1. Are they mutually exclusive
2. If so, which one do you believe in?
3. Otherwise, why are they not mutually exclusive?
Personally I'm leaning on them not being mutually exclusive. I always thought that argument was kinda weird. Like, if you think they're exclusive, you're basically saying that:
a) your actions/decisions/thoughts/whatever are determined by external influences you have no control over (like the molecules/atoms/protons?? in your brain, even the Big Bang if you wanna go that far), or you could stop at simply saying that because your decisions are determined by the makeup of your brain/genetics/whatever the fuck, you don't have free will
b) IF they're mutually exclusive, then the only way we could have free will is if our decisions are randomly determined.
a) Is problematic because it kinda looks like splitting hairs from my perspective. I say you do have free will because your decisions are determined by your internal processes, like your wishes, your interpretation, and then you make a decision based on how you think it best to fulfil your wish
b) Is obviously an even bigger problem: if b is true, then literally the only things that have free will are quantum events
And maybe not even those, it isn't absolutely clear to me that they're really as random as they seem.