After the fourth dimension that's not true. From fifth to tenth it's all bypassing laws of physics to get increasing degrees. Eleventh dimension is that of fate. It's not creation and manipulation, that's tenth. Eleventh dimension is pure and utter randomness, it makes the entire simulations work by altering 1 and 0 is and isn't rules of what is and isn't.

So if a person doesn't decide what those choices are they still have free will?

Choice is the experience of selection of one among alternatives. We cannot always determine the alternatives, but we do select among them. That’s choice. That’s free will.

Your position is that people doing stuff means free will exists?

No. My position is that people experiencing choices means free will exists.

if people have free will it means they actually control what they do which is impossible because of the mechanistic nature of human existence.

If people have free will it means that they make choices, which they do. People make those choices based on factors such as available alternatives and internal valuation of said alternatives. The presence of determining factors is essential to the free will position, not opposed to it, as I have illustrated.

That's stupid

That’s an ill-informed opinion, not a counter-argument.

Yes and this is exactly what I am referring to in the debate description when I talk about you trying to bypass my arguments rather than create your own. This doesn't in any way provide evidence for free will, it is just a deflection of determinism.

This cannot be a bypass of your own arguments when you haven’t made any. That was the first post. You invited me to post my argument, as I have. I invite you to post a counter-argument, rather than pretend you have already made one herein.

This part of your post is a reply to my assertion that free will opponents conceive of free will as action independent of causation, which neither proponents of free will nor anyone else would consider free. Rather it’s a depiction of a puppet to randomness. Claiming this evades a position you haven’t made does not address what I have said, it evades it.

How did purple dragons that poop cotton candy become a subject?

It’s not a subject. It’s a word salad that no one will waste their time on. Free will on the other hand is a matter of extensive discussion by countless people and scholars over hundreds or thousands of years. Free will is a subject because people wish to understand the fact of choice in a causal universe.

What clearly exists is "will" not FREE will.

You haven’t countered or corrected my articulation of the position of opponents to free will, so I have to assume you agree. Free will as action independent of causation or constraint is not consistent with what proponents of free will mean when they refer to free will. If you’re taking a position against a perspective that your opponents aren’t even holding, you have straw manned their actual opinion.

Proponents of free will do not believe in action independent of constraint or causation. They believe that people choose from a limited set of alternatives and that they have reasons for their choices.

To deny free will is to accept humans for what they are, a part of a physical and mechanistic world.

I have already illustrated that proponents of free will accept and rely on the causal universe. Would you care to address what I have illustrated? Or continue to avoid it?

To believe in free will is to believe that humans have some magical property which allows them to make "independent choices" when they are just part of a series of causal dominoes falling according to the laws of nature.

This is not reflective at all of what I have presented. I invite you to actually read my post. That way your responses to me will be somewhat relevant to what I have actually said.

So humans don't have free will but they have will so they have free will, got it.

“So what you’re saying is...” haha.

No. Again, what I’m saying is that free will does not require unconstrained choice, but merely choice. It does not matter that you cannot choose to fly, teleport, be an earthworm, or in any other way alter your fundamental characteristics. All that matters to the free will position is that you experience choices.

You are literally accepting everything I said but still clinging to the notion of free will out of pure desperation.

If I have accepted what you have said, show where we agree. Then you can narrow down and actually address what I have said that you disagree with.

I don’t cling to free will and I’m not desperate. I have articulated in very straight-forward terms what is meant by free will according to its proponents. I believe I have also articulated what is meant by free will according to its opponents. I understand the argument from both sides. You only seem to understand it from your side. That doesn’t provide you with enough information to make a reasonable decision on the matter, let alone a reasonable counter-argument.

You are literally arguing that the mere act of doing something proves you have free will

I haven’t argued that. If you strike a pool ball, it does something. That’s not free will, nor is it my position. A pool ball doesn’t experience the weighing and balancing of known facts against constrained values to select among various limited alternatives of action. That would be choice. That’s what your opponents mean by free will.

If you make a "choice" but you don't choose what choices you make then "choice" is just a primitive, retarded type zero word.

You choose a lot of the choices you make, though not all. Choice is not an unconstrained concept. You cannot choose among infinite alternatives, but free will proponents don’t say that you can. Again, your position is not attacking what free will proponents actually hold to be the case.

This is why I can't help but think of you as a lower being, it feels like I am talking to some type of primitive monkey rather than a member of my own species.

And yet you appear incapable of effectively countering this primitive monkey’s superior argument.

Now you are making the non-argument that we NEED free will so that we can blame people for shit.

No, I’m saying that free will advocates NEED there to be the constraints you pretend they don’t believe in, and they NEED the universe to be causal. They NEED these facts to articulate their position for free will and responsibility, which logically follows from the existence of these facts.

Perhaps your opposition to my response is little more than a wish to avoid responsibility. That would be consistent with other aspects of your character.

No, people do not need free will in order to have personality traits

There are no personality traits without a pattern of choices.

Proponents of free will assume every action is a choice

Incorrect. Proponents of free will understand that a good many actions are not the result of choice. That’s why we distinguish involuntary actions, subconscious actions, and automatic reflexes from conscious choice.

and thus they ignore the causes behind behaviour.

I have now thoroughly shown that the free will position does no such thing. Free will proponents rely on the existence of causes. Those are the reasons I referred to which illustrates the belief in free will is not a belief in randomness puppetry.

In reality there are measures that can be taken to prevent the conditions which lead to destructive behaviour but in a free will predicated society you simply expect people to go along with social constructs and punish them for their "choices" when they steal your shit due to living a life of poverty.

Punishment is itself one those measures taken to dissuade certain choices. Most people in poverty are not thieves and it is bigoted and elitist of you to suggest it. Most people in poverty are law abiding.

You have done nothing to PROVE free will

You haven’t addressed my position at all.

all you have done is play word games to try and get around the facts of causality and determinism.

I have illustrated that free will relies on causality.

This is because your belief in free will is not rational or empirical, it is an excuse for the social constructs you prefer to reason to be valid.

You have mistaken my position on free will for your own, which is not reflective mine. You fail to understand the issue from your opponents perspective, which is why I said your opinion on the matter is ill-informed and no a counter-argument.

You need free will to exist otherwise your notions of how society should work would be arbitrary and stupid, which they are.

Haha everyone needs free will to exist, no matter how they wish it were otherwise and no matter how stupid their societal notions are.

Summary:

-You accepted my articulation of the perspective opposing free will while re-articulating it in your own words.

-You have failed to show an understanding of the perspective that asserts free will’s existence.

-Said failure has caused you to present an opposing position which your opponents do not hold. (Straw-man)

-Said failure has allows you to continue to avoid your opponents position.