Is free will real?

[Mudhammam]

And one more thing. If free will is real on any level, then we are possibly at a border condition-- what would the mechanism be for free will? We may need to make more progress into how matter can be sentient, for example. Maybe we'll discover in a lab an incredible relationship between QM mechanics and the mind, for example.

Not to be a pain in your ass () but freedom or novelty in the sense of spontaneous generation doesn't get you to metaphysical free self-willing though. Whether I'm guided to type this sentence because of innumerable causal directives of varying strengths theoretically traceable in a step-by-step regression to the past few moments of my morning, my early education, or our planet's extinction events, or whether actions are selected on the basis of thoughts and instincts "popping" into being uncaused, philosophical determinism is still true in the sense of a) changes in probabilities effecting future events and that b) "I" am not "freely willing" such actions, though they may be said to be freely willed... by something.