Most Humans Do NOT Have Completely Frree Will

[Edwardo Piet]

Why doesn't it apply to willpower? It sounds like special pleading to me. Have you explained elsewhere why willpower is a special case?

Lol. it's not special pleading. The willpower is what motivates or 'wills' us, and what motivates and wills us by definiton cannot be willed be 'us' because it is the part of 'us' that wills us. It would be circular reasoning for us to be self-causing. Ultimately self motivation is impossible because everything that spurs us must ultimately come from outside of ourselves, from external to us... and everything outside of us is not part of out conciousness and therefore beyond out control.

It's the very reason why libertarian/contra-causal free will makes no sense. Compatablism basically = "Oh well let's just say that the will is free anyways. Let's call "will" "free will" simply because freedom exists regardless of our wills themselves being unfree... let's completely dodge the question and ignore the issue just to keep people pleased and to pat ourselves on the back for finding an answer to an old philosophical question."

Yes most philosophers are compatabilists. But a lot of philosophy is fucking bullshit. I should know, I'm philosophical

That is what I thought as well until I started reader further into this topic. Just like you, I underestimated most philosophers when it came to this topic and mistakenly thought they haven't thought deeply enough about it. Turns out I was the one redefining free will to mean something it literally does not mean, and you are doing that here as well.

Nope. It's the opposite. I spent years being 90% sure I was right but 10% of me maybe thought that the compatabilist definition made sense, because Daniel Dennett was a compatabilist and everything else he says makes sense... so I was very interested in him publically debating Sam Harris which he unfortunately refused to do (afraid to lose I think). Shortly after Sam Harris had debated with him via email and produced his wonderful book and lectures on why free will is bullshit, Daniel Dennett released a talk saying that Free Will was man made like money, that it's a cultural construct and people should just agree who is and isn't allowed to be in the moral agents club. He throughally admitted that free will is basically defined into existence and is a load of bullshit. After years of all this "it's evitability, the opposite of inevitablity" B.S. -- I say B.S. that all made sense but I was wanting to know the bottom of his argument on that matter. Yes, the future is inevitable regardless of whether the universe is determinsitic or indeterministic, and yes evitability exists because we have evolved, we have freedom. But again the will is NOT free. It was never in question that we as humans have evolved to a level where we have more freedom than other animals. It doesn't mean our wills are free, it can't be. It is a dangerous equivocation to say otherwise. If you tell people they have "free will" and all you mean is "You have a normal human willpower like anyone else who who is an adult and isn't severely brain damaged, under the influence of a huge amount of alcohol, psychotic, etc," -- then that was never into question anyway! That's just willpower! The "free" part of the will is what most people mistakenly believe in -- people intuitively believe that the will is free in the libertarian contra-causal sense. People fucking incoherently and illogically believe that "we can do otherwise" hence why justice tends to be retributive rather than just focusing on mitigating harm and suffering -- and hence why people often believe revenge is morally justifiable, that people can be punished because they deserve it as opposed to punished only when it works long-term as a way to prevent re-offences.

* Edwardo Piet ends his rant that he's given many many times before over the course of several years, + with the extra part he's learned since that stupid Daniel Dennett video about free will being "like money".

Sam Harris is the shit on this topic. He's fucking awesome. He spells out more concisely and eloquently what I have intuitively thought since I was about 12 years old or something (I was home educated and my dad talked philosophy to me most days).

Sorry if I seem impatient I've just talked about this and explained this so many times in so many ways that it gets tiring. You've done nothing wrong and (couldn't have done otherwise anyway ), I enjoy your posts, sorry for getting frustrated