Thread 16776252

1) Transcendental Argument from Rational Deliberation (self-defeat of strict unfreedom)

P1. To rationally deliberate and believe for reasons you must be able, at the moment of settling on a belief/intention, to select among live alternatives in light of reasons (call this agential control).
P2. If no LFW exists, then either (D) strict determinism is true, making exactly one continuation of the world possible, or (L) only undirected luck resolves alternatives. Under (D) you never genuinely select; under (L) the resolution is not yours (no authorship). In both cases, agential control is absent.
P3. Denying agential control undermines the rational status of any belief reached via deliberation—including the belief “there is no LFW.” (It becomes a mere byproduct of prior causes or luck, not something you had reason-guided power to accept or reject.)
C1. Therefore, the denial of LFW is epistemically self-defeating unless we abandon the possibility of rational belief altogether.
P4. We are more certain that rational deliberation occurs (Moorean fact of practice) than of any sweeping metaphysical thesis that would make it impossible.
C2. So we must accept that some agential control exists—i.e., there are situations in which an agent can do otherwise and is the source of which alternative is selected. That is (a modest form of) LFW.

(This doesn’t claim infallible metaphysical certainty; it’s a transcendental “you can’t deny it without using it” result.)

>>16776252 (OP)
2) The Sourcehood + Responsibility Argument (Moorean shift)

P1. Our practices of holding people responsible presume that, at least at times, the agent is the ultimate source of action (not merely a conduit of prior causes).
P2. These practices are deeply entrenched, action-guiding, and indispensable to moral life; their rationality is more certain than speculative premises that would erase sourcehood.
P3. Frankfurt-style cases at most challenge a crude “could have done otherwise” principle; they do not eliminate sourcehood, and even leave a “flicker” of freedom or a prior settling by the agent.
C. Hence, barring decisive defeaters, we should accept that genuine sourcehood sometimes obtains—again, a core component of LFW.

3) Coherence Model of Libertarian Agency (showing it’s metaphysically possible and not mere luck)

We need LFW to be coherent and non-random. Consider an agent-causal micro-model:

At time t, reasons R and effort E generate a deliberative field with at least two live options A,B (consistent with the total physical state).

Indeterminism (e.g., microscopic) makes multiple continuations physically open, but the agent’s effortful reasons-guided settling S modulates the probabilities:

The linked image delivers: (i) alternative possibilities, (ii) authorship (the settling is because of you), (iii) reasons-responsiveness (non-randomness). It’s compatible with physics because it doesn’t add energy; it shapes which of the physically permitted paths is realized (causal selection among allowed micro-trajectories). “Causal closure” forbids energy miracles, not top-down selection among open possibilities.

>>16776254
4) Replies to the Standard Objections

>Luck objection (“indeterminism makes it random”).
Only if reasons/effort don’t systematically influence outcomes. But when CI>0 and probabilities track reasons, the variance that remains is will-sensitive, not brute. (Think of effort-laden “self-forming actions” where sustained trying settles character.)

>Disappearing agent objection.
On the above model, the agent (not a mere event) contributes a standing power—modulating transition chances in virtue of integrated reasons, character, and effort. The agent does not vanish into events; the events derive from the agent-level power.

>Frankfurt cases (no alternatives).
They show at most that responsibility sometimes survives the loss of alternatives; they don’t show we never have alternatives. LFW only claims some actions have robust alternatives and sourcehood.

>Neuroscience (readiness potentials, etc.). Readiness signals are not decisive: (i) timing reports are noisy; (ii) the ability to veto (“free won’t”) indicates late-stage control; (iii) build-up signals can reflect stochastic accumulation rather than a settled decision. So lab data underdetermine the metaphysics of agency.

>Consequence Argument synergy.
If determinism held, our acts would be fixed by laws + past not up to us. The transcendental and sourcehood arguments above already push against determinism about action; together with the coherence model, they support LFW over compatibilism.

>>16776256
5) Conclusion (what this “proves”)

Deductive victory over all skeptics is unrealistic in metaphysics. But we have:

a self-defeat style argument: rational denial of LFW presupposes the very agential control it denies;

a Moorean argument from the indispensability of responsibility/sourcehood;

a coherent, non-mystical model of agent-causal control that avoids luck and doesn’t violate physics.

Taken together, the best explanation of our rational deliberation, responsibility practices, and the structure of action is that libertarian free will sometimes obtains.

Free will could exist if consciousness collapses the wave function.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8EkwRgG4OE

>>16776268
Why can't it exist under many worlds interpretation

Bump

>>16776252 (OP)
Prima facie experience proves free will as being obviously true, one would need a defeater to question it. So the burden is on the anti freewill advocate to make an argument. You may as well be trying to prove the external world is real, it may not be but that burden is on the challenger. There's no good reason to say free will is fake so it's real

>>16776252 (OP)
The hiccup in these arguments is that both sides use different definitions of free will. One side argues for being able to make decisions, the other side argues for decisions being predetermined. But both are right in their way.
You can't even make a decision without imagining determining factors.