Oh no not another free will thread.

[Edwardo Piet]

I think one of the main problems with Free Will stems from our ability to revise our actions after we've done them.

Self-causation is internally contradictory, as pointed out in OP, but I'm not so sure this alone invalidates a tradional view of Free Will.

It does though. Because a traditional view would require self-causation to be possible.

We certainly have volition, since we're able to make decisions. But because we don't see the inner workings and the underlying causations of our thinking and therefore actions means we also have a feeling of being in control of our volition and resulting decisions. This leaves us with the illusion of Free Will, if one agrees with the above.

Even if that volition isn't an epiphenomenon, unlike what the scientific experiments show, which show that our decision is made by unconscious aspects of our brain sometimes as much as 7 seconds before we are aware of them - ultimately that volition is not self-causing and is instead either caused by other factors beyond our control, so we can't be responsible for them, or isn't caused by anything at all, including us, so we can't be responsible for them. Determinism doesn't get you free will, and neither does indeterminism. And that's a true dichotomy, that's the problem. Even a combination of both won't do any good since we can't be responsible for what we do to the extent that we're partly deterministic or what we do to the extent that we're partly indeterministic, for reasons given.

I don't think anyone has Free Will, I think "Free Will" is one of those sounds-like-meaningful short phrases but is entirely inconsistent/contradictory, like asking what the meaning of life is. Just shows how powerful language is; the ability to construct sentences that make no sense.

Still, one can follow up with "What do you mean by Meaning Of Life?" or "what do you mean by free will?"

Some people, compatabilists, claim free will means something really trivial that is so impotent that it is compatible with determinism. It's like someone saying that a magic door to another reality exists but by "magic door" they just mean a door that is painted all pretty and by "another reality" they just me outside into the back yard.

The vast majority of people believe in something much more than that. They believe that they can choose between two options in exactly the same state of the universe. And in fact, they believe it so strongly that they'll still believe it even in cases in which it is demonstrably logically impossible. As Lut and CL has shown us. It's such a strong nonsensical belief that it flies in the face of logical impossibility.

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Irrelevant.

I disagree.

Well, until you actually show how blaming one's parents or malingering has absolutely anything at all to do with disbelief in free will... then you are clearly being very irrelevant.

Ironically, at least on the matter of "blaming parents" the opposite is true. It makes no sense to blame one's parents on some fundamental level if you don't believe your parents have free will... it only makes sense to do that if you do believe they have free will. Blaming one's parents is something someone who believes in the hocus-pocus kind of free will does.

You appear to be getting at something as pathetic as Pascal's Wager... like, you think that if people don't believe in free will they will use that an excuse to not bother to do things. Because it's like "Hey it's not my fault I don't have free will!"

The problem with that idea is that even if you are right it proves nothing because 1) They are still not ultimately responsible even for making those excuses 2) No one could control what they believe or disbelieve even if free will were possible.

You're basically doing something analgous with Pascal's wager so it wouldn't even work, for the same reason Pascal's Wager wouldn't work (no one can actually control what they believe) even if I was wrong about free will being impossible lol. So epic fail on your part. Even if I was wrong you'd still be wrong lol.

Like I said, it's not relevant.