The OP title:How do you use the phrase “free will”?
I don’t usually bother using it at all. The main ingredients of the feeling of free will — a planning and decision algorithm capable of considering counterfactuals, plus a huge dose of mind projection fallacy and non-reductionist confusion — are both interesting to talk about; but unless we’re actually talking about that specific confusion and trying to overcome it, why the hell would we continue referring to the combination of the two with the same word?
(Though I’m willing to use it to refer to just the aforementioned planning and decision algorithm, if I’m talking to someone who I expect won’t be confused by that.)
Is “Free will is an illusion” a rationalism enhancing meme?
No. That’s a meme that promotes the idea that in “rationalism” lies despair and nihilism, instead of a better understanding of normality.
Plus, it’s like saying that it’s an “illusion” to suppose that a calculator is really performing addition when it is really nothing but a mere dance of electrons and transistors. If you even think to say “free will is an illusion”, then you probably haven’t seen through the confusion. (And you’re certainly not going to help anyone else see through the confusion, if “free will is an illusion” is how you start the explanation.)
I don’t usually bother using it at all. The main ingredients of the feeling of free will — a planning and decision algorithm capable of considering counterfactuals, plus a huge dose of mind projection fallacy and non-reductionist confusion — are both interesting to talk about; but unless we’re actually talking about that specific confusion and trying to overcome it, why the hell would we continue referring to the combination of the two with the same word?
(Though I’m willing to use it to refer to just the aforementioned planning and decision algorithm, if I’m talking to someone who I expect won’t be confused by that.)
No. That’s a meme that promotes the idea that in “rationalism” lies despair and nihilism, instead of a better understanding of normality.
Plus, it’s like saying that it’s an “illusion” to suppose that a calculator is really performing addition when it is really nothing but a mere dance of electrons and transistors. If you even think to say “free will is an illusion”, then you probably haven’t seen through the confusion. (And you’re certainly not going to help anyone else see through the confusion, if “free will is an illusion” is how you start the explanation.)