Thoughts on free will vs. determinism

[BrettK]

I feel like I've had to say the same things over and over again and I'm all 'debated' out, so the last word is yours. No hard feelings I hope.

[smoore]

more god bs in psychology? put this crap in oot where it belongs, kthxplz.

[Triumph36]

You can't explain a contradiction in terms of itself: I tried to show what appears to be a contradiction is not. I believe that assuming either free will or determinism leads to obvious contradictions: that both can be proven to be 'true' by proving the other false, and that therefore both are meaningless. To understand how 'decisions' are made, we're not saying they were determined by relations in the brain, nor can we say that they are the result of an entirely free will, and therefore entirely unknowable. We can come up with guesses for why decisions were made, what motivations were behind them.. but no more than that. That requires a mix of the two philosophies.