What do we do while deciding if free will exists?

[The Grand Nudger]

duplicate post, sorry

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Doesn't follow.....here you go again..."no free will...then no -x- neener neener"......right from the very beginning.....there's just no other way you can argue free will..is there?

Why should I feel compelled to make any argument other than the one that seems best to me? From my perspective, you are special pleading: all those OTHER abstracts, illusions and miconceptions are fine, but when it comes to free will, you want to throw a penalty flag. I'm saying that nothing we experience as humans-- absolutely nothing at all-- accurately represents reality. And yet we talk about love, beauty, morals, goodness and badness, etc. as meaningful terms. The problem is that the mechanical world view you hold doesn't represent what it's like to live and experience as a human being: it fails to describe it, or to contribute anything useful to it.

-except that I'm NOT making any such plea.  You and I both recognize that our perceptions run a range from -very descriptive in our framework- to -entirely false in some other framework-.  Those other abstracts and illusions are abstracts and illusions - and...like  magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat..they are something- even if they aren;t precisely what we experience them to be.  They have varying degrees of conformity with what they attempt to describe but none of them - so far as we can tell...are the proverbial "eyes as windows".  
You and I both agree to this, neither of us has ever disputed this in any conversation.  I'm suggesting that free will is -yet another- one of those abstracts and illusions.  That it doesn't work the way we experience it to work...as our eyes don;t work the way we experience them to work, as our skin doesn't work the way we experience it to work.  

So let's take free will.If we have no free will, will you then open the jails, or will you continue to expect punishment for criminals, even though all their actions are just the spear-point of a series of deterministic events? Will you give up on achieving your dreams, knowing that your success or failure are not under the control of your free agency, which is illusory? Will you continue to debate on forums as though one free-thinking individual is actually debating with others, or will you just see it all as fluctuations in quantum fields?

-again you have launched yourself into an appeal to consequence.  Your every comment has been an appeal to consequence.  Do you understand why I do not find this to be very useful?  Believe these questions have been covered many times.  
-No, I wouldn't open prisons.
-I don't expect punishment now.
-My dreams are my dreams.
-I will continue to succeed -and- fail.
-Is that how I seem to debate...to you....lol? -I'm providing input for your machine Benny.
-I don't see it that way now.

This is the hypocrisy of the people who are against the idea of free will.

-yes..Benny..please tell me all about my hypocrisy.....lol - because you seem to be such an expert on my position..as above........

They continue to ACT as though they believe very much in free will.

That's quite the claim.  Not really sure how you'd know much about the way I act?  
-I don't act like there's a man behind my eyes looking through two windows.  Even though this describes the experience...I know that to be untrue, and so I apply a little salt..with the things that my eyes tell me.
-I don't act as though I insert some -decision (non)stuff- into the universe everytime I pick a payday over a snickers.  If you'd like to watch me pick a candy bar out....you'll find that I comport myself in a manner entirely unbefitting an event of that importance.  It looks a whole hell of alot like I'm picking a snickers off a shelf.  I don't even light fireworks for the occasion.  

And if anyone attempted to limit their freedoms, they'd squawk like angry hens-- they certainly would not see the behavior of their captors as inevitable, and therefore accept them.

Why.....would anyone attempt to limit someones freedoms?  
Massive, repeated, unapologetic appeals to consequence /thread  
None of this...regardless of it's importance, regardless of what either of our positions are, regardless of what position is "best", regardless of how many consequences there may be...none of it....has any power in helping us to determine whether or not we have free will.  None of it can tell us whether our experience of free will is an accurate derscription of it;s operation...or, whether, like all of our senses, it is an accurate descriptions of the operating limits of it's implementation.  It;s useless....for that discussion.
-As to the other discussion.....none of your consequences seem to apply to me or my position on free will.  So I don't know what to tell you there bud.  Go find someone who holds those positions as consequences of their stance on the existence and operation of free will...ask them those questions?  


-as to the post above, interesting stuff. To me, it seems like there is no you - and then- you. I'm doing both, no extra operators...no voices other than my own.