According to classical physics, everything is causal. Though classical physics always allowed that spirituality, and possibly some aspect of life, were outside the realm of physics. To the extent those were part of thing, it was pretty much assumed that people had free will. That we could make decisions independent of physics, which was causal, or spiritual forces like good and evil, which were driven by supernatural beings or forces. Sure we were influenced by them, yet we had the ability to make free will decisions, and a thing called free will existed.

According to modern physics, everything is either causal or random. And modern physics pretty much wants to take everything, including life, under its umbrella. So it’s harder to believe in free will, for two reasons. 1) If life is entirely physics (material reality), then our decisions stem from a combination of causal and random factors; there’s no room for free will. Free will is just a hand-waving explanation for how complicated the mix of causation and randomness is. 2) If life has spiritual aspects, physics has still made it harder for us to envision what free will could mean. Although many or most people have no problem thinking that we’re partly spiritual beings and that free is part of that side of us.

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