If free will was not real

[Excited Penguin]

That's ableness, mate. Free Will is rather different. Free Will describes a magic way to circumvent all of the rules that govern the rest of the universe to make a "decision" by yourself, in a vacuum, uncaused and entirely "on your own" - whatever that means.

If that's how you define free will, then I'm not surprised you don't believe it exists.  Maybe I missed a couple pages of this thread, but I'd be very surprised to find that anyone who DID believe in free will defined it as you have.

I'd define will as that about a person which brings intent to fruition.  For example, if I intend to move a leg, and it does in fact move, I've exercised my will.

Free will I'd describe as the ability to form intent based on my world view or other aspect of my personhood, and act on that intent without obstruction or coercion from another agent or other environmental factor.

OR. . . being able to buy the motherfucking ice cream of my choice.

bold mine


That's simply not possible. You don't have such an ability. It doesn't exist. It couldn't exist. And for the same reasons that I listed earlier - what you just described is exactly what I described.

You are coerced by environmental factors. You can't escape them. And no matter how much you rationalize your decisions after the fact, it's been proven beyond a doubt that most of the time people have no idea why they do what they do. They come up with reasons if asked, and they truly believe those reasons, but they turn out to be wrong more often than not. Because you see, you are only conscious about so much that goes on in your brain and gives rise to your consciousness and subsequently to your decisions. But you don't control any of it. It controls you. You only experience control, but it isn't really there at all.

You don't control your thoughts. Yet your thoughts are what you are, in a sense. Your thoughts are what make up your decisions. Without thinking, you wouldn't call yourself as having free will, would you ? But that's just it, you can't control your thinking. It just comes out of nowhere, and you identify with it because it's always there and thus the illusion of control comes in, naturally.

Your environment produces your thoughts. And your thoughts produce your decisions. Nowhere is there a place for a free agent here.