You still have no influence on it, even if there is randomness involved.
Really hard to justify free will (IMO) when a person's entire personality can be fundamentally altered by a bash to the head. What does "free will" mean if everything that makes you you can be changed with, say, a lobotomy.
It is, at best, an illusion and nothing more.
Free will is simply you making a choice, that's it.
If you want to argue about what 'you' means, feel free, but it doesn't really change anything here.
> Is it simply executing one of a set of possibilities? If you take such a general definition of free will, then a slot machine is manifesting it's free will to deny you a payout.
Sure, or even just a dice. Except that's a rather silly definition of free will since it omits the 'will' part, i.e. thought.
In what sense? Can you produce a strict definition, what is "free will", what is "illusion"?
This is a battle of definitions. Pick the definitions you like, and you can prove what you set out to prove.
1. We have control over our decisions
2. Our decisions are independent of past events
I agree that this is pretty hand-wavey and open to semantics. But I don't think that there is any realistic, coherent way to interpret and reconcile the above two statements [edit - without resorting to some kind of non-physicalism e.g. God, spirit planes... ].
That begs the question - what is "me"?
If I take "me" as the configuration of atoms in my brain, or simply the information if you will, then "me" is determining my future actions, therefore "me" is in control of my decisions.
Alternatively, I could define "me" as the whole system - the configuration (electrical signals), the hardware (brain, neurons), the physics. I think most "free will deniers" will say that physics is not part of "me", but I disagree - physics is not separable from matter and information, physical laws permeate everything, they are necessarily part of "me". You don't need any God here, this definition is as physical as it gets.
> Our decisions are independent of past events
Doesn't this require essentially random behavior? Sounds somewhat absurd ...
I think that's fine. But imagine an outside observer who is privy to the current state of the system plus future environmental inputs. In principle, that observer is able to calculate the system's evolution exactly, and therefore predict all future decisions of the person-system. For many people this is contrary to the idea of free will. For how can something be "free" if it is bound by the laws of physics and is known in advance to any sufficiently sophisticated observer.
Which is fine, actually even more, it's confirming the presence of free will.
I have a Snickers bar in front of me. I like Snickers, but I also want my teeth healthy, keep diabetes away from me and keep my weight in check. I will decide to either eat it or not, depending on the current subjective trade-offs between my priorities. Acting on my wishes and priorities like this seems exactly in line with free will.
In your understanding, what behavior does an observer need to see to detect free will for you? The decision cannot depend on my goals of feeling good eating Snickers / keeping my weight in check? Based on what should free will make decisions? If it's on nothing, should the behavior with free will be random? That seems very counter-intuitive.
> if it is bound by the laws of physics
As mentioned earlier, this is no external constraint in my physicalist understanding of the world - laws of physics are an inseparable part of "me" as a system.
You have conceded that your decision is pre-determined. Most people consider pre-determined events not to be "free". What are they even "free" from?
Yeah, "pre-determined" by "me" (physicalist definition above).
Isn't the ability to determine your decisions exactly free will?
If so, consider the following thought experiment. Let's say I get to pick either an apple or an orange to eat. I'm confined to a white room and the state of the "me" system is such that I am pre-determined to pick the apple. Alice is standing outside the room in front of a button, which blasts an EM wave at my brain after which I am pre-determined to pick the orange.
So, my choice is determined by whether or not Alice presses the button.
Do I have free will when I make this choice?
What if, instead of Alice pressing the button, the wave is blasted with 50% probability?
I agree only to a degree. I don't consider free will to be a binary thing, in some cases you exert more free will, in other cases you are more strongly coerced to do something. Like when I talk to my wife during breakfast, she (external entity) is exerting influence on me, but I don't think it cancels my free will.
I don't fully understand the mechanics of your experiment, but assume that this EM wave just completely overwhelms the signalling in my brain - in that case, it doesn't seem like I have (a lot of) free will. But you can design less extreme thought experiments, e.g. where Alice causes discomfort to me which then influences me to favor one of the options more strongly than otherwise, where I still keep some decision making / free will.
I'd say that how much free will you exert is determined by how much your decisions are driven by your internal "me" state vs. the external influence.
I reckon this definition would be very difficult to formalise meaningfully. Going back to the thought experiment in the white room, it might be that my choice is strongly influenced by whether the walls are cream or vanilla. My choice might be influenced by whether a certain smell or noise happens to occur just before I decide. I have a constant stream of inputs flooding into my system, affecting my choice-making. Some of those inputs involve deliberate actions by other agents (e.g. Alice pressing a button) whilst others are simply the goings-on of the environment. I suspect it is impossible in the general case to conclude that a choice is driven more by internal state than external influence or vice versa.
If you only allow yourself to identify with the highest-level, most rational aspects of the decision engine you live inside, then that's a mistake which will haunt you with questions like "am I really in control?" forever. If you identify with a broader sense of your self, it's pretty obvious that you are making decisions, for both rational and irrational reasons. Your conscious experience is part of what it feels like for a human to make decisions.