But I wasn't forced not to move my right foot. And it is not open to anyone to say that although I was not forced not to move my right foot in any ordinary sense of "forced" they have some other sense of "forced" by which I was forced to do so. The question of free will originates in ordinary language. To change meanings in (as it were) in midstream is not to show that I was not free to move my leg. It is to change the subject. It is as if I were to order scrambled eggs, and the waiter were to tell me that I could not have scrambled eggs in the sense that I meant "scrambled eggs" but that I could have scrambled eggs in a different sense of "scrambled eggs", and then serve me waffles. It makes no sense. You cannot change the facts by changing words. Scrambled eggs don't become waffles by calling them waffles, and neither is it shown that I don't have free will by calling free will something else, and demonstrating that I don't have that. That I don't have that in no way shows that I don't have free will, since what I meant by free will was not, that in the first place. Why people think they can get away with this kind of bait-and-switch argument which is at home on used-car lots, I cannot imagine.

Yes, it is because these people, despite their odd belief that humans can't freely make choices, must believe that they can freely make choices in order to even function in our society. They must acknowledge the difference between a free choice and a compelled choice, especially when speaking about moral and legal issues.

So, it's a self-inflicted cognitive dissonance (the holding of contradictory beliefs), where their scientism and rationality clash.

Zetherin wrote:

Yes, it is because these people, despite their odd belief that humans can't freely make choices, must believe that they can freely make choices in order to even function in our society. They must acknowledge the difference between a free choice and a compelled choice, especially when speaking about moral and legal issues.

So, it's a self-inflicted cognitive dissonance (the holding of contradictory beliefs), where their scientism and rationality clash.

It's not that simple. If one was compelled, then no choice was made. The only way around that would be to discard rationality all together.

Any use of will, as we understand it, is aimed at creating a favorable outcome. In this, we all know the will is bound.

Fundamentally, possibility and will can't be discarded because of what we're referring to when we say unnatural. We're saying counter to the normal flow of things. For instance an unnatural death goes counter to the ideal scenario. We have an image of structure. That image wouldn't exist were it not for our conception of the ideal.

It's a valid question: is there really anything that is unnatural? How could there be? In this, we're discarding the ideal and allowing experience to tell us What Is. That's what you call understanding.

Could you please say why one's choice cannot be compelled?

They believe that we are nothing more than computer programs (a popular analogy) and are completely physically reducible. We only think we can make choices (they call this the illusion of free will). Any choice we think we make, however, is only the result of matter operating in a certain, determined manner. Our consciousness gives us no consolation here. We're just a heap of matter running its course with no influence.

I do believe that we are like computer programs in the way you describe. You talk as if this is a completely absurd idea. I think I act like a computer program because all I see in the world are things that follow laws like computer programs do. At least we, the hard determinists, are able to make a comparison to something that exists in nature. Where are your comparisons, what is it like to have this power of free-will. Why are we so special that we have this power when no examples exist outside the minds of those who believe they have it. Do other animals have this power. I want your power too, I do not like being a machine.

Is it even possible to convince someone who believes in the power of free-will otherwise? Is it possible to convince someone who believes they are determined that instead they have free-will? Have you ever convinced anyone? I'm not sure I have. Is there really so much at stake here that we cannot come to some conclusion?

You're begging the question against indeterminism. There's no reason why computers can't work exactly the way they do in a completely random universe.