of self we possess occurs.

Yet it still knows vastly more than all of philosophy and religion. So once again, you're better off with the cutting edge of science than thousands of years of philosophy and religion. At least science is on the right track.

Dan8267 says

You then tried to argue that the knowledge contained in a high-level program, using chess as an example, makes free choices. However, the high-level program is not what is executed by the computer. Low-level machine language is executed by digital gates. If the chess playing program is making free choices then it is doing so with simple binary logic gates. The high-level language and the source code are not at play. They don't even have to exist on the computer running the chess program. So whatever choice is being made by the computer is being made mechanically and without the slightest deviation from blind obedience to causality as specified in the laws of nature. This is no different if you replace the binary logic gates with neurons, gears, or any other physical device.

What you say here is obvious and totally missed the point, which is that some concepts make sense only on certain layers.
The gates in the CPU are only looking at bits. They don't know and don't care that the bits part of a representations of a chess game (for example).
Yet if you needed to analyse what a chess program is doing would you focus on transistors in the CPU or would you focus on the high level code that describes what the program does it this case or that one?

Heraclitusstudent says

Any 4 yrs old kid can understand why a living being requires a nervous a nervous system to think while a computer doesn't.

That's not what I asked.

Heraclitusstudent says

Dan8267 says

Free will, as talked about for thousands of years, cannot be throttled. I wasn't talking of your definition obviously but mine.

An assertion without any support is not an argument.

I've already presented plenty of evidence of what people mean by free will. You said you didn't have the attention span to view it. That doesn't mean the evidence isn't there.

And as for your definition of free will, who cares? It's not the subject of this thread, the subject of the video in the original post, or what anyone before you has meant when using that term. Again, define free will as "a smelly asshole" and plenty of people have it. But then when you say "free will exists" that doesn't mean anything to anyone else.

I'm not going to argue nomenclature anymore with you. Your entire argument can be summed up as

Of course free will doesn't exist. But I want people to go around saying it does, so I'll change the definition to something completely irrelevant. When people agree that something exists that I call free will, they will get confused and think everything written about free will by philosophers and holy books were right.

Drop it already.

Dan8267 says

A chess program's choices are still deterministic. It has no more ability to deviate from pre-ordained results than a shovel has.

If you throw a brick at a shovel, it won't react.
Except if you threaten its king, it will react.
The capacity to look at the future and make choices, and execute these choices means we have agency.
Thanks to this ability, we build houses to be warm in winter. We build farms, we built roads, we built an entire civilization because we can anticipate the future and make choices to enhance our well-being.
We have agency. We have a will. We have moral to regulate interactions.
You can say a posteriori all choices were deterministic. Fine. But this is extremely irrelevant for the people making choices everyday and changing the world thank to that capacity.

Heraclitusstudent says

A computer can have free will because it can contain a complex representation of a given universe, including a simplistic one like a chessboard.

Again, I don't give a shit about your meaningless redefining of free will. A complex representation of a given universe does not create free will as specified in every religious or philosophical text ever written in all of history. It is not the free will the fictional Christian god gave to man. It is not the free will judges believe in when they sentence defendants. It is not the free will that the torturer uses to justify his actions against the wicked.

Oh, and by the way, amoebas do have sophisticated knowledge of their environment in their DNA. They know how to build membranes to separate themselves from the outside world. They know how to digest sugars and proteins. They know how to build and repair organelles. They know how to trap, capture, and kill prey. There is a ton of knowledge in their genetic code.

Furthermore, all the parts of an amoeba function like the digital logic gates or gears or neurons when it comes to making choices. An amoeba has to choose where to move and what to attack. It's using logic implemented as physical constructs. So it is an information processing device acting on a model of its universe. You give it too little credit.

Heraclitusstudent says

Yet if you needed to analyse what a chess program is doing would you focus on transistors in the CPU or would you focus on the high level code that describes what the program does it this case or that one?

What I the programmer would do is irrelevant. The source code simply doesn't exist on the computer executing the program. Only the machine language code exists there. So any knowledge the computer has is in the machine language code alone.

Heraclitusstudent says

The capacity to look at the future and make choices, and execute these choices means we have agency.

Agency is not free will. If you want to argue that a person, animals with brains, and someday A.I. have will, then finally we are in agreement. Hell, I could have saved you the trouble and said that at the beginning of this thread. But will is not free. That is the entire point of this thread. Your will is not free to be anything except what is predetermined by the internal state of your brain and the inputs to it. You have unfree will. Other animals with brains have unfree will. Futuristic A.I.s will have unfree will. Hell, I'll even go as far as saying amoebas have unfree will and that will does not require a brain. Will can be implemented with other things. But none of these things, including you, has free will. Will is bounded to the laws of nature and the state of the physical mechanism that implements it.

Game, set, match.

I'll take a simple example: Joe walks to work nearby a shallow pond, and on that day he can see a toddler in the water struggling and drowning. He looks around: no one else is looking.

- Based on what Dan explained, Joe think: "I don't have free will. It doesn't matter what I think. It's all pre-ordained anyway. I don't want to get wet or be late for work. Therefore I'll go on. It's just my brain deciding and it's all deterministic, so nothing I can do, and no one can blame me."

- Based on what I explained: Joe immediately goes and saves the toddler. He made this decision based on his appreciation of the importance of human life compared to mundane tasks like going to work. He understands the choice was made according to deterministic rules and doesn't give a shit.

Of course you can always look at such choices a posteriori, look at the material layer, and say Joe didn't have a choice.

But the question is: did it matter what Joe wanted? Did it matter what he thought he should do?
And the answer is a resounding YES. It changed the outcome.

Does it matter that choices are done in a deterministic fashion?
The answer is: for all practical purposes, absolutely NOT.

That's all there is to this question.

Dan8267 says

Agency is not free will

agency is the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices

Heraclitusstudent says

- Based on what Dan explained, Joe think: "I don't have free will. It doesn't matter what I think. It's all pre-ordained anyway. I don't want to get wet or be late for work. Therefore I'll go on. It's just my brain deciding and it's all deterministic, so nothing I can do, and no one can blame me."

If you actually believe what you wrote, you have no clue as anything I have written means. This is a ludicrous straw man argument.

Of course Joe is going to save the toddler because his morality demands it. That morality came from evolution and is implemented in his brain by atoms that mindlessly follow QED. It is predestined that Joe would save the toddler. Joe would always have saved the toddler.

Free will does not imply morality, nor does morality imply free will.

Heraclitusstudent says

agency is the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices

1. Wikipedia is a worthless piece of shit site. It is not an authority. Using it is lazy.
2. Even this definition does not imply that agency equals free will. At best it implies agency equals will. That will would not be free.

Dan8267 says

At least science is on the right track

Science has usually been on the right track. For example 110 years ago when Newtonian mechanics was the cutting edge of physics, it was on the right track. Nobody thinks we are done yet with physics, and everyone knows we are really far from understanding the human mind. So I'll stick for now with logic.

In the Atlantic article I linked (which does give some credence to Harris' view as a counterpoint to the thesis of the article), they cite experiments and surveys that show people behave differently when they believe they have free will than when they don't. I think those experiments should be followed up,, to verify the results. If this is true, is it not an indirect proof that free will exists ? Sam Harris would say that in those cases it's becasue those people become fatalists which is the wrong way to view not having free will. So ? It's still true that when they believed they didn't have free will, they were likely to behave differently.

Dan8267 says

nor does morality imply free will.

I agree, not in the absolute sense. But possibly in a relative sense to some degree ?

marcus says

. Nobody thinks we are done yet with physics, and everyone knows we are really far from understanding the human mind.

Which is what makes it a straw man. The scientific method just works. It's a self-correcting, accurate, and verifiable method for understanding the universe. No other methodology comes close to the performance of the scientific method. And it's not mutually exclusive with math and logic. Science uses math and logic to their fullest extent.

marcus says

they cite experiments and surveys that show people behave differently when they believe they have free will than when they don't.

Whether or not people believe in free will does not affect whether or not free real is real.

marcus says

Sam Harris would say that in those cases it's becasue those people become fatalists which is the wrong way to view not having free will. So ? It's still true that when they believed they didn't have free will, they were likely to behave differently.

The solution to not dealing with reality the right way isn't self-delusion but rather changing the way you deal with that reality. For example, drinking yourself into a stupor isn't the correct way to avoid the fact that you lost your job. The healthy thing to do is acknowledge your loss and find a new job. Self delusion is never the answer. If you cannot be honest with yourself, you aren't making the best decisions.

marcus says

I agree, not in the absolute sense. But possibly in a relative sense to some degree ?

I don't know what you mean.

Dan8267 says

I don't know what you mean.

It has more to do with believing in free will than having it. Believing in it seems to lead to taking more responsibility for your actions. That is according to experiments and surveys.

Dan8267 says

Whether or not people believe in free will does not affect whether or not free real is real.

But if the belief leads to different results, what does it tell you ?

You argue that delusion is wrong (let's suppose for a moment that I accept your truth (which I don't ).

What if both of these are true ?

1) We have no free will

2) Believing we have free will makes us a better person.

Without telling me why you don't want to believe #2, please, supposing both are true, how can you justify advocating that people believe we have no free will ?

I'm predicting that you will not answer the question, but rather claim that somehow both of these can not be true.

Besides, even Harris would probably admit that he can not prove there is no free will. He just believes it very deeply. I find this type of argument ironic coming from a hardcore atheist. He says his meditations make it especially clear to him. Can you see why I find that amusing ? We don't actually know we have no free will any more than we know with certainty that our experience of reality and of our self can totally be explained using our current understandings of our physical reality (and our brains). For all we know, there may be huge breakthroughs in science that will be required before we fully understand the role that consciousness plays in our experience and not to mention understanding in detail how physically our experience of mind/consciousness occurs.

marcus says

It has more to do with believing in free will than having it. Believing in it seems to lead to taking more responsibility for your actions.

1. It is also the case that belief in free will causes people to commit horrible acts on others who they believe "deserve it".
2. Encouraging a lie because you believe it will make people better is not only unethical and disrespectful to those people, but ultimately self-destructive. Foundations of lies can be corrupted, and when the lie is inevitably exposed, ticked off people will do the opposite of what you want anyway. It's better to promote moral and responsible behavior with the truth.
3. The truth is that the lack of free will does not absolve anyone of their legal, ethical, or moral responsibilities. Understanding this is more beneficial than any lie every could be.

marcus says

But if the belief leads to different results, what does it tell you ?

That people can be manipulated. However, that does not mean it is right to deceive people even if you have good intentions.

[stupid comment limit]

marcus says

1) We have no free will

2) Believing we have free will makes us a better person.

Although studies may show that under some conditions #2 makes some people behave better, we can see empirical proof that it causes other people to behave much, much worse. It's quite questionable if the short-term net gain is positive. It's almost certain that the long-term net gain is negative.

It ultimately comes down to this. Do you believe that good or evil works better? Which results in a better quality of life? I believe good does. Evil is short-sighted and self-defeating. It often offers short-term gains in excess of good, which is why it is tempting. But it is evil precisely because in the long-run it is bad.

I would say that you should renounce the lie even if it's useful in the short term because practical reasons make it counter-productive in the long run. And even if a lie was net beneficial in the long run, you should still renounce it because it is morally wrong and unethical to promote the lie. Sure, there are some lies that should be told. If you are hiding a Jew and the Nazis ask you if any Jews are around, you should lie. However, there is no good lie that requires deceiving all of society for lifetimes or millennials. If there were the case, then evil would be superior to good, and dishonesty superior to honesty. I do not accept such a proposition. There is no evidence in the universe to support the assertion that evil outperforms good in the long run, and there is plenty of evidence that good ultimately provides better returns.

Well, give me the exact answer I expected. You did answer it though.

It changes in an important way, when you realize that we really don't know whether we have free will or not.

marcus says

I'm predicting that you will not answer the question, but rather claim that somehow both of these can not be true.

Well, your prediction was completely wrong, as usual. And I didn't read the above sentence before writing my responses above. I often take posts in piecemeal so as to address each point.

Tell me Marcus, are you ever going to admit that you don't have a grasp on what goes on in the internals of my mind? It's not that my reasoning is hard to follow or unpredictable, but you simply cannot predict behavior that doesn't fit your preconceived notions. You are completely lousy at predicting my behavior.

Dan8267 says

It's almost certain that the long-term net gain is negative.

I don't agree. Not even close.

Plus, if everyone is agreeing that bad behavior is punished, then it is sometimes going to prevent the psychopath from killing, out of self preservation. In the same way that North Korea is prevented from nuking anyone, regardless of how crazy their leader is.

Again,

marcus says

It changes in an important way, when you realize that we really don't know whether we have free will or not.

I get it that you and Sam Harris want it to be an axiom.

marcus says

We don't actually know we have no free will

There is no reason to accept this statement. People are capable of knowing things, and knowing that they know them. If this weren't the case, no one would ever get surgery or take a plane ride. We literally bet our lives on our knowledge.

marcus says

any more than we know with certainty that our experience of reality and of our self can totally be explained using our current understandings of our physical reality (and our brains).

No one has made such a claim. However, one does not have to know everything about the universe to know that we don't have free will. It is impossible given the laws of nature we do know, just like creating a perpetual motion machine is known to be impossible. You may not like that answer, but it's the truth. Hell, I may not like the answer either. It's not like I'm rooting for one side. The difference is that I am compelled to believe the truth based on evidence and reasoning rather than based on what I want to be true.

By the way, why do I always have to be the Scully to all you Mulders? It's time you applied some healthy skepticism to things.

marcus says

I'm predicting that you will not answer the question, but rather claim that somehow both of these can not be true.

marcus says

Well, give me the exact answer I expected. You did answer it though.

How can you expect me to not answer a question while also expecting me to give a specific answer? You're ability to believe two contradicting things simultaneously is one of the fundamental problems with your thinking processes.

Dan8267 says

People are capable of knowing things, and knowing that they know them.

Of course. But the free will question is still widely debated, and is not knowable unless you make several assumptions about the world being deterministic in a totally understood way. .

Good essay about what sometimescounts as knowing things today.
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/4875283-155/george-f-will-an-excess-of

marcus says

Plus, if everyone is agreeing that bad behavior is punished, then it is sometimes going to prevent the psychopath from killing, out of self preservation.

No one has ever made the claim that the lack of free will means there should be a lack of legal accountability. In fact, all those who have stated that free will does not exist have also stated that we should still lock of prisoners for both public safety from repeat behavior and as deterrents for the criminal and others. The one difference in our legal system between accepting the false notion of free will and rejecting it, is that as long as free will is accepted it will continue to be used as a justification for inflicting pointless and needless suffering on people that has nothing to do with protecting the public or deterring crimes. There are countless examples of people being beaten, abused, tortured, killed, humiliated, or otherwise made to suffer because "they deserve it". At the heart of all this pseudo-morality is the false belief in free will.

Dan8267 says

At the heart of all this pseudo-morality is the false belief in free will.

There are plenty of good Christians (for example) who believe in free will and are opposed to the kind of abuse, and inflicted suffering you describe. Not saying that religion is never used in this way. Many fundamentalists do. But consider the pope for example or the dali Lama, or countless religous leaders who do not advocate cruelty but who do of course believe in free will

marcus says

But the free will question is still widely debated

Climate change is still widely debated precisely because one side refuses to acknowledge the truth and, in fact, does not care about the truth. If one side wants a falsehood to be accepted by society, as you suggest for free will, then that side will never acknowledge the truth. They may have religious, political, or financial reasons for advocating a falsehood, but they will not ever change. You cannot convince a man of a truth that threatens his livelihood.

Religion's power is largely based on the free will lie. Religious leaders are not going to admit it's all a lie.

marcus says

and is not knowable unless you make several assumptions about the world being the way you want it to be.

The only "assumptions" I make is that there are laws of nature. That's a pretty safe assumption considering we built all of modern society, not only on that assumption, but on a specific set of accepted laws of nature. You could not write in this forum if those laws were wrong.

marcus says

There are plenty of good Christians (for example) who believe in free will and are opposed to the kind of abuse, and inflicted suffering you describe.

Irrelevant. This does not contradict the fact that many people commit abuse because of the false belief in free will. Furthermore, those Christians would not suddenly become sadists if they stopped believing in free will. Is the belief in free will the only reason you don't rape your own children to death? I think not. So the belief in free will is not a net gain.

Dan8267 says

The only "assumptions" I make is that there are laws of nature.

Now we're getting somewhere. Yes. But you assume that you know way more of these laws than you (or anyone does). We have no idea how the laws of nature work that allow us to feel that we experience a conscious (decision making) self and that allow us to intelligently get closer to fully understanding these laws and ourselves.

marcus says

We have no idea how the laws of nature work that allow us to feel that we experience a conscious (decision making) self

Consciousness does not imply free will, and free will does not imply consciousness. We do not have to know anything about consciousness in order to rule out the possibility that will is free. Just think about what "free will" or "will that is free" actually means. Free from what? Free from being determined by the laws of nature. That's what free will means. Nothing caused in the universe is caused by anything but the laws of nature, by definition. Ergo, free will cannot exist. It's existence would be, by definition, a violation of the laws of nature, whatever those laws are. We don't have to know any of the laws of nature to know that free will does not exist because it would have to violate whatever natural laws did exist.

This is indisputable deductive reasoning. It flows directly from the definition. A priori logic is all that is required.