If free will was not real

[Gemini]

B is not even remotely a concession that the compatibilist position is correct, but an acknowledgement that it -need not be- and still..precious little would need to be changed.  For example....if we don't have free will...we'd still (justifiably) put people in prisons, for the same reasons, to the same effect, and we don't even have to change the signs on the buildings.  We couldn't maintain moral desert, true, but it's irrelevant to the issue of incarceration - just as one example.    

I wouldn't agree that you can maintain moral desert even if incompatibilist free will did exist.  Whether a person used their contra-causal free will to cause harm or was causally determined to cause the harm is irrelevant. Separate them from the gp as long as they pose a threat, but don't inflict pain on someone who poses no threat to anyone, simply to satisfy one's own need for revenge.

If the concept of ownership is not meaningful, simply for what it is..then how could it be meaningful in any more elaborate context - like the ownership of will, or possession of a free will?  How can you possibly maintain your argument for freedom-come-ownership if the meaningfulness of ownership is so fragile and tenuous in the first place?

I think the argument for "freedom-come-ownership" is more your interpretation of my argument than my actual argument. My argument is "freedom-come-identitity." I.e., I am identical to the processes that determine my decision, so they are not imposed by an external source, and hence free.

Because it -does- those things, by any sense of the words that aren;t completely self serving and question begging....and again..look at how elaborate your criteria have become when the previous criteria turn out to allow for a free will of a thermostat.  Perhaps this was my intention all along.  Is it me coercing you..putting you under duress, here, or your own mind?   

Explain how a nest thermostat previsions courses of action.

In the way that only a smiling, goofy clown of a family man can be.  There are people out there in the world who think they're really scary, really intimidating......and then I opine on the value of their annihilation for the mere -convenience- it might bring to my children, in a -totally- wholesome and completely serious way.  

To someone who stands in the way of intelligence, intelligence is more frightening than malice. Or should be.

Again I'll point out that nowhere, before, was this lobe business present...but I can run with it anyway.  Ever hear about "the man with no brain" - apparently you don't actually need a frontal lobe, or at least a fully (or commensurately) present and similarly organized frontal lobe, to present the behaviors you consider to be indicative of free will.  That and, ofc...we could only be talking about a -human- will if we reference human biology...whether or not it's free is another question.  

What we -have- is far more than a triviality...but is it free in a non-trivial sense?  Just to resurect an example I led with...if we will, with our own wills...to commit a crime...we need to be isolatyed from the gp.  If we -freely- will, to commit a crime..we need to be isolated from the gp.  Regardless of whether or not someone else compelled us to commit said crime..we need to be isolated from the GP.  If we did so of our own accord, it;s no more or less neceesarry to isolate us from the gp than it would be if we hadn't.  Bob made you do it, your biology made you do it...it just doesn't matter...and is completely trivial by reference to that example...in addition to being no different, qualititively..as an effect of the same internal processes either way.  Bob gives you input, you act on that input or don't.  The extent to wich the input bob gives you is compelling is something you cannot fight against -internally-...and bobs input positively relies on your internal processes despite it's point of origin.  Ultimately, you compell -yourself- based upon his input.  It's not direct, and the extent to which you find -anything- compelling is not a metric which you have personally set or can claim robust ownership of.

The man with no brain was an anomaly. Most people with severe frontal lobe damage will manifest symptoms consistent with what I described.

I agree you can isolate people from the gp without imposing moral desert on them. For example, if we diagnose a kid as a sociopath, we can isolate him from the gp simply based on that.

To say that a decision is made by neurally healthy agent free from duress by other agents is to say that the decision is free in a non-trivial sense. Not in the ultimate sense that incompatibilists want, sure, but non-trivial all the same.

If this is freedom, it's not qualitatively different from non-freedom...and so I just dispense with the term "free" that's causing all the issues...because even without it..we're obviously still describing the same thing. There's no need to use it, it adds nothing, and it makes no distinctions, which are not.....on their very face, superficial and non-distinct. The same thing is understood to be happening, at a fundamental level, whether bob pushes the needle on you, or whether you willingly push it into yourself. Either way you did it., you own those actions and those decisions - regardless of whether or not any freedom is involved in either.

I think you're too hung up on the physical model of our decision making. Yes, that's not free. "Free" refers to an experience of making a decision while not under duress, whose neural correlate is the frontal lobes. That's a real referent which justifies the use of the term.