Do you believe in free will?

[NoMoreFaith]

No, the alternative choices are available. Which one of the alternative choices you'd choose is determined by your will. It is within the nature of the agent to have alternate wills and it is that difference that makes alternate choices possible.

As long as we are leaving the word free from your will, it naturally contradicts the possibility of alternate choice.

The correlation of an action with motivation is demonstration of uncoerced will - which by your definition is the same as free-will.

My definition of free will is the ability of an agent to to choose between alternatives free from causation.
It is important in a discussion of this nature to use the common consensus for the definition.

EDIT: Just to add.. there is no consensus, hence the difficulty in trying to discuss it with you.

“Free Will” is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives.

As such, and I repeat, the human agent cannot choose a particular action from among various alternatives. His choices are made for him through the natural processes of his mind.

You wish that free will is compatible with determinism, which is fine, thats your view, but just because it appears to be a free choice, ignorance of the causation of motivation make it pure illusion.

Putting motivation before action is putting cause before its effect - its ignoring the chain of causality. Perhaps you are talking about the difference between conscious and unconscious motivations. But most of meaningful actions undertaken are the result of conscious motivation - otherwise all we'd see would be people acting instinctively and then trying to justify those actions.

What can I say, our illusion of free will is a strange beast.

More to the point, if our instincts are subject to being justified, what makes you think the big decisions aren't.

You're starting to remind me of the creationist who claims macro-evolution cannot be implied from micro-evolution.
What do you think big decisions are? They are just lots of small decisions put together.

If we limit things to the motivation leading to the action, it ignores the reactionary nature of motivation. You are motivated only as result of external or internal stimuli. You are drawing a line where no line need be drawn in order to justify your definition from my perspective.

Firstly, its your definition.

No, Its not. I was responding to your point where you brought up action and motivation. Let's go back in time....

Certainty and inevitability do not indicate any necessary conflict between the action and motivation. The action maybe certain and inevitable - however, if the agent's motivation behind the action and the action itself are consistent with each-other, then the action is uncoerced.

The point is, that your motivation is certain and inevitable in a given situation. Of course their consistent. But ignoring the causation of motivation is your fundamental error in reasoning.

However, do not apply that definition to me, you brought it up. I was merely pointing out that motivation and action are consistent merely because the causation of motivation leads to the action.

Secondly, the question is simple - how do you differentiate between a coerced and an uncoerced action?

You don't. There is no such thing as an uncoerced action. Hence hard determinism
The argument is that the illusion of freewill can make you feel free from the coercion of causative factors, but that is all it is.

But because you have misunderstood free-will and assumed that it holds a position fundamentally contrary to determinism - you cannot see it starting.

Simply because I agree with a hard deterministic school of thought on the matter does not equate to misunderstanding free-will. I can only put this down to arrogance on your behalf.

Kant sums it up quite nicely;

According to this, that is sometimes called a free effect, the determining physical cause of which lies within the acting thing itself, e.g., that which a projectile performs when it is in free motion, in which case we use the word freedom, because while it is in flight it is not urged by anything external; or as we call the motion of a clock a free motion, because it moves its hands itself, which therefore do not require to be pushed by external force; so although the actions of man are necessarily determined by causes which precede in time, we yet call them free, because these causes are ideas produced by our own faculties, whereby desires are evoked on occasion of circumstances, and hence actions are wrought according to our own pleasure. This is a wretched subterfuge with which some persons still let themselves be put off, and so think they have solved, with a petty word- jugglery, that difficult problem, at the solution of which centuries have laboured in vain, and which can therefore scarcely be found so completely on the surface.

If I recall the cited experiment correctly - the action was not committed to before conscious motivation was available - it was still open to retraction. As suggested by the name of the activity - readiness potential.
Further, in non-consequential actions, this argument might hold, since the time difference between the motivation and the action are minimal. But in goal-directed behaviour, this certainly would not hold, since the motivation and all possible actions leading to it need to be considered before the action is undertaken.

CERTAINLY would not hold? The world of neuroscience awaits your revelation with baited breath. Everyone's a closet Nobel prize winner today.

It still comes down to lots of little decisions to create the larger conscious decisions. But until you present some evidence that the conscious ever directs the action itself without recourse to causation, I will remain a hard determinist.
For that, there is no evidence you act after you think. I think that is remarkably telling.

The indications do so far, seem to correlate heavily with a determined response system. Whether it is entirely true or has exceptions like you suggest, remains to be seen. But the indications are certainly there, and until I see evidence to the contrary, I see no reason to see determinism and free will as compatible.

Typical philosophy discussion, if the definitions are not clearly defined at the start, and philosophers have yet to come to a consensus on it, so theres no hope for amateurs like you and me.

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Why? No one would care. We all know we have our own free will, there's nothing to discuss.

Yeah, its only been discussed for thousands of years with no conclusion, and only now being touched upon by neuroscience.

Who would care. If you don't nobody does! Its so obvious now