Abstract

Determinism, the claim free will is inconsistent with science, is incoherent when advanced by a conscious being, unless consciousness itself is denied . Section I examines how a provincial social valuation of artificial systems which we have built to deterministic specifications biases our view of the natural. Section II unpacks the conflated meanings of ‘determine’, exposing a fatal logical contradiction at the heart of the determinist claim. Section III raises Hecate's torch to illuminate promising paths forward from this clearing, tracing a suggestive coherence of sensibility in the schemas beneath our core terms and concepts for freedom and mind