Is free will real?

[Mudhammam]

In reductionist terms, nothing about the human experience has any meaning: not honesty, not loyalty, not love, not beauty, not inspiration. Not sensation, nor instinct, nor even change, probably. Remember, I'm not so much arguing that free will is real-- I'm arguing that it is not demonstrably less real than anything else about human existence. I'd also argue that the idea of free will is the key stone-- remove this idea, and everything we hold true about human existence is likely to fall.

Let me ask you a related question. Does anything flat exist in the universe?

There is nothing in the human experience that is objectively meaningful on reductionism, because meaning for each person is a stance taken towards objects or ideas and a plurality of different positions can be equally justified on their own terms. So, subjective meaning is all that can be expressed, and as that has always been the case, those concepts are no worse off for it. They only mean something in the context of subjects abstracting value from objects and projecting it onto others. I think free will is demonstrably less real if only because it is incoherent. A flat object is a sensible notion that reflects a definite attribute of objects in the real world. So, yes, flat objects do exist. Free will in any deeper metaphysical sense does not. That we experience what we understand to be freedom is an illusion perpetuated by our ignorance of true causes.