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Is science compatible with determinism?

#1
C C Offline
In the course of reading some forgotten past newds article, I came across comments by a couple of rogue(?) scientists (names likewise lost) who contended or suggested that the results of science were compromised if there was no free will. Ergo, they had to believe.

But the actual gist of this inquiry: We know that defenders of science who also believe in determinism will point out things or submit arguments for why science is compatible with determinism. (Unlike those mentioned above.)

So could a general template be abstracted from the nature of their defense that could also be applied to free will being compatible with determinism? Or is there too much dissimilarity, nothing to compare?

Here's an ordinary definition of "free will" from Wordweb: "The power of making free choices unconstrained by external agencies."

That meaning seems (to me, anyway) to revolve around autonomy: It treats you (or whatever thinking agent) as being the source of your decisions, actions, etc -- you and your specific biological organization of components is producing them (not the mindless Milky Way Galaxy, and so forth). And FW doesn't have to be absolute, since one can't always do everything one wants to (the latter can contingently be constrained by environmental circumstances).

Also note that there is no gobbledygook injected into that simple definition about the non-conscious activity of your brain not qualifying as "you" (which would thereby snowball to include your body not being you); and about FW requiring souls or whatever that don't change in time (the conflict of forbidding antecedent states, in a causal chain, or as extended processes like decision-making itself).
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Now back to the question in the subject line...

Occasionally you see such wrangled about in forums: How Do You Do Science Without Free Will?

Here's another question of similar stripe: If a determinist's choice to be a determinist is mere appearance -- an illusion (i.e, like everything else -- s/he was rigged to be a determinist in advance), then could the arguments and evidence offered by a determinist be reliable or trustworthy? How would their apologetics in response to poo-pooing that away be in a different category than the motivated reasoning of, say, a person of another classification "protecting" themselves who likewise had no choice but to be an _X_ (with respect to the worldview of a determinist and incompatibalist, who rejects FW)?
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#2
Syne Offline
While "The power of making free choices unconstrained by external agencies" is a good definition, compatibilism makes the further assumption that, at some point, you have no choice, which is contradictory. Either you have the genuine power to make free choices or your choices are ultimately determined by your desires, which you supposedly do not determine. IOW, compatibilism is just a semantic game. Compatibilism is just determinism, sans the semantic games.

But neither is belief in genuine free will a complete denial of determinism. Obviously, cause and effect work consistently enough for us to have science at all. But practically, we can never trace an effect all the way back to its ultimate cause.

So yes, either discoveries in science are things humans have a legitimate hand in finding or it was all bound to happen regardless, and our discoveries are only the coincidence of what was bound to happen impinging upon the mirror of the human brain. If the latter, things like Nobel prizes are meaningless.

But yes, if everyone's actions are determined, at least through determined desires, no one has any better argument for what they believe than anyone else, and arguing views on, say, a science forum only make sense because the person has no real choice.
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