If free will was not real

[Edwardo Piet]

No kudos required, I'd happily kudos myself for this one... this post was too pontificantingly pretentiously verbosely pedantically awesome to be arrogant

I'll kudos it anyway, because I love pontificatingly pretentious verbose pedantic awesomeness.  

Yay! That's sexy

I also love my pontificatingly pretentious verbose pedantic awesomeness and I enjoy being an intellectually sexy beast.

We're not very far apart on this. I think the reason I'm a compatibilist is because I think when people refer to "free will," they're referencing the phenomenology of decision making, and not the metaphysical model of contra-causal free.

I think they're conflating the two like laypeople do (like that rhyme? )

They are indeed referencing the phenomenology of their decision making but they also simultaneously believe they can do otherwise when they cannot.

So many times in life I have said "Oh sorry it didn't occur to me" when I had a brain fart about something important and they said "Well it should have occured to you." Silly buggers I can't contra-causally force that thought to occur into my phenomology.

Many many people think their wills are absolutely free whenever their wills are not not constrained. They believe in constrained compatabilist free will/unconstrained contra-causal free will. They mistakingly think that when their wills are not constrained or coeerced that they have full freedom. They do not and they only think they do because they haven't thought it through enough.

I agree with Spinoza on the matter: Spinoza believed that people believe they have free will simply because they do not know the causes of their own actions so they assume it is themselves.

Their thoughts pop into their phenomenology and because they do not know the ultimate sources (which are unconscious and ultimately completely outside of themselves because they live in an environment and universe which they are not remotely separate from) they mistakingly take credit for them. "I am thinking this" they say... but there is no separation from that thinking and the 'them' that is supposedly thinking it. It's not something they are doing it's who they are. They can't think the thought before they think it, they cannot force they thoughts into their head when their conscious self that they identify with is not remotely separate from those very thoughts and in the present moment (which is the only tense of time we are ever actually living in) is our conscious self and identity.

Now I'm going to say "phenomenology" again and eat more chocolate cake while drinking a dark Italian roast with lots of cream and sugar. OM NOM NOM!

Tasty. And I'm not even talking about the cake. Yum. Phenomenology.