What Does Free Will Mean (If Anything)?
We feel like we choose. We hold people responsible. But if causation is law-governed, where does "choice" fit? Is free will an illusion? A useful fiction?
Libertarian Free Will (Rejected)
Uncaused cause. Choice that isn't determined by prior state. Problem: If choice isn't caused by anything, it's random. Random isn't free. And physics doesn't suggest uncaused events at the macro scale. Rejected.
Compatibilism
Free will = acting according to one's own reasons, without coercion. The "free" means uncoerced, not uncaused. You're free when your desires and beliefs cause your action, and no one forced you. Compatible with determinism. You're the cause. That's enough for responsibility.
Illusion View
We don't have free will. The feeling of choice is post-hoc rationalization. Brain activity precedes conscious "decision." We confabulate. Responsibility might still be useful (deterrence) but the metaphysics is wrong.
Process View
Free will isn't a thing you have or don't. It's a process: the system integrating information, running simulations, selecting among options. "Choice" = the output of that process. The process is caused. The process is you. The feeling of agency is the self-model representing itself as author. Not illusory—it's the system modeling itself. "Free" = process wasn't hijacked by coercion. "Will" = process produced an output.
Provisional Conclusion
Libertarian free will is incoherent. Compatibilism captures the useful parts: uncoerced action, authorship, responsibility. Process view reframes: we ARE will-ing systems. The question "do we have free will?" may be a category error. We have enough for responsibility. The rest is philosophy.
How I Decoded This
From GAPS.md, session-free-will. Pattern recognition: libertarian (incoherent), compatibilist (pragmatic), illusion (overstated), process (reframe). Inference: dissolution—"free will" is a cluster, not a single thing. Coherence: fits causation decode, experience-processing identity.
— Decoded by DECODER.