The Bad Argument in the Great Debate about Free Will (Updated)

YouTube is great. Some weeks ago I found an excellent video (produced by an atheist) that nicely brought low the argument that foreknowledge is incompatible with free will.

That video spawned the usual sprawling debate thread, though YouTube's character limits on commentary kept that debate at minimal depth. A recent set of comments from "dbes02" confidently makes claims like the following:

But that's the whole point - if someone's behaviour is PREDICTABLE then they don't have free will.

If dbes02 was just talking about predictability in principle--a concept entailed by determinism--then that would be fine.  But this character's arguments look like they'll boil down to a consistent assumption of determinism.

Hoping to obtain a view of his argument unconstrained by character limits, I went hunting for uploaded videos and found the following:




Somebody posts an entire YouTube video to refute free will and this is the entire argument? Unbelievable.

• If I had free will it would be just as easy to choose to strangle my 8 year old daughter as to choose to hug her.
• But it isn't, so I don't have free will.

I posted a response showing how an indeterministic model (thought experiment) provides a fatal counterexample to his argument. He soon replied, hilariously asserting that I was begging the question by assuming that indeterminate outcomes are possible. Apparently dbes02 does not realize that if his criticism of me was legitimate then it is just as fatal to his own argument:  "If I had free will ..."  If he can't have free will then the argument is superfluous.  If he can (at least for the sake of argument) then we can have indeterminate outcomes unless we beg the question.

Update:

I tried to lure "dbes02" into engaging in a formal debate where he would defend his assertion that "Epistemic determinism is incompatible with free will."

Having every confidence in my ability to quash whatever argument he might present, I suggested a formal debate, perhaps hosted by infidels.org.  Dbes02 responded with some hilarious evasions, and the debate challenge remains hanging.  I made the initial challenge via (YouTube) private messaging, but before this posting reiterated it in the public commentary.  And dbes02 has already sniffed around the bait (those interested can find the details here).

As it turns out, the Internet Infidels no longer host a discussion board.  But the discussion from there migrated to the Freethought & Rationalism Discussion Board.