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Your Brain May Not Experience Free Will the Way You Think
(www.vice.com)
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this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2026
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Instead of "illusion" (as the text says), I'd say free will is a fiction, or perhaps an abstraction. It has desirable legal, moral, and social consequences; but we should not confuse that with "real".
In other words: no, you don't have free will, but it's better for everyone if you act as if you did.
"We don't have free will but we have the experience of freedom" - Brian Greene
We do things for two reasons: either we have to, or we want to. There's obviously no freedom in having to do something but we're not free to choose our wants either. It obviously feels like freedom when you have a desire to do something and then you do it, but what else could you have done?
Also, free will implies there's someone making a decision. What is that "someone" and where is it?
My personal view is that it's not so much that we should live as if free will exists, but simply that the concept of no free will is incomprehensible - or even destabilizing - to some people. Being acutely aware of it may not be useful for everyone.
Yup, I agree it isn't something epistemically real.
The reason I still find the concept of free will a desirable fiction is that it pushes people towards doing things that benefit other people, not just themselves, without necessarily curbing down their power. You can use it for example to drill people "yes, you have the choice to cause harm, but you should not act on it".
...or something like this. It's one of those things that is rather clear for me in my thoughts, but not so much when worded.