Is free will real?

[bennyboy]

Here here!. Fine detail (while fantastic for leisurely viewing) may not be as useful as we think.

Wait a minute, now. We're not talking about utility. We're talking about what things get to be called "real" and what things are just ideas.

(obviously, I think this "imbuing" business is a deepity - but I'm open to the notion. I also think that our thoughts have an effect -on something-....just not on the status of the arrangement of particles in a tabletop and how we might observe a spatial relationship. Perhaps if we had a finer level of granularity we would describe the table some other way, use a different word or even concept to describe it - but we would still be able to observe the arrangement that we now call "flat". Our thoughts and ideas seem to be able to change our thoughts and ideas, perhaps they can change what observations we recognize (even if they don;t make our eyes "stop seeing" some specific thing)....but in none of that, it seems, is the table itself changed......)

Again, you're talking about all the things I consider both real and useful-- in the human context. The same goes for free will-- I experience my free will all the time, and exercise it constantly.

The question is whether the human experience of "X" is sufficient for us to say "X" is real. To me, you guys are special pleading:
-a table doesn't exist in space as we experience it, but it's definitely real
-free will doesn't exist in space and time as we experience it, so it's definitely not real

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Exactly. There's no conflict in describing objects by their fundamental constituents, on the one hand, and the appearances they take in "Macro-world" on account of their configurations.

"one must take literal physical reality... and imbue it with ideas."

So what? Our ideas (should) strive to define reality, intellectually, not create what isn't actually there. If I tell you to place the cup on the flat surface, I'm distinguishing a definite property of an object (such as a table) a) on a large scale form that particles and forces comprise to make, and b) as it is distinctly perceived from other surface properties, such as rough, wavy, curved, etc. ones. Once again, free will does not share even this utilitarian benefit when the concept is examined but for a moment, and human freedom, while it is like a flat surface in the sense of b), is not the case in the sense of a).

"And what are these "objects" of which you speak? Those illusions by which I interact with an infinite sea of QM particles?"

Illusions, no. There is an infinite sea of QM particles that interact with each other, due to physical laws, and evolve, in some instances into larger and larger objects that, also due to physical laws interact with each other such as in having this conversation.

Your passion in arguing for the existence of table-tops is pursuasive. You have not, however, told me whether you think any of the abstractions which define human exprience should be considered real. What about love, beauty, value and meaning? Are they real, or just illusions? And if they are illusions, should we not seek to dismiss them from consideration in living our lives? But wait. . . doesn't "should" itself imply free will? Does that mean that I'm deterministically bound to consider thinking that love, beauty, value and meaning have. . . meaning? Urk!

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The point of this thread is evaluating whether or not we do have that ability.

I'm still in the process of establishing which of our real-seeming experiences we get to call real, and which of our real-seeming experiences must be discarded as illusion. These philosophical lines in the sand seem to be blown as much by whim as by logic. Must. . . investigate. . . further. *imagines self in Star Trek, investigating strange foreign desert*

I can say, however, that I've definitely had the experience that is called "free will." Now we have the task of deciding whether to throw the experience, the label, and its philosophical implications out the window because none of it fits into the science of the day.