Free Will Debate

[Anomalocaris]

The conflict between the apparent ultimate impossibility of the existence of any will on the one hand, and the apparent benefit of assigning responsibility based on pretension of the existence of a free will on the other, require much more sophisticated assessment than it seems to generally be given.

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The question is not why would you, but could you.

If I *could*, but never *do*, is it really possible?

I'm not even sure how to make sense of the phrase 'I could do different than I actually did'. If I run the scenario several times, then I am different each time, so I don't expect to make the same decision. But a singular event, I don't know what it even means to say it 'could' be different.

In what way is it 'possible'?

And if I am not involved through my beliefs, desires, etc, in what way is it *my* choice?

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I have no idea, it's a good question.  Nevertheless, instrumental to the concept of a free will..as opposed to a local will, or just a will - fullstop.....is the idea that we are meaningfully outside of the clockwork universe.  That, even if you were the same, and all things were the same, the issue of choosing a or b fundamentally hinges on a you free of that empowered to and capable of going down either causal path.

So it really is an example of an uncaused cause?

I see no way to make sense of “I could do differently than I actually did” either.   The context in which such statements are usually made geneerally posits the scenario where  “I” am restored to mostly the same state as before I did anything, but with slight but significant bit of difference in knowledge.   Which means I could not do different except under different circumstance and inputs.   So it leads to the same conclusion:

Free will is nonsense because Will is nonsense.      There is only the egotistical, but inconsequential,  perception that I deserve credit for being part of some particular flows of events which I neither initiated nor have any ability to divert.