[GdB]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

This guy is good fun I like his approach and I find this idea refreshing. It deals with the nagging feeling you sometimes get with some hard determinists, namely that they are just pushing a modal fallacy one step ahead of them at all times.

Nice you like him.

But also he is surely not the first to present this idea. But he is the most rigorous defender of this idea I know.

The same idea you can find e.g. in Raymond Smullyan's funny dialogue Is God a Taoist?

Mortal:
(...) Do I have free will?

God:
Yes.

Mortal:
Then why did you say I shouldn't have taken it for granted?

God:
Because you shouldn't. Just because something happens to be true, it does not follow that it should be taken for granted.

Mortal:
Anyway, it is reassuring to know that my natural intuition about having free will is correct. Sometimes I have been worried that determinists are correct.

God:
They are correct.

Mortal:
Wait a minute now, do I have free will or don't I?

God:
I already told you you do. But that does not mean that determinism is incorrect.

Mortal:
Well, are my acts determined by the laws of nature or aren't they?

God:
The word determined here is subtly but powerfully misleading and has contributed so much to the confusions of the free will versus determinism controversies. Your acts are certainly in accordance with the laws of nature, but to say they are determined by the laws of nature creates a totally misleading psychological image which is that your will could somehow be in conflict with the laws of nature and that the latter is somehow more powerful than you, and could "determine" your acts whether you liked it or not. But it is simply impossible for your will to ever conflict with natural law. You and natural law are really one and the same.