Why do people insist on "Free Will"?

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There is no such thing as a free will.

Period.

When you're faced with a choice - yes you have a will to decide either option - but that will isn't "free".
What is meant by "free" anyway?

Prior to you making a choice of any kind, your neurons, which are the ones making the choice for you, are simply put causation and effect in action. It might be a certain chemical balance in your body causing your brain to make one choice over the other, or external things like photons entering your eyes triggering the final decision.

Even if the universe is non-deterministic/random - it does not make any difference whether you have a free will or not. You don't have a "free" will regardless of a deterministic or non-deterministic/random universe.

So why do you still insist on having a free will?

When I ask people this question, the only final objection they have is:
"If we don't have free will how can people be held responsible for anything" and say it will have "huge legal and political consequences denying our responsiblity and free will".

Well, COVID has huge legal and political consequences but denying COVID won't help.
We must not believe in the illusion of a free will, regardless of the legal and political consequences.

We MUST believe in TRUTH and TRUTH ONLY!

Period!

You had a choice to post this or not. You exercised your individual 'will' and posted it. Your internal table of values will ultimately guide your decisions. Values embodied decide which cluster of neurons get fired. You are free to shape you own values within the parameters of the physical reality of what is possible. As far as truth, to quote pontius Pilate " quid est veritas?"

Free will exists in the sense that your actions have an almost limitless amount of consequences. Everyone exercises this free will at the same time, by the billions. But they are finite outcomes, even though they are large in number and so in that sense, it could be said that humans live a deterministic life.

For practical purposes though, I do believe people have free will.

If you have a million different options, you are not going to be able to exercise every option, or conceive of the consequences of them all. So you are free to 'choose'.

Thank you for sharing your beliefs.

Even if we don't have free will and it's just an illusion, I think it's probably better for us if we believe we do.

But the very thing of exercising an option - that thing "to think of consequences" is not an act of freedom.

You only become aware of your own decisions after the neurons have already made them for you.
Brain science for dummies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will

It's a scientific FACT!
Are you really going to reject SCIENCE?

quid est scientia?

No.  I simply reject your expressions of belief.

Your neurons are YOU. Who else but YOU made the calculations. YOUR synaptic clusters arranged themselves in accordance with the incoming sense stimuli, that YOU perceived. I don't believe in a mind body split. Or a mind brain split. Or a ego brain split. YOU are one seamless entity. Bio chemical electric consciousness in a material body held together magnetically. I'm aware the brain arranges preset patterns of activation, and is conditioned to react in certain ways, but you still have control over how it is programmed. To believe otherwise is to have an external locus of control. And that's a very bad philosophy to hold.

The only correction to this is that our bodies are held together by electro-static forces.

Everything else is correct.

To insist on pre-determined actions is merely a feeble attempt to absolve one's self of accountability.

Okay, I looked it up. What i mean is we are electromagnetic entities. All living things are. And even the Earth. Which leads to 'Gaia' hypothesis. And when lacerated, localized magnetic forces are what rebuild the tissue. Holds the structure together. Yeah, I'm not a scientist. We is... magnets and stuff...yaknowhatimean.



Yes, Internal locus of control is important. If you don't believe you have free will, you have put yourself at the mercy of the world. You must believe on some level you have agency.

Yup.  Free will rules!

... in an anarchy, at least!

I agree with the facts as you stated here, but I don't agree with the conclusion.

I just happen to feel that some of my thoughts are disembodied from myself, and it certainly feels like some of my thoughts are indeed external. I have no control of them, and they often disagree with me.

Sometimes I can ask them how they come to their conclusions, and I'm 100 % relying on their replies - but quite often they don't reply or answer my questions at all.

It certainly feels like there are more "people" inside me than me.

The only way I can make sense of this perception is to conclude that some neurons in my brain are "me" and others are seperated from me and whatever cluster of neurons that "I" consist of have little to no say in the rest of my body or brain, neither in thoughts or decisions.

Yes. If you don't believe you have agency you will have no agency. It's as simple as that.

This seems more like some form of schizophrenia -- a mental disorder characterized by significant alterations in perception, thoughts, mood, and behavior.

But, I am not an appropriately-trained and licensed mental-health practitioner, so I could be wrong.