Modulous writes:
If being of the mental condition of thinking you have free choice is equivalent to having free choice in your view then that's fine.
I only think this is fine if there is no way to specifically determine if a choice is "free" or "fake-free". If there is a way, then thinking I have free choice is no longer fine. Well, I guess it would be fine if it was determined that we do, in fact, make free-choices.
From your first post, I was under the impression that you could identify such a way. But I think that, after reading your last post, I was mistaken.
It is entirely contingent on the intricacies of the brain.
...and on the definition of "free" and "choice"
I'm beggining to see your point, I think.
Ultimately though, whether you take that job 300 miles away is going to be decided by the same mechanics as the socks.
As to this, I sincerely agree. Whatever the mechanics are, they are (basically) the same for all decisions.
But what 'free' choice is, might (almost certainly is, I'd say) be quite different than how we perceive it.
Again, I fully agree.
But, without some deterministic way to identify what a free choice actually is like (in comparison to an illusion of that free choice), I am at a loss in understanding either one way or the other. Perhaps I leaned towards "free-choice" a little too easily. Perhaps the only way to discover if we have free choice or not, is to discover if the universe is deterministic or not. Or, almost, anyway.
If the universe is deterministic, then we do not have free-choice. That is, well, just the way it is.
If it is not deterministic, then it is possible that we have free-choice. It is still possible that our choice-mechanism may be a deterministic one (since deterministic things still exist even if the universe itself is not entirely deterministic), but at least the possibility of non-illusory free-choice still exists. In which case, we would need to develop some means of comparing a real free choice against an illusory free choice. Such a thing seems a daunting task.
Wiki on Compatibilism writes:
For example, one could define a free act as one that involves no compulsion by another person. Since the physical universe and the laws of nature are not persons, actions which are caused by the laws of nature, would still be free acts, and therefore it is wrong to conclude that universal determinism would mean we are never free.
I don't think I like the idea of this Compatibilist notion. Simply changing a definition to make yourself feel better, and in so doing including "lightning striking a metal pole" as a free choice... just seems like lying, to me.
Whichever way it is, I think I'm an incompatibilist.
And, for now, I'll stick with "my feeling of free choice may as well mean I have free choice" until some more verifiable information is uncovered. In the lines of "if we can't tell the difference, it doesn't matter (to us) if one actually exists".
However, I will change my attitude of "I definitely have free-choice" to one of "I'm not sure if free choice actually exists or not".