Do you believe in free will?

[Whateverist]

The free will argument always seems to play to the trap of "what is preferable".

I don't think it would be at all preferable to have total freedom to choose what to do or what to want with complete independence. I suspect that would be like being deeply depressed with no affect and no direction. Why do anything?

It may be preferable to believe that you are the sole reason for the actions and things you do, but it does not necessarily mean its true, and is not an argument in favour of free will.

I think we have only fleeting instances of constrained will with some wiggle room during which we are free to decide which of our given tastes, values and other preferences to let reign. That decision may be unconsciously predetermined for all I know but there comes a point at which, if I don't get on board, no want gets served. So conscious, limited I am a player in my own actions. The proof of that is that I can get the calculus of what course of action would best satisfy my given wants wrong, forcing me to try again.

Just to offer a thought experiment. When do you obtain free will over the atoms in your body? Between your conception and adulthood there is a point where there is no free will and *ping* free will. The nature of the discussion is such that there is no grey area between free will, and the lack of it.

In short, at what did your decision-making process inject itself in the middle of natural, causal interactions that were taking place before you were born? To me, the answer is never. Nothing changed in the state of the universe. You are in control of exactly the same amount of control you had over the universe you had before you were born.

I was reading recently, sorry but I don't have the source, that what we think of as free will doesn't show up until about the age of three. Just as the brain takes some time to put the world together cognitively from the input of vision so, apparently, it takes us a while to realize we have choices to make that require deliberation. So I suspect, empirically at least, there very much is some grey area between free will and its lack.

So what is free will understood in the mundane empirical sense? I suspect it is merely the capacity to put the brakes on responses in order to consider the how new knowledge of the consequences stand to change the evaluation of what we most want. We want to go grab a handful of that cake in the refrigerator but we don't want to piss off mommy or spend the rest of the day in our room away from everyone else. There is a point at which we are unaware of consequences but we are animals that are capable of learning from our experience. Admittedly we still ultimately act to serve wants we never consciously chose, but our conscious involvement in the intake of new knowledge of consequences gives rise to 'free will'. Not philosophy textbook 'free will', just the garden variety described by child development.