On determinism. If our decisions are already made by physics, why try to do anything?

When physics makes us act, our decisions aren't free, but are instead decided by Newton's laws, persisting across the universe without exception. We have no more control of our decisions than a ball thrown into the air.<br><br>If our decisions are predetermined, should we even try to achieve our goals? Why bother?<br><br>**The futility objection:** If our actions are completely determined by physics, nothing we decide will make any difference. Things will happen whether or not we decide to do something. So there is no reason to act.<br><br>**Response:** Even if physics determines what happens, our decisions are what physically drive other things to happen. E.g., we don't just passively watch a zombie version of ourselves acting independently of our decisions. Our decisions affect the world.<br><br>**The value objection:** If our decisions are completely determined by physics, our decisions don't actually depend on us personally and are instead determined by the laws of physics. So we have no real control over them, and our decisions don't reflect our personal values.<br><br>**Response:** While our decisions are determined by physics, our **personal values** still drive our decisions, and our decisions still affect the world. We have opinions, persistant beliefs, likes/dislikes, etc. These things are the result of physics, but they *aren't* persistant without exception like the laws of physics. They are personal.<br><br>**The responsibility objection:** If our decisions are completely determined by physics, we have no morally responsibility for our actions. Afterall, we are not the "author" of our decisions because physics made us make them, not us.<br><br>**Response:** In our society, we still hold people morally responsible for their actions even if their decisions are determined by physics. We still punish people for crimes, because - although physics made them make those decisions - it's persistant **across the universe** that humans like to punish wrongdoing. We set laws based on physics, but we don't use the laws persistant across the universe to set our laws.<br><br>We are socially responsible for our decisions and actions. But the universe doesn't care, it's just physics.<br><br>Conlcusion: It's true that if our decisions are completely determined by physics, things will happen persistantly across the universe whether or not we decide to do something. But we should still try to achieve our goals because our decisions still matter and our values still drive our decisions.