Frank,
Demonstrated instances of illusory free-will don’t seem to me to be harder or easier to get rid of than the many other demonstrated illusory cognitive experiences. So I don’t see anything exceptional about them in that regard.
HA, I do. It is a concept I suspect we are genetically biased to hold, an outgrowth of the distinction between subject (has a will) and object (has none). Why are be biased to do so? Because, largely, it works very well as a pattern for explanations about the world. We are built to explain the world using stories, and these stories need actors. Even when you are convinced that choice does not exist, you’ll still be bound to make use of that concept, if only for practical reasons. The best you can do is try to separate the “free” from the “choice” in an attempt to avoid the flawed connotation. But we have trouble conceptualising choice if it’s not free; because then, how could it be a choice?
All that said, I seem to remember someone saying something like: “Having established that there is no such thing as a free will, the practical thing to do is to go on and pretend there was.”.
HA, I do. It is a concept I suspect we are genetically biased to hold, an outgrowth of the distinction between subject (has a will) and object (has none). Why are be biased to do so? Because, largely, it works very well as a pattern for explanations about the world. We are built to explain the world using stories, and these stories need actors. Even when you are convinced that choice does not exist, you’ll still be bound to make use of that concept, if only for practical reasons. The best you can do is try to separate the “free” from the “choice” in an attempt to avoid the flawed connotation. But we have trouble conceptualising choice if it’s not free; because then, how could it be a choice? All that said, I seem to remember someone saying something like: “Having established that there is no such thing as a free will, the practical thing to do is to go on and pretend there was.”.