[n4r9]

I think I kind of get where you're coming from. Would you perhaps agree that the "free from" in your free will is "free from external influence"?

If so, consider the following thought experiment. Let's say I get to pick either an apple or an orange to eat. I'm confined to a white room and the state of the "me" system is such that I am pre-determined to pick the apple. Alice is standing outside the room in front of a button, which blasts an EM wave at my brain after which I am pre-determined to pick the orange.

So, my choice is determined by whether or not Alice presses the button.

Do I have free will when I make this choice?

What if, instead of Alice pressing the button, the wave is blasted with 50% probability?

[The_Colonel]

> I think I kind of get where you're coming from. Would you perhaps agree that the "free from" in your free will is "free from external influence"?

I agree only to a degree. I don't consider free will to be a binary thing, in some cases you exert more free will, in other cases you are more strongly coerced to do something. Like when I talk to my wife during breakfast, she (external entity) is exerting influence on me, but I don't think it cancels my free will.

I don't fully understand the mechanics of your experiment, but assume that this EM wave just completely overwhelms the signalling in my brain - in that case, it doesn't seem like I have (a lot of) free will. But you can design less extreme thought experiments, e.g. where Alice causes discomfort to me which then influences me to favor one of the options more strongly than otherwise, where I still keep some decision making / free will.

I'd say that how much free will you exert is determined by how much your decisions are driven by your internal "me" state vs. the external influence.

[n4r9]

> I'd say that how much free will you exert is determined by how much your decisions are driven by your internal "me" state vs. the external influence.

I reckon this definition would be very difficult to formalise meaningfully. Going back to the thought experiment in the white room, it might be that my choice is strongly influenced by whether the walls are cream or vanilla. My choice might be influenced by whether a certain smell or noise happens to occur just before I decide. I have a constant stream of inputs flooding into my system, affecting my choice-making. Some of those inputs involve deliberate actions by other agents (e.g. Alice pressing a button) whilst others are simply the goings-on of the environment. I suspect it is impossible in the general case to conclude that a choice is driven more by internal state than external influence or vice versa.