Is free will an abstract concept?

There is an abstract concept of indeterministic free will. It is the concept of a decision making process not governed by classical deterministic laws of physics. For the abstract concept called free will we ask what its properties would be and how we could test for its existence or measure it.

Where did the concept of free will come from?

The main stages in the development of the notion of free will may be characterized as follows: the philosophical bases were first proposed by Greek thinkers; these were then developed systematically by patristic and medieval writers, under the influence of the Christian religion; then controversies arose in later …

Is free will inherently flawed?

Leading psychologists such as Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom agree, as apparently did the late Stephen Hawking, along with numerous prominent neuroscientists, including VS Ramachandran, who called free will “an inherently flawed and incoherent concept” in his endorsement of Sam Harris’s bestselling 2012 book Free Will, which also makes that argument.

Does the concept of free will make no sense?

In this book, Harris argues that the concept of free will makes no sense and so those who believe they act freely and are responsible for those actions are being duped by their biology.

Do humans really have free will?

They all deny that human beings possess free will. They argue that our choices are determined by forces beyond our ultimate control – perhaps even predetermined all the way back to the big bang – and that therefore nobody is ever wholly responsible for their actions.

Is free will real or unreal?

Smilansky is an advocate of what he calls “illusionism”, the idea that although free will as conventionally defined is unreal, it’s crucial people go on believing otherwise – from which it follows that an article like this one might be actively dangerous.