[nyokodo]

> How do you know you experience it beyond a reasonable doubt?

I have no reason to doubt my common sense experience.

> we don’t determine how we feel, we are simply served it.

No definition of free will that I have encountered considers it an absolute freedom from any form of determinism. We’re obviously influenced by our nature and external influences. For instance my emotional predispositions are largely determined and my thoughts are not entirely under my control but I do have scope to shape both my emotions and my thoughts over time by what I choose to focus on. I can choose to do what is necessary to change my behavior and to treat people differently than what comes naturally. I know all of this because I have done it, I have experienced it. No materialist philosophy of mind has produced any compelling evidence to contradict my experience of free will in this capacity.

[nikkwong]

I sort of responded to this idea in another comment, but again. How can you take ‘personal credit’ (as if you could have acted otherwise) for choosing to change your behavior? Isn’t that an idea that also just appears in consciousness that is, for inexplicable reasons, more compelling than other ideas at the time so that is the choice that your brain reasons to follow?

[robertlagrant]

> an idea that also just appears in consciousness that is, for inexplicable reasons, more compelling than other ideas at the time so that is the choice that your brain reasons to follow

This seems to be an idiosyncratic definition of free will.

[vasco]

On the other hand, I think it's simplistic to equate picking options from a mental list as "free will". I think the point you are replying to is valid because if there's free will, it's not just "choosing from a list". The list itself (the options you present yourself) has way more impact on your behavior than what you choose, even. So the matter of the question is, do you have free will in forming a list.

[robertlagrant]

> do you have free will in forming a list

This seems like a separate question. Having the power to choose doesn't mean you have every conceivable option in mind, nor that you have the power to exercise every choice, nor even that you like any of the choices.

[vasco]

There's a few things you can choose to do at any time. You can almost always choose to for example close your eyes and keep them closed. Why don't you do it? You have the free will to stop blinking but your brain doesn't pose you this question so you don't even consider it. But now it's considering it. I'm just trying to reduce your argument to the absurd, and probably doing a bad job, but I don't think you can separate the list of options that appear to you from the question of free will, to me it's paramount to what happens after, so if what happens after is what defines free will or not, the list has to be part of it.

Did the first particles that ejected from the big bang have free will?

[robertlagrant]

> if what happens after is what defines free will or not

This sounds much too broad - I can't tell what it means. The things I listed are the normal constraints around how we define free will:

> > doesn't mean you have every conceivable option in mind

I think this is what you were exploring in your reply.

> > nor that you have the power to exercise every choice

I might choose to fly, but that doesn't mean that that is what will happen

> > nor even that you like any of the choices

I might be choosing between allowing myself to be robbed and risking being shot, but I am choosing within my horrible options.

> Did the first particles that ejected from the big bang have free will?

I don't think anyone's claiming they did, no.

[vasco]

Imagine there's no free will.

Whatever happens you'll end up crossing the road right now.

In one example, you absent-mindedly cross the road.

In another example a thought comes to you to get coffee, and you cross the road to get it.

In another example you consider not getting coffee, and going to the park instead, but end up choosing coffee because you feel sluggish.

If there's no free will, any amount of thinking before the decision doesn't prove there's free will. It's just more stuff that was also predetermined. You having an illusion of choice doesn't prove anything.

[nyokodo]

> You having an illusion of choice doesn't prove anything.

It's not reasonable to assume one's experience is an illusion without sufficient evidence which is a bar you haven't crossed. Therefore your argument begs the question.

[vasco]

I didn't say so. I said that having choices to make presented to you, if there were no free will, would be a valid state of affairs. Since it's possible that choices are illusions, you need to address how the choices appear to prove there's free will, it's not enough to say you consider different choices before acting.

[jhbadger]

>I have no reason to doubt my common sense experience.

That's why people thought the Sun moved around the Earth. I mean, it's just "common sense" -- you see the Sun in the East in the morning, and then it's in the West in the evening. It turns out "common sense" is not useful for understanding how things work.