[OT] Plato's Pub and Philosophical Society

[Chronon]

I have to admit that I'm highly dubious of the extreme determinist position. Here are my two cents (or eurocents):

I'll grant that natural law (genetics, physics, etc.) does have some effect on basic human function, personality and so on. What I look like, how my body has developed, and my basic temperment does seem to have been imposed by natural law. After seeing the development of my daughter and her friends, I would agree that natural law does play a significant role (I used to be more of an extremist on the nurture side in the "nature versus nurture" debate).

But, I don't see how natural law makes me stay up too late working on the frigate design for my ship set, or dictates which type of cereal I eat in the morning.

So, the way I see it, natural law dictates a certain range of behaviors on the macro level, but free will has everything to do with decisions on a micro level. Perhaps quantum mechanics and Newtonian physics are indeed a good analogy. Newtonian works for large bodies, but fails for small ones, just in the same way that natural law works for the general parameters of life, but not for determining what one eats for breakfast.