[AlexandrB]

> Things either have a cause, and then they are causal. Or they have no cause, and then they are random.

This is probably the most succinct statement that sums up the problem with "free will". As soon as you start to try to define "free will" in terms of the natural sciences you run into insurmountable contradictions that suggest that it must be an illusion.

Edit: I wonder what proportion of posters here believe both that "free will" is not an illusion and that "strong AI" is possible.

[mensetmanusman]

We have no ethical framework to turn the scientific method towards what is going on at the deepest levels of the brain without some crazy cloning stuff or a horrible dystopian future.

[AlexandrB]

I don't think that's entirely accurate. We've done plenty of tests on animals and found nothing that would contradict either known physics or chemistry.

Moreover, even if human brains were somehow special relative to animal brains, there's no reason to think they operate in a way that that's separate from all the other matter in the universe. And as the GP said - interactions between matter are either causal or random. There's no "free will" interaction. Such a thing would be - almost by definition - supernatural.

[mensetmanusman]

I agree. Belief in free will is, by definition, supernatural. That it can never be proven is comforting in a sense.