In a deterministic universe (the jury is still out as to whether the indeterminism of our universe impacts our decisions), free will is hidden in the other if-branches of the computation-which-is-you. It could’ve made another decision, but it didn’t. You can imagine that as another possible world with that computation being slightly different (such that it makes another decision).
Counterfactuals don’t have ontological existence. We talk about them to talk about other possible worlds which are similar to ours in some aspects and different in others.
The motivational problem is “why think about alternative decisions when you could only have made one decision?”.
The ontological problem is “where do counterfactuals exist?”
In a deterministic universe (the jury is still out as to whether the indeterminism of our universe impacts our decisions), free will is hidden in the other if-branches of the computation-which-is-you. It could’ve made another decision, but it didn’t. You can imagine that as another possible world with that computation being slightly different (such that it makes another decision).
Counterfactuals don’t have ontological existence. We talk about them to talk about other possible worlds which are similar to ours in some aspects and different in others.