Do you believe in free will?

[theVOID]

I have no way to distinguish between "free will" and the "illusion of free will", so I live my life assuming there is "free will".

Not empirically, however based on your world view (which i assume is naturalism or a form of?) you can logically determine that free-will is incompatible and therefore if Naturalism is true (or if you believe that naturalism is the only reasonable position to hold) then contra-causal free-will must be false (see my reply to min for a brief explanation).

Unless you have a way to demonstrate that actual "free will" does or does not exists, I can't really rule out either way. For my daily life however it makes no difference if there is an actual free will or not.

I agree completely, there is no discernible difference as to how one would behave.

I think it's most relevant to Atheism vs. Theism because "free will" is most often used in the context of the Christian god allegedly giving humanity "free will" in the choice of whether or not to follow this god.

Yet if God is omniscient then he already knows what decisions you will make before you have made them, ruling out contra-causal free will as well - I think Plantinga is right in his assessment of contra-causal Free will under an omniscient entity; it's not possible.

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I fully enjoy Daniel Dennett's view but if I were a determinist I would be incompatabilist. Whereas he is a compatabilist.

I'm not sure if I support determinism or indeterminism though, but either way I disbelieve in free will. So I am what is known as a hard incompatabilist or "pessimist" on the matter. Of course, I am certainly not a fatalist though. If I was I wouldn't be able to appreciate Dennett's arguments on the matter of "evitability" and the like.

Why are you a Hard incompatibilist? What reasoning persuaded you to take that position? I am swaying that way at the moment, mostly because i see Comaptibilism as being victim to pointless redefinitions of words like "free-will", something that i feel inconsistent in having accepted, yet I see the general concept as sound regardless, that being: if i am free to act according to my nature, and my nature is the accumulation of events (either determined or indetermined) then i can only truly act in one way because there is only one series of events that lead to my mechanisms being attuned to any given action, unless i am restricted in acting out my will i am free.

Re the latter: I think ultimately the determinist/indeterminist argument is one that can only be sorted out scientifically and not philosophically - It comes down to whether or not acausal events exist, there are apparent acausal events but it seems to me just as likely that these events can be quantified further and that this quantification may or may not show underline determinism - Either way i see the ultimate conclusion being out of the reach of Philosophy.

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Even cause and effect isn't proven and Quantum Mechanics has been shown to be quite "indeterministic", although if we had an even deeper understanding of it (since no one is really capable of grasping it on an intuitive level, it is only the maths that can be truly done) it may be more deterministic than we think perhaps. So I really don't know whether to subscribe to determinism or indeterminism, but I see "Free Will" as equally hopeless in either position.

I agree entirely

I would be a compatabilist but I don't see what Dennett describes as "Free will" to be the will that is free. I see freedom of the agent, some people are more free than others, some are under duress and some are not... but the "Will" itself, I never see how it can be in any way, free. In fact, I don't see how the "Will" could even exist if it wasn't constrained. The will has to be unfree so it can be the controller of our body (and other parts of our brain).... some of us as agents being on the whole more "free" than others. The will can't be free otherwise it wouldn't be able to "will" us because it would be independent.

Yeah, free will seems to depend on dualism i agree. Back onto Compatibilism vs Hard incompatibilism, what in your opinion are good arguments in favor of the latter?