Is free will real?

[The Grand Nudger]

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.

sidebar, sidebar.

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.

You/we also experience rabbits coming out of hats and cold poles.

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

The reality of the experience isn't anything I'd contest. It's the accuracy of the contents I have doubts about, as I've repeatedly said. If free will were a table then we wouldn't be having this discussion, would we? Since it isn't....I don't expect what might hold for a table to also hold for free will.

(The table is, as far as our sensory equipment can tell, flat. At our level of interaction - it is-. At some other level of interaction requiring some other set of senses or augmentations our experience ceases to be -as accurate-. At no point down this rabbit hole does the table become any less flat - because all flat is meant to convey is a particular arrangement at a particular level of interaction - and that's all that it could convey. Regardless, if you see the table as a collection of particles or as a flat surface - this won't have any effect on the table.)