Q1. I wouldn’t introduce the phrase, and would want to know what anyone else using it intended by it before there could be a useful conversation. There’s too much variation in what people who talk about free will consider themselves to be talking about to get anywhere without unpacking it first.
Q2. Given that variation, “free will is an illusion”, unexpanded, is no more than slogan, rather than a meme, and one of nihilism, not rationalism. The purpose of saying it is disempowerment; the one saying it is seeking power over other people. “You do not exist,” said O’Brien to Winston Smith, and “free will is an illusion” is pretty much the same thought.
Q1. I wouldn’t introduce the phrase, and would want to know what anyone else using it intended by it before there could be a useful conversation. There’s too much variation in what people who talk about free will consider themselves to be talking about to get anywhere without unpacking it first.
Q2. Given that variation, “free will is an illusion”, unexpanded, is no more than slogan, rather than a meme, and one of nihilism, not rationalism. The purpose of saying it is disempowerment; the one saying it is seeking power over other people. “You do not exist,” said O’Brien to Winston Smith, and “free will is an illusion” is pretty much the same thought.