I don’t need to be told that we live in a deterministic universe, I already know it. Everything that happens is a result of events that are already predetermined. What happened in the past will determine what is possible in the future. Every event in your life up to this point has determined who you are and what you will do in any situation you encounter.
You are right about determinism in the case of inanimate objects and (probably) plants. In the case of objects like animals and humans, it is not so obvious. The more complex the organism and the more distant the future, the more likely it is that it cannot be predicted.
As I see it, free will has always been just a pretext for blaming people for things over which they have no control and then punishing them. Because of course the concept of free will is by definition doing things on purpose.
Not true. There are things that people have no influence over, for example an earthquake, an asteroid strike. And there are things that they have a huge influence over: for example, harming a neighbor (robbing or killing a neighbor). An exception can be made from the latter for people who are mentally handicapped or ill (but others, e.g. their family, have to think for them). Otherwise, no one would be sure of life and property. There would be no societies, only chaotic devouring of some by others (in a word, "jungle").
It would be good to get rid of the fantasy free will and the ridiculous concept that punishment will somehow fix misdeeds. Punishment no matter how harsh, is unable undo many misdeeds. Knowing that free will does not exist is not a bleak existence, it will free you from wasting time and energy being angry at people who cannot help themselves and do something constructive instead.
Punishment is not intended to undo the crimes (everyone knows that it is impossible to undo what has happened). At most, it can be repaired, compensated for the crimes. Punishment is intended to:
- stop the criminal (the wrongdoer, the scoundrel) from committing further crimes,
- deter other people who might be willing to commit similar crimes,
- force the criminal to change their behavior so that they do not harm people,
- sometimes also to repair, compensate for the wrongs done to people whom the criminal has wronged (robbed, beaten, maimed).
As for free will - it is not known whether it exists or not. So far, no one has proven its existence, there are only circumstantial evidences that it may exist. On the other hand, no one has disproved the hypothesis of the existence of free will. In a word: there is no clear conclusion. However, many things indicate that something like free will most likely exists. However, there may be individual differences between people (if only because we know about the existence of psychopaths).
And finally, the most important thing: over the centuries, there have been many people who have analyzed pathologies related to human behavior (the emergence and development of ethics, analysis of human behavior, analysis of social phenomena). This was and is a constructive action. But there are still many other pathologies, especially those that are considered a virtue (e.g. the totalitarian ideology of the early Middle Ages, which for some strange reason is considered a religion, and which preceded the 20th-century totalitarianisms by
1600 1300 years and is still eagerly promoted) or the triumphant return of censorship and stupidity criticizing and attacking the scientific achievements of humanity (especially biology).
I’m not sure what you mean by lack imagination but I can say that it’s a good idea to not imagine too much it can lead to a lot of disappointment.
If people had no imagination and did not imagine many things, then for example there would be no computers, programming languages and compilers. And many other things that humanity uses today. Everyone would be ape-men, sitting in trees and eating some primitive, bristly and sour fruits (there would not even be bananas).
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