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Wittgenstein Resolves the Free Will Debate

Free Will, Wittgenstein, and Agency Table of Contents The Basic Idea Applying that Idea to Free Will Flattening the Discourse Improving the Overall Quality of our Discourse Enriching the Conceptual Space Enhancing Discussions about Human Agency Revisiting Kevin Mitchells "Free Agents" Conclusions I was recently revisiting some of the concepts I discussed previously in my first Free Will post, but with Wittgenstein lingering in my short term memory. In the past, my conclusions was that "yes, we obviously have free will", but that our understanding of the term causes confusion. But now after reconsideration, I am not even sure it's a deciadable yes or no question; rather, it'...

Nomological Harmony

The argument from nomological harmony is a recent theistic argument. It is trying to show that there is something in need of explanation about the way the laws of nature and the actual contents/state of the universe fit together, and that theism explains that fit better than brute naturalism does. The core idea is the universe is not just a pile of stuff plus a separate list of laws. The laws we have actually apply to the stuff that exists, and when applied to the universe’s states they generate further states. Cutter and Saad describe the striking fact this way: our universe has a “harmonious match between laws and states.” They also say things might have been otherwise: the universe could have been “stillborn,” with laws that did not engage its initial state in any productive way. So the argument is doing two things at once. First, it identifies a surprising fact; why do the actual laws "hook into"...