To me it seems like we should separate the notion of being conscious with the notion of having free will. Everyone is conscious and knows this; it is trivially

To me it seems like we should separate the notion of being conscious with the notion of having free will. Everyone is conscious and knows this; it is trivially easy to prove (at least for one self. I don't know if all you guys reading this are [1]). However, how do we know if we have free will? Assuming we can even land on a common definition of free will, how do we prove it? I think the "intuitive" notion people seem to have of free will is that they themselves have agency on their own actions. Important here is the distinction most people seem to draw between themselves as decision-makers and themselves as action-takers. They do not see this as the same. Action-taking happens in meatspace, but decision-making is thought to be more nebulous and ethereal. If the suggestion is made that decision-making might be solely a result of a multitude of factors in meatspace (genetics, upbringing, mood, etc...), then that suggestion is emphatically rejected by many (if not most). However, decision-making cannot be free from meatspace, because then it cannot be anything more than based on chance. I wrote about this in length a while ago here [2], but the basic concept is that if there is no causation, then the alternative can only be randomness. Which is deeply unsatisfying to everyone. Einstein's dice quote comes to mind (even if it was on a completely different topic). Libet's flawed experiment is not really relevant to the conversation. Whether free will exists or not, it is more an experiment on the nature of consciousness than free will, and thus cannot really offer any meaningful answers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism [2] https://www.hugomontenegro.com/blog/the-absurdity-of-free-will https://www.hugomontenegro.com/blog/the-absurdity-of-free-wi...