First of all, I know many of you are tired of the “free will” topics, however, I hope that this will limit the amount. 
Would it even matter if we had free will or not?
If some higher power is controlling our decisions and influencing our actions so that we would not have any choice in any matter, would it matter? I mean, even if it is true there is nothing that you could do about it (at least not to my knowledge), so why discuss it? It is pointless.
What is missed in the free-will debates is the obvious consequences of determinism.
History has been littered with dangerous thinkers that claim to have the law of “human nature” to justify the most monstrous political ideologies - I can include fascism and communism in that.
I think free-will is the most fundamental issue in philosophy, and virtually all of my philosophic interests directly or indirectly link to this problem.
So why would you bother to raise this topic? After all, it is pointless right?
Sisyphus0
this is the same with any philosophical investigation. If its the way things are, why bother finding out?
Curiousity? Free will also has implication with neurology, psychology and quantum mechanics (the many worlds theory) even.
And capitalism…
‘It’s human nature to be greedy, individualistic, warlike, trigger happy and stupid’…
So, let’s make this a real conversation. What’s free will, and what’s determinism. Suppose you were God, looking at a set of beings with free will on one world, and a set of beings without it on another. What differences would you notice? Is one or the other incoherent, or impossible to define? I think most of the time with this matter, people only have a dim understanding of what these two positions are. I know I could benefit from a determinist stepping in and saying what exactly he thinks free will would be, and why there isn’t any.
A man is walking in the countryside, looking at nature, and eating berries. He thinks about the berries, and decides that there may be a grub in one of them. He looks in the berry, and finds a grub. He doesn’t eat the berry or the grub, and goes home.
The next day another man is walking in the countryside, looking at nature, and eating berries. He doesn’t stop to think of the berries, and eats them all including the grubs. The grubs were layed by a bluebottle fly who had been mutated by some genetically modified crops that he had eaten. The man becomes ill, and eventually dies.
The next day, a man falls from a roof. On the way down he is wondering what he can do to survive the forces of gravity. He tries everything, but hits the ground anyway, and dies instantly.
So determinism is like saying that all 3 situations are the same. We are constantly falling to our death all of the time, and physics are constantly challenging us, even if we are walking along a country road. We do not wriggle around however. We do not panic. If determinism is accepted as true, then maybe we should panic all of the time, as though falling from a building. We are being swept along by a river, in a boat without a paddle.
Computer says no!
Not at all, provided we always have the illusion of free will.
Jon F
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Yes, whenever you want to defend a social norm, use “human nature” - they must teach that in law school. 
The post was asking why the question is important, rather than asking to solve it.
My own feeling is that free-will is a truism. Virtually all of the arguments against it is the presumption that determinism is true.
Gah. Make the distinction:
psychological free will: i am free to consider options and choose among them (i am under no restraint)
metaphysical free will: i can make a decision independant of circumstances because my will is not subject to causal laws.
determinism only disputes the second claim, and with good reason. Humans do behave in causal ways (psychology is based on this fact), and for humans to behave independant of causality would make decisions random and stupid.
There’s a name for it in logic too, one of the fallacies. Can’t remember the exact term. It’s pretty widespread…
i agree. how can knowing there is or is not free will increase or decrease the quality of your life? i suppose if you were really evil ‘knowing’ there is no free will could ‘cause’ you to abdicate all moral responsibility. but hten it might as well go further and nullify choice and make you comatose. obviously it would just as likelily ‘cause’ you to remain doing exactly what you’re doing. nonetheless i always see anti-freewill sentiments as being bleak and depressive. not because i fear life may be that way, but because a life that pretends there is no life must be bleak and depressive. but actually it’s something even worse: thinking is so retarded already that anti-life conclusions have no effect. so, I only argue over free will in the name of anti-retardation.
I don’t think it matters if we have free will or not. Emotions are what make life enjoyable. In short i think it is what we experience not how we got there.
so,
you’ve made a thread about how freewill threads are pointless?
Cannot see the difference. If I am free to make choices, then my will is not subject to causal laws.
But in what way are you free?
A computer which is responsible for launching or not launching nuclear missiles is free to do either. It can launch them, or it can decide not to. This does not mean it is able to launch them without a cause though.
The criteria for its decision are more ‘set in stone’ than ours, but the principle remains the same.
If you act for a reason, then you have acted due to a cause. If you are not subject to causal laws, arent you random? Stupid?
Insulting someone is not a method of argumentation in my eyes, so I will not give a response. 
Ad hominem.
wha? 
please remember, i am describing the consequences of YOUR view of your actions. I dont hold that actions are random and stupid, yours or anyone else, because i believe they are caused.
Ad hominem is an attack on character in favour of attacking argument, and this is precisely what you are doing here.
EDIT for further clarity:
No offence was meant. I dont attack the people on this board, only their arguments. I expect others to do the same and because of this, I forget that my intention could be misconstrued by sloppy wording. Tone doesnt translate to text easily.
My point was:
Arent the consequences of believing that the will is exempt from causality that you (meaning everyone else also, but i am addressing you for ease of pronoun use) a random and stupid creature?
Your actions would have no cause, and thus no reason for them. Without a reason, any action would be random and stupid.
I’m looking for a counter argument that will reconcile a lack of causality with the ability to have reasons.
An irony.
“Freewill” is a dangerous device in discourse because it is a threat to the very conditions in which one would attempt to persuade another that freewill does exist- the determination of the logic.
If, inevitably, I would try to prove to another that freewill exists, and presented an argument, I would require that he take my argument as the truth, and with that he must assume that it could not be otherwise, in which case the truth of it was not by choice.
If freewill did exist, then it would be possible for me to be wrong in asserting that it did not, because if the truth can merely be chosen, then it is contingent to the choice with which the decision is made, and hardly convincing of any necessary truth.