Focus/diffuses modes are widely known/accepted.
You can direct the unconscious thoughts too. If I spend some time intensely trying to solve a problem on the conscious level, often I get new ideas on how to approach it in the morning or during a long run (without thinking about it on the conscious level).
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Unrelated: the discussions about free will often miss that the existence of atoms doesn't imply that a wooden table doesn't exist: they are on different levels of abstraction--no point in comparing.
In fact, this is a proof of free will. If you were compelled to consider the consequences of your actions then evil would be impossible. The fact that we see evil means that people can choose not to think about what will happen when they do evil things.
Think carefully. Think friend, think.
Unpacking: assuming you aren't coerced, you choose one of N options "freely". But all the factors (many inscrutable) that contribute to the ultimate choice are predetermined from your biology to all your lived experience (which ultimately is encoded in your brain in some manner).
Sam Harris has a short (7 minute) video with a demonstration of this. The demonstration starts about 1:20 in, but it is worth watching the minute setup.
P.s. Am I wrong for assuming that whenever someone talks about free will without mentioning compatiblism, they most likely talking about some other form?
What's your definition?
It’s an illusion but that doesn’t negate we must operate as though our will is free!
It’s like white swans. If you’ve never seen a bird, you might think that nobody has ever seen a white swan.
Time is a fourth dimension but think of everything that has and everything that will happen as a three dimensional cube for a moment.
Now step outside the cube and observe everything that has and ever will happen.
Does that mean there was no free will because it's all observable and was "locked in" ?
No of course not. It's a unique box of time. If you look around there could be another unique box of time with different free will choices being made inside it.
(btw this is one way they attempt to theorize an excuse for quantum entanglement, it "knows" the outcome already by also existing outside the box)
And than one thinks hard.
And then one fine day "eureka!"
But they do not happen on their own. It takes effort to make them possible, even though there is no guaruantee that they will come (Dead ends exists).
If you choose to focus entirely on baking you'll have eureka moments about that.
(Although free will is required to make any conclusion about the presence or absence of free will, so the point is moot).
Definitely random generators can be a subset of logic, not the superset.
Each series of words and arguments is equivalent because no understanding actually exists.
There is no mechanism behind picking one series of words over the other because a random number generator is behind anything.
You can’t trust such a system to produce any logical outcome, therefore free will (embodied understanding and decisions etc.) is required to conclude that free will doesn’t exist :)
Saying an airplane concludes to tell the pilot to "pull up" is correct as far as I think most people see it.
Turing machine based robots will get stuck until the end of time stuck in infinite loops that humans are able to easily step out of. This is one of the requirements for understanding, so examples of robots aren’t very illuminating.
But I don't think we can agree on anything here, I am a materialist and you seem to be a dualist. You may believe in some kind of god(s), (Otherwise how could will-ful humans emerge from will-less matter ?) and I don't intend to debate this here.
My worldview is that our brains exist in a material universe that is governed by physical rules, and until I see proof of the existence of some kind of soul that is somehow able to make decisions detached from our material condition (culture, health, environment, past history), I think my position is the most reasonable one.
eureka moments don't hit like bird poo in the middle of the street. they hit people who have spent months-decades thinking about the problem.
a more convincing argument is that they didn't have a choice in choosing that ball of yarn to pick at - mostly it comes along as an irrepressible urge to figure it out.
The most fascinating thing to me is how subtle body sensations lead to thoughts and vice versa.
Also, it’s impossible to disprove the existence of free will because it requires will to make a conclusion like that.
Free will is much closer to leprechauns (we still haven't mapped every forest!) on the truth spectrum than it is to cancer cures or fusion energy.
Considering that we as human beings don't get to decide what exactly we remember, recall, when we recall or how much we recall - that is memory. What we remember and what we forget. I point this out because it's not a conscious activity but also determines actions, greatly so even.
In the Monopoly example perhaps a property is bought bc its a favorite color or they remember winning before with it or its the one they kno their cousin wants. Whatever the personal reasons, there are reasons - nobody plays Monopoly with all logic and reason.
So we have limited circumstantial choices and predetermined biased assessments of those choices - both beyond our control.
What is free will in that context?
At least in Judaism there is sizable chunk of believers who believe in God and that everything is God's will and thus there is no free will - Hashgachah Pratit - so at the very least only one direction of your argument could hold, though I don't understand why it's a coherent idea to begin with.
(also, which particular audience are you trying to insult with that categorical statement and why?)