Compatibilism❌→ Synonymism ✔️
The Freedom to Be Determined: On Synonyms and the Inside of Causality
“And according to this proper and generally received meaning of the word, a freeman is he that, in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to.” — Thomas Hobbes
Metaphysics Series — Agentic Panperspectivalism
On Why Determinism and Free Will Are the Same Thing
Centuries of careful thought have been consumed by a single debate and left all sides dissatisfied, frustrated and in a state of either deny a deep sitting intuition, accept a lukewarm compromise or sit at odds with our observations.
The debate is the one between determinism and free will. The solution I want to focus and improve upon today is compatibilism: the view that both are true simultaneously, that the causal order of the universe and the freedom of your choices can coexist without contradiction.
I want to argue something stronger however. Saying they are compatible still says they are different things that we can match them up correctly to be at peace with both. But in this essay I can hopefully show you that they are identical.
The entire conflict between the two camps is as is often the case a mirage. The opposition is based on the failure to change ones perspective.
Compatibalism is unsatisfying because it asks of us to hold two descriptions together without logical collision. Yes everything is determined by physical laws. Yes the chain of causes runs through you unchangable from the beginning of time. But as long as the effects of that chain run through your hands they are your effects. And isn’t that what we really want here? (No, Dennett, that’s not what we want.)
Most people confronted with the compatibilist solution feel tricked. Me included. No, I don’t think just because it was determined within my brain it suddenly makes it my choice when the Option to choose differently never existed.
The idea that compatibalism restores moral agency and responsibility is a noble goal but it fails. A criminal’s causal chain has started from initial conditions he didn’t choose and unfolded through mechanism defined by natural laws outside of him.
There is no way anyone can be truly at fault for being the wrong arrangement of stuff at the wrong time and space.
So let me propose something more accurate.
I’ll let you be the judge of if its more satisfying.
Free Will and Determinism are the same description, delivered from two different coordinates. What looks like ordered, lawful, inevitable unfolding from the outside (looking at somethings behavior from the past into the present) is — from the inside, from the only locus any of us actually occupy — motivated navigation toward preferred outcomes.
And the beautiful thing? Our navigation is that which actually exists. the determined chain we observe and describe for the patterns around us are necessarily abstracted projections of what we derived from our observations. Meaning determinism is something that is inevitable in the past and impossible for the present and future.
Free Will writes the story a determinist observes as causality.
I’m calling this synonymism. And I think it dissolves the problem completely.
Why the Debate Felt Like a Conflict
Before I argue for synonymism, I want to ask a prior question:
Why did determinism ever feel like a threat to freedom in the first place?
The answer is surprisingly simple. We decided — mostly without noticing that we had decided — that the third-person description of events is more real than the first-person one.
Physics describes a billiard ball moving across a table. The ball’s trajectory at any moment is fully determined by prior causes — its velocity, the angle of impact, the surface friction. Nothing about the ball’s future is open. It will go exactly where the laws say it will go.
Then we applied the same lens to human beings. The neurons fire, the chemistry shifts, the action occurs. From outside, the causal chain is complete. Where, in this picture, is freedom?
The picture assumes that the outside view is the view. That the third-person physical description captures everything real about what happened. And that if freedom isn’t visible from there, it isn’t real.
But this assumption was never argued for. It was smuggled in. And once you surface it, the whole debate changes shape.
If you allow me to be my own hype man for a second here. This essay is a banger! It’s a shame Thursday is my paywall day. If you cant afford the paid sub always feel free to reach out! 🌱❤️
