[nemo]

You really think you didn't choose to engage in and persist in that exercise? You don't think you had any choice in considering the arguments and whether to accept/reject them?

I honestly understand why determinism sounds like a compelling theory, but it's not just experience that defies it. I see no compelling reason to argue for determinism if you sincerely believe in it.

[Emphere]

Ok, let's go one level deeper. How do you decide which argument makes sense to you? For example, say you choose 'X' or 'Y' because of criterion 'A'. Why criterion 'A'? What makes you think that that's a suitable criterion in this situation? Repeat ad infinitum."It's obvious", you say in frustration at the end. But is it really? There's a reason we are nowhere near AGI...

Anyway, try defining free will precisely. You'll find that it's an extremely incoherent concept (within our current model of causality) . Try posting your definition and I'll be happy to poke holes in it. There's a reason that the free will vs determinism debate hasn't gone anywhere for thousands of years. Perhaps we need a new way of thinking about causality.

[nemo]

The fact that we use intuition in choice and not some formal rational system seems orthogonal to whether we're making choices or only experience an illusion of choice.

Legally determinism is rejected out of hand, interpersonally we assume that individuals bear responsibility for their choices, it's only in some abstruse metaphysical sense that determinism means anything, and there it's largely meaningless.

[nyolfen]

determinism is frequently weighed in consideration of criminal cases; eg mental illness and insanity affecting sentences

[nemo]

While there are qualifiers for things like mental illness, the system assumes free will by default making rare exceptions for responsibility for people in some states of mind. Whatever that is, it's not determinism.

[nyolfen]

if a person is not held responsible for the actions they carry out, what can the underlying logic be but a rejection of free will? things will get truly interesting this century as we get better at projecting probabilities based on genetics and personal data; if a man is less culpable because of predispositions, why should we even let him out? this is a fundamental tension in our justice system.