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Then use your understanding of physics at an observable scale to demonstrate that the human mind is deterministic and not possessing free will. All it would take would be a practical demonstration of either mind reading or mind control. I'm pretty comfortable claiming that neither you nor anyone else can do that, but I stand ready to be proven wrong.
Absent such a demonstration, physics at an observable scale doesn't answer the question. I observe gravity and thermal conductivity in exactly the same way I observe free will. My confidence in my understanding of gravity and thermal conductivity is reinforced by experience, exactly the way it is for free will.
I don't accept a claim of cause and effect when the relationship of cause and effect can't actually be demonstrated. I certainly don't accept it in cases where the demonstration has been repeatedly attempted and has repeatedly failed.
The point of the universal fire quote above is that you can't appeal to the tightly-laced reality of nature if you can't actually point to the laces. If you want to claim that a cause leads to an effect, you have to actually demonstrate the linkage. You don't get to just say "well it has to be this, what else could it be?"
All effects have causes. Can we agree on that framework?
Happily.
Then there is no free will. It requires an effect without a cause.
No, the cause of my free will appears to be me. You can then ask what the cause of me is, and I don't know.
What's the alternative? According to you, the cause of my "free will" is the physical laws. Cool. What's the case of the physical laws?
The cause of "me" as you say is just your genetics and your experiences, or more simply, the state of the universe before now. That is how our universe works, for better or worse. All your choices come from that. They can't not.
If I were to grant that this was true, then what is the state of our universe caused by? and let's cut to the chase and go with the Big Bang, which is the back of the chain as far as I'm aware. What was the big bang caused by? What causes the physical laws to exist?
Further, I don't grant that this is true. I've agreed that all effects have causes. I have not agreed that any specific thing causes anything else. I believe in physical laws because I can see confirmation of them. I haven't seen confirmation that physical laws cause consciousness or an illusion of free will.
So let's say the big bang happened. Who cares what caused it? Everything we know precedes from it and was always going to happen exactly as it did. There is no reason for the future to behave differently than the past, so things will continue to unfold in the only way they ever could have. Since everything has a cause everything is causal. There simply is no room for the concept of "free will", I can't even fathom what it could look like.
Physical laws cause everything.. that is also all there is. If there was more, that would also be a law, and we could understand it and incorporate it into knowledge base. There is nothing outside of what exists (because their literally by definition, can't be), everything is causal (as we agreed), and thus there is no free will.
I do, because it demonstrates that at least one unobservable cause clearly exists. If the universe and everything in it can have an unobservable cause, I don't think it's too unreasonable to claim that the self can have an unobservable cause as well, given that no observable cause is available.
You are free to assume that the unobserved cause of both the universe and the self are just more physics, but this belief is neither empirical nor falsifiable. It is simply a statement of faith, an axiom you have adopted to direct your reasoning and to filter evidence.
And of course, further evidence can change all this. Demonstrate mind reading and mind control, and I'll agree that Determinism appears to be correct. In the meantime, I'll continue to point out that confident assertions are not evidence.
Free will does not violate causality any more than the big bang does. We observe the big bang, and you ask "who cares what caused it". We likewise observe free will and the self, and I ask "who cares what caused it?" Why is that answer fine from you and a problem from me?
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