Ehh... free will?

[Angrboda]

With free will we have no yardstick, no coherent description of what it is or how it is.  No procedure for devising a test and nothing to judge the results by.

That's because free will is something one experiences, and subjective experiences, for the most part, are very hard to do science on.

When I'm standing in a candy aisle, I definitely freely choose my candy.  Whether I could have "chosen otherwise" in another re-play of the moment, or whether a computer can predict my choice before I make it, is irrelevant to the fact that I'm standing there as a thinking agent, enjoying the process of choosing my delicious snack.  But how do you determine whether another life form, or ANY collection of physical particles, is experiencing that?

This is a good point. At minimum, choice involves the belief that one has multiple options, prior to deciding. Is choice more than just this belief / experience of choice? I perceive that chocolate or vanilla are within my range of possible worlds I can actualize. That I can't choose between chocolate and motor oil ice cream because the parlor I am at doesn't stock the latter. What if this parlor doesn't carry pineapple? Do I have the choice between chocolate and pineapple anyway? Given the different levels of activity required to choose pineapple versus that of choosing chocolate, it seems a stretch to call this a choice. But in what way does relative effort matter in choice?