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If freewill is being the sole author of your actions and there is never a point in life in which you are not influenced (i.e., chemical reaction, previous experience, genetic predisposition, bias, preconceived notions, instinct...), then can one really be the author of their action and exercise free will or is hard determinism the only plausible answer?

-Eduardo Alpizar

November 26, 2005

Response from Peter Lipton on November 27, 2005
Even if determinism is incompatible with free will, a claim of hard determinism might be false or misleading. It is false if the world is in fact indeterministic. It is misleading if determinism is true, but free will would be impossible even if it weren't. That is, it may be that our ordinary concept of free will is like the concept of a round square, a concept of something that could not possibly exist. If so, it is misleading to put the blame on determinism.

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