Hi Everyone, I am interested in thoughts on my theory that seems to align both free will ideas and determinism in a logical way.

A Probabilistic Framework for Free Will: Beyond Determinism and Quantum Indeterminacy

Tony Norriss

The debate over free will and determinism has long been dominated by two competing views. Determinism argues that every action we take is the inevitable result of a causal chain, meaning our choices are effectively preordained. Quantum indeterminacy, on the other hand, has been proposed as a potential source of free will, suggesting that random events at the quantum level might create the unpredictability needed for genuine choice. But neither approach fully captures the complexity of human agency. Determinism feels overly restrictive, while quantum randomness risks making our choices feel arbitrary.

My proposal is a probabilistic framework for free will that rejects both strict determinism and randomness, offering a nuanced middle ground. This theory does not rely on quantum mechanics to explain free will but instead draws on the concept of probability curves to introduce variability within a causally structured decision-making process. By adding structured indeterminacy to the causal process, we create a path for free will that allows genuine choice without resorting to randomness.

The Limits of Deterministic Prediction

In classical determinism, every action is seen as part of a causal chain that could be predicted if we had complete knowledge of prior conditions. In this view, a hypothetical being with total awareness of every particle’s position—such as Laplace’s Demon—could, in theory, predict every future action and decision. If such determinism were true, free will would be an illusion, with each choice predetermined by the state of the universe.

But I argue that human decision-making defies this type of prediction. While our choices are influenced by past causes, the system of human decision-making operates probabilistically, not deterministically. This means that even if identical circumstances were repeated, the specific outcome of a decision cannot be known in advance. The structured variability in human choice introduces freedom within the bounds of causality, making free will plausible without depending on complete randomness.

Structured Probability in Decision-Making

Imagine that every choice we make exists within a probability curve—a distribution of potential actions, each with a different likelihood. This probability curve doesn’t represent randomness but rather reflects the influence of various deterministic factors, such as:

• Biological Influences: Neural wiring, emotional states, and physical health all affect our choices in unique, measurable ways.
• Environmental and Social Context: Social expectations, past experiences, and immediate surroundings shape our probability curve in specific ways.
• Personal Intentions and Values: Internal goals, beliefs, and self-reflection add further structure to our decision-making space.

Together, these factors create a probability curve for each decision. This curve is determined by causal influences but is probabilistic in its nature, meaning that while some choices are more likely than others, the exact outcome remains indeterminate until the moment of decision.

How This Differs from Quantum Indeterminacy

Quantum mechanics has often been proposed as a basis for free will, with the argument that quantum events introduce randomness into the universe. However, using quantum randomness to explain free will is problematic because it introduces an “uncaused cause”—an event that happens without any connection to prior factors. In this model, decisions would feel random and unconnected from our intentions, values, or experiences.

In contrast, my theory doesn’t rely on quantum randomness to explain choice. Instead, it posits that decision-making is probabilistic yet structured, with choices emerging from the unique combination of causal influences within each person’s life. This probabilistic framework introduces variability but keeps decisions grounded in the individual’s identity, history, and environment. In other words, we’re not just reacting to random quantum fluctuations; we’re acting within a complex, causally influenced probability space.

Challenging Determinism’s Predictive Power

Determinism assumes that every action could, in theory, be predicted by a being with complete knowledge of prior conditions. My framework challenges this by suggesting that the causal structure of human decision-making contains inherent probabilistic elements. These elements make it impossible to perfectly predict outcomes even with complete knowledge, not because of randomness, but because of structured indeterminacy. The decision-making process is still causally bound, but the specific path taken isn’t fixed in advance.

By maintaining both causality and variability, this framework preserves the concept of “could have done otherwise.” Given identical conditions, our decisions could differ—not due to randomness but because of the probabilistic nature of our causal structure. This dynamic captures the flexibility and richness of human choice without abandoning causation.

Implications for Free Will

1. Free Will as Structured Variability: This framework makes “could have done otherwise” meaningful without requiring randomness. The probabilistic nature of human decision-making allows for true variability, yet all choices remain connected to a causal background. This means that we are free to choose without being disconnected from the causal world that shapes us.
2. Agency Rooted in Individuality: By embedding variability within a causally grounded probability curve, this framework gives individuals a unique kind of agency. Choices are not random but reflect the structured complexity of the individual’s biological, social, and psychological influences.
3. Beyond Determinism and Indeterminism: This probabilistic approach provides a third option between determinism and indeterminism, one that embraces structured variability within causality. It shows that causality doesn’t preclude free will and that variability doesn’t have to mean randomness.

Conclusion: A Coherent Path to Free Will

Free will has often been presented as a choice between determinism and indeterminism, but both approaches have significant drawbacks. Determinism denies the meaningful variability we feel in our choices, while indeterminism can make actions feel arbitrary. By proposing a probabilistic framework for decision-making, I hope to offer a middle path that captures the richness of human agency without abandoning causality.

In this view, free will isn’t the absence of causation but the freedom to act within a probabilistic system. Our choices emerge from a structured probability space, shaped by our biology, culture, and individual intentions. This approach respects both the coherence of causation and the flexibility needed for meaningful choice, offering a fresh perspective on an age-old philosophical problem.

Road map diagram here

https://orangebud.co.uk/genealogy_of_morality.png

Collaborating towards a joint goal gives rise to an understanding of mutual dependence and self-other equivalence between partners (Tomasello, 2016).  These give rise in turn, respectively, to joint self-regulation and mutual altruism, and to equality, respect, fairness, and impartiality.  These form the basis of evolved morality*.  

* There are other kinds of evolved morality, namely: parenting, pair-bonding, patriarchy, kin selection (Perry, 2024).  

The proposal is that collaborating towards joint goals, with its accompanying evolved psychology, gives rise to the behaviour called morality, and its accompanying evolved psychology.  

Dual-level psychology of collaboration

Each partner, “you” and “I” is an agent with his or her own will and purpose.  When they act and think intentionally together, they form a joint agent “we”, with joint thinking and joint goals, from which benefits are to be maximised all round.  

The joint agent “we” consists of its individual partners “I” and “you”.  Each has their own perspective on the collaboration.  The perspective of the joint agent “we” is a “bird’s eye view” where it sees roles with people filling them.  Each partner has their own role, and perspective on the joint goal, and their own goals: sub-goals of the overall goal, role ideals.  These role ideals provide the basic pattern for norms and moral standards: a moral standard is a role ideal that belongs to any collaboration alike, such as, hard work, honesty, faithfulness, etc: to be an ideal collaborative partner.  

To coordinate our thinking and intentionality, I may take your perspective, as you may take mine, on the collaboration.  

The joint agent “we” governs you and I, so that I govern myself, and I govern you, and you govern me, on behalf of “us”.  

We can break down the “road map” of how collaboration produces morality into its elements, and the links between them, and define the unfamiliar terms and concepts.  

Elements of the road map

(1)  collaboration

Engaging in joint or collective activity with others for mutual benefit.  

(2)  interdependence

Depending on one another: I need you, and you need me; I depend on you, and you depend on me.  Symbiosis.  

(3)  self-other equivalence between collaborative partners

Partners are equivalent in several ways:

1. each is equally a causative force in the collaboration: each is equally necessary and responsible for what is done.  
2. partners are interchangeable within roles, in that each role could in principle be played by any competent partner.  
3. role ideals are impartial and apply equally to anyone who would play a particular role.  Hence, each person's ego is equally constrained, and so, each is equal in status in this sense.  None of us is free to do what we like, within the collaboration.  

(4)  mutual risk and strategic trust

I depend on you (2).  What if you let me down, and fail to collaborate ideally, and we do not achieve our goal?  There is mutual risk, because each depends on the other, and each may be weak and fallible.  In order to get moving, in the face of risk, it is necessary for each partner to trust the other “strategically”: rationally and in one’s own best interests.

(5)  mutual value

Because each partner needs (2) and benefits (1) the other, each partner values the other.  

(6)  equal status

Self-other equivalence (3) leads to a sense of equal status between partners.  

(7)  impartiality

The joint agent “we” governs every partner equally and impartially, since each partner is equivalent and equal (3).  

(8)  commitment

To reduce mutual risk (4), partners make a commitment to each other: they respectfully invite one another to collaborate, state their intentions, and make an agreement to achieve X goals together.  This commitment may be implicit -we simply “fall into” it -or explicitly stated.  

(9)  legitimacy of regulation

Because we agreed to collaborate (8), we agreed to regulate ourselves in the direction of achieving the joint goal.  The agreement gives the partners a feeling that the regulation is legitimate: proper and acceptable.  

(10)  mutual partner control, holding to account, responsibility

Mutual risk (4) and legitimacy of regulation (9) lead to partners governing each other and themselves in the direction of achieving the joint goal.  This regulation takes the practical forms of:

1. partner control -partners govern each other through correction, education, “respectful protest”, punishment, or the threat of exercising partner choice -finding a new partner.  
2. holding to account -I accept that I may be held to account for my behaviour, and you accept that I may hold you to account for your behaviour.  
3. responsibility -the legitimacy tells me that I “should” be an ideal collaborative partner to you.  Hence, I feel a sense of responsibility to you not to let you down in any way, and to see the collaboration through, faithfully, to the end.  

(11)  mutual empathic concern, gratitude and loyalty

If I need you and depend on you (2), I therefore value you (5) and feel empathic concern for your welfare.  I am likely also to feel gratitude and loyalty towards you.  

(12)  mutual respect and deservingness

If I value you (5) and consider you an equal (6), and we are working together towards joint goals (1), then I am likely to feel that you deserve equal respect and rewards as myself.  

(13)  fairness

Because you are equally respected and deserving as myself (12), and we are making impartial judgements of behaviour and deservingness (everyone is treated the same regardless of who they are) (7), the only proper result is one of fairness where each partner is rewarded on some kind of equal basis.  

(14)  impartial regulation

The regulation of “us” (8, 9, 10), by you and I, and the regulation of you and I by “us”, is impartial because we are all equivalent (3).  

BASIC MORALITY

Regulation (we > me)

This formula, “we is greater than me”, indicates that the joint agent “we” or “us” is ruling over “you” and “I”.  I govern myself, and I govern you, and you govern me, in the direction of the joint goal, on behalf of “us”, legitimately and impartially.  

Altruism (you > me)

This formula is about temporarily putting the interests of others above my own, in order to help them, out of charity, gratitude, loyalty, obligation, etc.  

Fairness, respect (you = me)

Equality is the basis of fairness, in two ways: 1) egalitarianism is necessary for fairness in that bullies cannot share fairly: dominants simply take what they want from subordinates, who are unable to stop them; 2) deservingness is decided on some kind of equal basis, whether in equal shares, equal return per unit of investment, equal help per unit of need, etc.  

“The eye of reputation” observes and evaluates cooperative and uncooperative behaviour

“Reputation” is shorthand for a number of related concepts:

1. my opinion of myself as a cooperator and moral person (personal cooperative or moral identity)
2. the opinion of my past or present collaborative partners of myself as a cooperator and moral person (cooperative identity)
3. my public reputation, the opinion of the world at large of myself as a cooperator and moral person (public moral identity, reputation)  

The world, and my collaborative partners, are always monitoring me and evaluating my performance as a cooperator and moral person.  In turn, through self-other equivalence (3), I do the same to myself, as I would any other person.  

According to our reputation or cooperative identity, we may be chosen or not chosen as collaborative partners (partner choice).  This can have important consequences as we all need collaborative partners in life.  Hence, reputation and partner choice form the “big stick” that ultimately turns my sense of responsibility to be an ideal partner (10), into an obligation, if I know what is good for me.  

BASIC NORMATIVITY

Normativity is defined as the pressure to achieve goals.  The diagram above connects with the structure of normativity (see diagram below).  We may be socially normative (achieve our goals socially) in two ways: cooperatively, with others, to mutual benefit; and competitively, at the expense of others.  There is also individual action which doesn't affect anyone else, and so is neither cooperative nor competitive.  

THE STRUCTURE OF INSTRUMENTAL NORMATIVITY

In the diagram below, cooperation and competition are the two ways to thrive, survive and reproduce involving other people.  The black “down” arrows mean “depends on, is a result of”, and the words in blue represent evolved drives, the achievement of which produces pleasure.  

https://orangebud.co.uk/normativity.PNG

References:  

Perry, Simon -“Understanding morality and ethics”, 2024; https://orangebud.co.uk/web_book_2.html

Tomasello, Michael -“A natural history of human morality”, 2016; Harvard University Press

Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules (especially posting rule 2). For example, these threads are great places for:

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The thesis is that reality is a continuous flow of 'being' and 'becoming,' where entities persist through natural duration rather than relying on an imposed concept of time.

Imagine you’re watching a river. It has parts that appear stable—a specific width, depth, and banks—but it’s also always in motion. It’s moving, changing, yet somehow stays recognizably a river. That’s close to the heart of this philosophy: reality is not just “things that are” or “things that change.” Reality is a seamless, dynamic flow of both stable presence (being) and ongoing unfolding (becoming).

In other words, each entity—like the river or a mountain, or even ourselves—has two intertwined aspects:

1. Being: This is the stable part, the “what is.” It’s what makes a tree recognizable as a tree or a river as a river, grounding each entity with a unique, steady presence.
2. Becoming: This is the unfolding part, the “always in motion” quality. The tree grows, the river flows, and even our own identities shift and evolve. Becoming is the dynamic side, the continual process that each entity participates in.

Duration: How Things Persist Without Needing “Time”

Here’s where it gets interesting: in this view, things don’t actually need “time” in the way we typically think about it. Instead, every entity has its own kind of natural duration, or persistence, that doesn’t rely on the clock ticking. Duration is how things stay coherent in their “being” while continuously unfolding in “becoming.”

For example, a mountain persists in its form even as it’s slowly worn down by erosion. Its duration isn’t about the hours, days, or years passing. It’s about the mountain’s intrinsic ability to endure in its own natural way within the larger flow of reality.

Why Time Isn’t a “Thing” Here, but an Interpretation

In this view, “time” is something we humans create not impose, to understand and measure the flow of this unified reality. We chop duration into hours, days, years—whatever units we find helpful. But in truth, entities like trees, mountains, stars, or rivers don’t need this structure to exist or persist, even 'you'. They have their own objective duration, their own intrinsic continuity, which is just a part of their existence in reality’s flow.

So, in simple terms, this philosophy says:

• Reality just is and is constantly becoming—a flow of stability and change.
• Entities have duration, which is their natural way of persisting, without needing our idea of “time.”
• We use “time” as a tool to interpret and measure this flow, but it’s not a necessary part of how reality fundamentally operates.

This view invites us to see reality as something organic and interconnected—a vast, seamless process where everything is both stable in what it “is” and constantly unfolding through its “becoming.”

I welcome engagements, conversations and critiques. This is a philosophy in motion, and i'm happy to clarify any confusions that may arise from it's conceptualization.

Note: Stability doesn't imply static of fixidity. A human being is a perfect example of this. On the surface, a person may appear as a stable, identifiable entity. However, at every level, from biological processes to subatomic interactions, there is continuous activity and change. Cells are replaced, blood circulates, thoughts emerge, and subatomic particles move in constant motion. Nothing about a human being remains fixed, yet a coherent form and identity are maintained. Stability here emerges as a dynamic interplay, a persistence that holds form while allowing for movement and adaptation. This emphasizes the concept of stability not as a static, unchanging state but as a fluid resilience, allowing a coherent identity to persist through continuous transformation.

This post addresses how we understand reality's nature.

• Objection 1: Isn’t time necessary to understand any persistence or change?
• Response: In this view, time as humans define it isn't fundamental; entities have their own objective durations that enable persistence and change within the flow of reality.
• Objection 2: Does this mean that scientific or empirical concepts of time are irrelevant?
• Response: Not irrelevant, but rather tools we use to interpret a fundamentally timeless reality, where time serves as a helpful construct...

Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules (especially posting rule 2). For example, these threads are great places for:

• Arguments that aren't substantive enough to meet PR2.

• Open discussion about philosophy, e.g. who your favourite philosopher is, what you are currently reading

• Philosophical questions. Please note that /r/askphilosophy is a great resource for questions and if you are looking for moderated answers we suggest you ask there.

This thread is not a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads, although we will be more lenient with regards to commenting rule 2.

Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here.