Do Manifolders believe in free will?
JosephNoonan avatar
Plasma Ballin'
15
closes Oct 8
39%
chance

On my Manifold survey, I will ask the following question:

Which of the following options best describes your position on free will?

  • Compatibilism: Free will and determinism are compatible, i.e., it is metaphysically possible for free will to exist in a deterministic universe.

  • Compatibilism, but I still think free will doesn't exist for some other reason.

  • Hard determinism: Free will is metaphysically possible, but not compatible with determinism, and either determinism is true, or it's close enough to being true to rule out the existence of free will.

  • Libertarianism (not to be confused with the political ideology of the same name): Free will is incompatible with determinism, but it exists anyway. Therefore, determinism is false, and freely willed decisions are not determined by prior conditions.

  • Impossibilism: Free will is not metaphysically possible.

  • Incompatibilist and believe that free will doesn't exist, but my reasoning isn't related to determinism or to free will being metaphysically impossible.

  • There is no fact of the matter on whether free will exists and/or the concept is meaningless.

  • Other

  • Not sure

I might slightly revise the descriptions of these options, but otherwise, they should stay the same.

This market resolves YES if the majority of responses, excluding "Other" or "Not sure" responses, are for Compatibilism or Libertarianism (not including the "Compatibilism, but free will doesn't exist" option). It resolves NO if the majority are any of the four responses that say free will doesn't exist. If neither side has the majority (this would happen either in a tie or if enough people select "There is no fact of the matter on whether free will exists and/or the concept is meaningless" to prevent either pro- or anti- free will answers from having the majority), then the market resolves to the percentage of definite responses (responses other than "There is no fact of the matter on whether free will exists and/or the concept is meaningless," "Other," or "Not sure") that say that free will exists.

See Plasma's Manifold Survey for other questions about the survey.

The survey is officially out! You can take it here: https://forms.gle/xZqWVxuY5irgLigu9

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JosephNoonan avatar
Plasma Ballin'

The survey is officially out! You can take it here: https://forms.gle/xZqWVxuY5irgLigu9

JosephNoonan avatar
Plasma Ballin'

Worth noting that the most recent PhilPapers Survey gave 59% Compatibilism, 19% Libertarianism, and 11% No free will (and 3% saying the question is unclear or there's no fact of the matter). So if Manifold's opinions are similar to the philosophers who took that survey, this would resolve YES by a wide margin. I suspect Manifold's opinions are significantly different than professional philosophers, though, both because non-philosophers are often unaware of compatibilism due to the misleading way the free will debate is framed to the public, and because Manifolders tend to be from the scientific rationalist community, which presumably makes us much less likely to believe in libertarianism.