Is true free will possible?
In terms of neuroscience, biology and chemistry.
If the physical universe - matter and the laws of physics - is all that exists, then all you can be is matter that obeys the laws of physics. You're atoms that obey the laws of atomic physics, making up biochemicals that obey the laws of biochemistry, making up neurons that obey the laws of neurology. There's no room there for you to have free will. There is no way for you to make a non-determined choice. Worse, there's no room there for you to be a person. You're just a very complicated machine, and nothing more.
Yes, there is quantum uncertainty at the lower levels of this machinery. That doesn't give you free will, though, because you don't control the quantum uncertainty. It controls you (or at least your atoms, to some degree).
Yes, I know, compatibilism. That makes free will and physical determinism compatible by making "free will" into something less than what I think true free will is.
So, no, true free will is not possible - if the physical universe is all there is. Neither is true personality possible.
The path of atoms are not responsible for the determination of will. The buffer between individual atoms and who cares is great, and interchangeable based on the comforts of the willful.
Quantum uncertainty is the sieve of consciousness. Quantum uncertainty isn't just wavy lines, as a technology it is domain and potential and constructive/destructive interference. The hyperdimensionality of super-amplitudes is confused with uncertainty. As a technology, the quantum scope is an echo chamber that holographically renders all inputs simultaneously. This holographic simulation is a feedback sense. All of this technology may be developed by the willful mind and reshaped for its own end.
I have no doubt one could not begin seeing these patterns before they are suggested (how many lifetimes of grunts before we spoke plainly?), so ignorance and information are without doubt consequential.
Quantum uncertainty is not presently understood. It is more practical to say there is a super amplitude which may be "sussed" (against your every postulated rule that it cannot be.) you will see there is more information capacity than spin dispositions and the qubit will dead end.
True free will is that you can decide (or not) right now without cohersion, it doesn't mean everyone is good at it, not creatures of habit, or not easily tooled.
Having an illusionary singularity (singularium?) in your mind juggling decisions is a mental technology. Our mental technology is not all alike.
Will is the determination of resolve. The cost and consequences of our determination to resolve is something we all pay dearly for our entire lives .
>>All these modes of explanation tell us, in various ways, that people are causal systems, enmeshed in larger ones. But, from a first-person perspective, we’re seldom inclined to wait around to see what the system does when we’re faced with a decision. Instead, we do what even Sapolsky finds himself compelled to do—we get on with things and open the kitchen cupboard to decide (or, anyway, “decide”) what kind of tea we’re going to have.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/13/determined-a-s...
The most popular position on this topic amongst philosophers is this: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/
Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism.
But even in purely materialistic framework it can not be answered because “will” is a non materialistic concept.
In terms of my personal life experience and beliefs - this is what uniquely distinguishes people from other animals.
We are the only species who can proactively choose rather than just instinctively react.
Stories enable us to cooperate in a large scale. Stories like democracy, human rights, United States, Europe many more.
But it's another good sign we already have so called "free will".
I think the illusion of free will comes from having self-awareness.
Still, even as a hard determinist, when I go about my day, making “my choices”, I believe I am consciously deciding, I would even go as far as to say that I have a strong internal locus of control. It’s only when I stop to think about it, that I always end up deciding that nothing I’ve done is the result of pure free will, and rather it’s very much determined by things way beyond my control.
While I tried to keep it within the realm of the layman's understanding, there may be some subtle points that may be a bit difficult to understand.
The fact that we experience things in a universe where there's no apparent need for any of it is just so weird compared to everything else that it renders most philosophical questions impossible to answer with much certainty.
Is it possible that our words and actions a function of the above?
If we unpack “free will” wouldn’t we end up with a similar list?
The uncoherced determination of resolve in the moment of now is the precious freedom of will worth living, dying, and fighting over.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UebSfjmQNvs&pp=ygUVZnJlZSB3a...
(Proof left as an exercise to the reader).