Title: Hard Determinism
Headings: Hard Determinism Explained
Hard Determinism Explained
Everything is predetermined and we have no free will
Arguments for hard determinism
What about quantum mechanics?
What about the feeling that we have free will?

Content: Consequently, such events cannot be predicted. We can say that there is, say, a 90% probability that something will happen, meaning that nine times out of ten, a specific set of conditions will produce that happening. But the reason we can’t be more precise is not because we are lacking a relevant piece of information; it is just that a degree of indeterminacy is built into nature. The discovery of quantum indeterminacy was one of the most surprising discoveries in the history of science, and it has never been universally accepted. Einstein, for one, could not countenance it, and still today there are physicists who believe that the indeterminacy is only apparent, that eventually a new model will be developed which reinstates a thoroughly deterministic point of view. At present, though, quantum indeterminacy is generally accepted for much the same sort of reason that determinism is accepted outside quantum mechanics: the science that presupposes it is phenomenally successful. Quantum mechanics may have dented the prestige of determinism as a universal doctrine, but that doesn’t mean it has salvaged the idea of free will. There are still plenty of hard determinists around.