Chicken or egg has a simple answer. Clearly the egg. I mean dinosaurs laid eggs and that was way before the days of the chicken...
It's because we were always going to be online at the same time posting in this thread because of the cause and effect chains in each of our lives. The cause and effect chain remains unbroken for the duration of existence. There has never been an action without cause...
I find it hard to believe that you even believe what you are saying, in the very language you use. I will just pick this one part and see what you think. "Just because nobody has free will doesn't mean we should act (as) if we don't" If everything is predetermined... How can we act any different? You act like you have free will because you think you have free will, and because you do have free will. To argue against your own free will is self defeating. To reiterate, you say we should act as if we have free will is in itself an acknowledgement that we have free will. It honestly seems like you subconsciously know you have free will, so why deny the obvious?
What we have is the illusion of free will. If we didn't, nothing would ever get accomplished. And maybe you could argue that the illusion of free will is strong enough it might as well be the real thing. But regardless of whether it's free will, or just the illusion of free will, I believe in predetermination.
Why would nothing get accomplished? If it is all just part of the domino effect, the exact same would get done if not more because there wouldn't be two people online wasting time arguing. So you don't believe in free will, if you have no agency, you have no belief, you just "are".
Because if we didn't feel like our choices mattered, why would we even try to better ourselves in life?
It feels to us like we have a choice. Our mind is making a decision. The outcome of that decision is predetermined. Whether you call that free will or not is a matter of semantics...
What convinced you determinism was true (other than the fact that you apparently had no choice in the matter)? What is 'your mind'?
I don't know how the concept of free will could possibly arise in a predetermined reality. What agent is experiencing the apparent free will? If there is no agent... We have a problem. If there is no free will, there is no agency.
It's the only logical conclusion in a closed cause and effect system. Your mind is your brain and its thoughts.
So your presupposition is that it is a closed cause and effect system, which is logically indefensible, it leads to an infinite regress. Btw I appreciate you going on the journey and staying calm and not being defensive. I am challenging your ideas, not your being, they are not one in the same (most people act like they are).
I don't take anything personally. You're only engaging in healthy debate. How could I take that personally when I don't even take it personally when someone wishes me severe ill? But, yes, I cannot prove that it is a closed cause and effect system but that is what it appears to be if you believe in the big bang theory...
I admire that. That gets back to the 'first cause' problem. As Liebniz said "why is their something rather than nothing" Except he said it in German...
I think about that a lot. It's really miraculous that everything exists when just as easily nothing could have existed...