Are the robots we create alive?

For what it's worth, I'm also on the determinist end of the spectrum, with a strong dose of "don't know" on the side. Our mind is basically designed to trick us into thinking we are freer than we are, while it's strongly predisposed to certain choices based on circumstances.

For instance, when something frightens you, you may remember it as: "I saw a ghost, it was scary, so I screamed and my heart started pounding". But the chronology really was: see ghost, heart starts pounding before your brain even receives the signal, get scared and scream. Your perception of it is starkly different than the reality, and your mind is reacting as much to your own physical reaction as to the external stimulus.

I'm pretty sure that there's no consensus on determinism vs free will vs "we don't / can't know for sure" among scientists, so I don't think Sheldor's claiming they're all wrong and he's right.

Thanks for backing me up. I would like to note that freewill is not the same thing as randomness, freewill is the concept of beings consciously controlling their own fate (which doesn't necessarily contradict determinism), whereas randomness (at least how I am defining it) is the concept of elements in a system giving different outputs despite having exactly the same inputs (which does contradict determinism).

Here's a good example of humans behaving deterministically.

Whoever is watching behaves predictably, but whoever is being watched does not.

What if there are 2 (or more) free consciousness interacting? What if one of them deliberately chooses to overpower the other? The first will still act on free will, but the other will not anymore.

The very concept of freedom implies the freedom to take away someone else's freedom. It is called liberal paradox and when it really happens, freedom dies.