To observe that we don't have free will.

Have you been reading War and Peace?! Epilogue II is all about the illusion of free will and your opening post sounds like similar logic. Maybe you'd enjoy it (I didn't!)

Personally I don't believe we are either completely free, nor completely predetermined. Like a teenager who has some, but not total freedom.

You have free will not to follow your instinctive response to situations, that's how humanity has progressed. Yes it's easier to do what's expected or what your parents would do but it's not compulsory.

"we are using pre-existing decision-making equipment on pre-existing circumstances."
Definite no to this one!
Every moment is a new moment. Something has changed, even if only minutely.

The decision making equioment changes over time. So do the circumstances.

Every situation resembles a previous one but is different, perhaps subtly.

Of course we can make a new and different decision each time.

I agree with you initial analysis (haven't read the whole thread).

OP have you got any strategies or book recommendations to work on getting free will?

I recently read this book which touches on similar topics: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Status-Game-Will-Storr/dp/0008354634

The conclusion of the book is instead of seeking status from owning things, or being part of a group you should get status by being good at things that help society or that you are actually interested in (as opposed to som things you pretend you interested in to be part of the group)

So do you feel the same about both rapists and kind people then, because neither can help who they are? ( If I understand you correctly.)

To me that's not pleasurable, but it stands to reason I suppose that, thinking as you do, you would think it's fine.

If you truly feel no responsibility for anything, and that no one else has any responsibilities either, then I suppose nothing would ever worry or surprise you.

If that makes you happy and helps you engage with the world in a meaningful way then I don't see an issue with it.

I personally like the idea that "free will" may or may not exist as it makes my life and view of the world more interesting.

If it's impossible to disprove, maybe that's because it's true.

Clever use of the word maybe there OP.

If I saw the world that way then I would feel very sorry for rapists and murderers for having to follow that path through no fault of their own.

I would also be completely dismissive of people who are kind or have developed great resilience because I would just think 'Oh well they would be like that wouldn't they?'
They were just destined to be kind, just like they were destined to have blue eyes or something.

Therefore I would feel the same about everyone, very flat, and quite depressing I think.

To some extent, I agree with you, but I hold (well, I try to, it's a slippery concept!) an eternalist view of existence, rather than a deterministic one.

There is the philosophical argument against free will, that because everything they happens is as a result of what's already happened - cause and effect - there is no choice in anything we do, it's all been predetermined since the start of the universe (and presumably before that even.)

So, no, not everyone would end up in prison because not everybody is on that pre-determined path.

We can't really know if this is true or not, for obvious reasons, and for practical reasons around responsibility etc., it's better to assume we have free will.

I can see that it could be a fortunate and useful thing to believe in lots of situations. Do you think people believing this would be likely to use it to override conscience pangs in a way that might well be damaging?

the experience of decision making / volition actually occurs after the action has already occurred / the decision has already been made.

That's about the lag between conscious & unconscious thought. My 'experience' of deciding I'd better make some dinner instead of eating biscuits all evening follows an unconscious prompt that I'm hungry, then a little back-and-forth between my conscious and unconscious regarding whether biscuits will provide the needed nutrition and would be as satisfying as the chicken liver with sautéed veg I have waiting to be cooked.

Since we're now all interested in my dinner (!), I am consciously thinking "I know it'll only take 15 minutes but I don't want to stand in the kitchen for that long, I hurt." But the previous negotiation has convinced me dinner will make me feel nourished, while the rest of the biscuit pack will make me feel sick.

We are constantly educating our subconscious minds. They don't come fully stacked from birth. If they couldn't be educated, therapy wouldn't work and training to the point of 'flow' wouldn't be possible.

But you’re not answering the question ‘is there free will?’ You’re answering my question ‘is it better to believe there is free will?’ and I think doing this with a very valid answer.

It’s mostly a religious concept , or at least it started that way. Rather than being predestined to sin, we have a choice.

I'm not sure what is meant by 'free will'. There's a sort of arrogant Victorian idea of no boundaries to what a chap may do or think and there's a more constrained, realist idea of humans having choices.

We're constrained by our biology, which includes our cognition, by time and circumstance and society, our choices are limited in that sense. But far from being wholly determined, they are in the moment, may be impulsive, each choice bounces off another choice made elsewhere in constant unpredictable motion.

So neither determined nor controllable.

Depressive thinking tends to be characterised by a sense of determinism, see Detective 'Rust' Cohle's 'Time is a flat circle' shizzle.

For hard determinism the inevitability is the central aspect. I don't think there is any possibility of proving it / ascertaining truth to it without getting bogged down in circular reasoning.

But of course, that something can not be proven to be true, does not mean that it is not true.

For myself I look at hard determinism as the most parsimonious explanation for experience, and science should generally try to look for explanations that are the most parsimonious.

I also think the neuroscience in this area is very interesting and there are several studies now that show that appear to show that the experience of decision making / volition actually occurs after the action has already occured / the decision has already been made.

https://www.science.org/content/article/case-closed-free-will

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627310010822

Oh certainly I have to concede that it would be impactful but I suppose I'm asking if it should? Would the proof free will didn't exist excuse crime or make you not love your children etc. for me it wouldn't but.. wait is that my own decision or not..

That's maybe true for you but I think it could change a lot for a lot of people, I think "it would matter" to them in terms of how they evaluated their past and future lives, major issues of religion, concept of punishing criminals, etc etc.

That knowledge, if it were proven to be true, (and if it were truly believed and taken to heart - another question altogether) would be impactful.

If your beliefs are simply the inevitable output of your programming, on what basis have you concluded they're true rather than merely inevitable?