It seems quite a few topics evolve or divulge into a discussion of free will.
I am curious as to why people are so prone to the topic?

Do people require an ultimate justification of sorts? Meaning we all make actions and we have to deal with the blow back of such actions.

Can the issue of free will be answered through an analysis of human nature?

I mean to say is, it's funny to say that it's truth value is moot. But what is true is that the topic arises because it has to.

Not bad for being an analysis of a drunk

Maybe people like to feel empowered? For good and worse.

To me "free will" is a joke. I just try to survive, with my mostly unfree will. Linking determinism to it is just stupid. The ultimate hubris.

I think it's because if popular opinion about us being free agents with an authentic capacity for decision making proves to be false, i.e. determinism as true, then our entire judicial, ethical, and moral systems need to be fundamentally reconstructed.

Popular opinion is meaningless while free will is abundantly available to observe.

One may even say that denying free will to some extreme would require manufacturing consent as free will is so easily obvious to an individual that only by compartmentalization or something like forgetting to be aware of free will might one even begin to experience lose of it.

We have partly free will.

Let that be the truth of the day. You can always push the beneficial probabilities a bit in favor.

You may ultimately win. If you lose, it's just variance.

I will never get an obituary? Pathetic to care much. Those *******s wouldn't get it right anyway.

Please explain how it is abundantly available to observe. I think you'll find, all you can do is observe. We don't control the means by which ideas enter our minds; we just observe. Very curious as to how you intend on describing this abundance of free will without conflating it as something else entirely.

We partly control, partly observe.

Sorry for not being black/white.

Now to the more interesting: spank?

I'm intrigued by what might be conflated with something in the regard of the ability to observe one's own free will and consider the available potential for it's expression.

You still haven't explained where the freeness of our will comes from. For us to have free will, we'd need to think of our thoughts before we thought them, and then select the desired thought to think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyp3ygZeNng

Oh, that's a different question. Granting that when free will is expressible is when the opportunity for free will to be expressed happens, now seems to be when free happens as an expression and as an opportunity to happen.

Can now be a location from where the freeness comes from?

More precisely, approximately now.

Okay yes, now is the "time" during which our alleged freeness occurs, but what makes it free? A thought experiment Harris uses is as follows.

Think of a celebrity. Any celebrity. Anyone at all. Get that person clear in your mind. Now were you free to choose whoever you picked? That person, for whatever reason, came to your mind. You had no control over who came to your mind. They just appeared. We can rationalise this by saying, oh I was thinking of Jennifer Anniston the other day so that's why. Fine, but this is just an explanation of why that person came to your mind. You didn't get a choice. You didn't have the option to choose Will Smith.

So, first one must take the opportunity to use free will and do a thought experiment...

You're missing the point.

Actually my interpretation of the result of such a thought experiment leads me to questioning the experiment itself. As it does seem more than just the will is free in the scenario, as I do not presume any man in the box controlling which celebrity image enters my mind's eye after I choose to do the thought experiment, however I do know people like to play that role sometimes.

To answer the OP that last bit is probably why people make a big deal out of free will. To expose the wizard of oz who says freedom is not real, but his magnificent glory is.

1. I've watched as much of Harris's free will vids as I could stand and that (in my case) 'pick a city, you'll notice that the name of a city just pops into your mind' bit is NOT what I did. I spun a mental globe, jabbed my finger on it, took a look at where I was, saw South America, looked around and picked 'Quito.' Also that 'you were not free to pick the name of a city that you never heard of' is absolute, unadulterated bs. Nobody is talking about that kind of free will as if we can levitate ourselves like Luke Skywalker, jfc.

2. One of these days I'm going to start a thread (just been lazy) w/ far-out free will implications. You all will just have to wait.

Free will comes down to you being responsible for who you have become.

You were born with a certain DNA structure and into a certain environment. Do you have a say in this? I don't believe I did.

Everything else that has happened to you in your life has been a product of cause and effect since you were born.

Sam Harris and a lot of others try and argue about free will using the argument of where our thoughts come from. But that's not the point.

It's and argument of cause and effect. For there to be free will, there needs to be a theory made against cause and effect.

Bang on. And just about every determinist will agree that this great causal chain effects everything. I actually write about this quite a bit on my blog,

How could you possibly think of a random city you don't know the name of?

You can't but it comes out of his mouth just the same, that insufferable kill-joy, and the fan boys lap it up as wisdom. What a yo-yo he is, I remember him referring to the bacteria in our guts and whether or not they are part of 'you' or some such. What an ass-hat. And he probably rakes in the cash, too, being in the religion business just as much as the Pope is.

Re this 'chain of causality' business I decided to poke around (looking to see if cause and effect will be a feature of quantum computer) and came across this.

It's not much of a piece, but it IS in Popular Science which I don't think publishes nonsense.

What on earth are you talking about? Comes out of his mouth just the same? What do you even mean by this? This has nothing to do with wisdom; he's just stating the obvious. And I have no idea why you have your knickers in a knot.

IDK what your prejudice is or why you think this is relevant. I'm trying to prove a point and you're now bringing in ad hominem to refute the blatantly obvious?

I have to laugh at you, really. What's so unreasonable about this question? It's a matter of personal identity and how involuntary bodily processes relate to consciousness. And you're laughing this off as though he's made some ridiculous outlandish comment. Which he hasn't, obviously.

I'm guessing these remarks have something to do with your trepidation as a religious person confronted with logic from Harris? None of what I've said or Sam's said that's been posted in this thread has anything to do with anyone who says it; it's all very, very basic logic and I don't know why you can't understand it. I presume you're intelligent enough to but rather I don't know why you choose not to accept/consider it.

meale, the best poster across SMP and RGT on free will / determinism is zumby, no longer posting but discusses the compatibilist position in great detail. Searching for zumby and compatibilism should do it.

The discussion here between zumby and smrk2 is a good read.

LOL, "discussing" the (non-)concept of free will and determinism in a time where quantum mechanics and half life are are a thing.

Guess someone wanted to feel like a veeeeeery smart philosopher.

Whereas you'd like to feel like a very smart troll. You aren't, the implications, or not, of quantum mechanics or radioactive decay on free will / determinism isn't something philosophy has just ignored it's answered.