Is free will real?

[bennyboy]

I think you're creating an unnecessary dichotomy. In this context, I view something as an illusion if it appears as one thing, but in reality is something else.

That describes exactly everything that we call real. I don't think you can reasonably argue that there is anything that appears to us exactly as it really is.

If free will is an illusion, it makes no sense to treat a person as if it were real when it comes to things like punishment; that would be cruel and unusual. And in other contexts, such as mental illness and depression, it would be counter-productive and cruel not to acknowledge the limits of free will and the degree to which our behavior is determined.

Things I said just a couple of posts ago, in discussing the scientific benefits of studying free will.

Still, in our day to day lives, since we can't see behind the curtain, we must treat the illusion as real; anything else is paralyzing.

So we are talking about an idea so central to human existence that we cannot sensibly continue existing without it.

So to argue that we must choose between the illusion and the reality is to ignore that we can embrace both and still be rationally reasonable. This is not to admit that the context in which the illusion is real should have equal status with other contexts; perhaps the personal context is the limit of what we should consider real.

As I've said from the start of this line, whether something should be considered real is context-dependent, and in the context of living our lives as human beings, free will is as real as anything else, including the sense of self.

Unless I'm missing something, you've gone back an efficiently summarized almost all my original ideas about the nature of free will as it relates to the human experience. From post #65 of this thread:

I want to point out the difference between big-r "Reality" and reality as we live it. The line isn't sensibly drawn at free will: everything we think, feel and experience is real in its own context, and unreal in a more global context. [. . .]

So let's not draw the line at free will. Does humanity exist as anything more than a biological robot? Does the self exist? Does meaning, in any form, really exist? I contend that free will exists at least as much as any of the other things we consider concrete aspects of human life. It has to-- because all those concepts are tied into the instinctive understanding of free will.

I imagine you'll find a way in which this is entirely different from what you've just posted, but you'll have to explain in your own words what that is.