Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

We also see a bunch of neuronal activities prior to the section of the brain that's known to control movement fires, moving the arm - therefore that's proof that we have consciously made the decision before moving the arm. Same logic.

The main problem with this is that we have a very, very loose understanding of how brain functions work - neuroscience is still in its infancy - and when people like Sam Harris show off these MRI studies as conclusive proof of a deterministic universe with no free will, they gloss over that fact in their rush to the conclusion.

I agree with this.

Have you ever looked into split brain patients? Having learned about the confabulation and stuff that happens automatically for them when the brain cannot possibly know what’s happening, I’m pretty sure we all just make up the reasoning for our behavior after we are compelled to perform the behavior.

Same with brain tumors that cause drastic changes in behavior, including shedding of morals. If we have no control over our biology, we really have no control over our psychology or behaviors, either.

At the same time I’m unsure how I feel about most people believing in free will. On the one hand I’m sure it helps somewhat with curtailing bad behavior, on the other hand it causes us to hold people personally, morally, accountable for transgressions, and punish them for behavior they had no real control over. I’m uncomfortable with that portion.

It's still your brain, ergo you're making that choice.

The simple way of seeing it is that you're executing machine code but it takes time for the compiler to make it readable in a way for you to interpret the code you just fired off. Basically half your brain that is you is running on a low level language and the other one is on a higher level language. That's why we're able to (literally) compile the abstract and simple into complex language.

Likewise, it's why you can literally program yourself to function differently by writing high level language that after compilation will be interpreted in the future by the hardware. Hence things like the "cycle of depression" and "placebo effects".

So it's still free will, there's just a bit of lag between the CPU and the software. Because the CPU is just hardware running binary, it's why it's easier to decrypt and read the signals bring processed - thus why we have machines that know what you'll think before you know what you'll pick, but not machines that can read thoughts (those can be defeated by making it so you don't become aware of what you'll pick through blind randomization btw - also another similarity with computers).

Hmm, I'm not convinced that this necessarily precludes the possibility of free will. It could just be that "free will" in practice is more complex and more subtle than the conscious recognition of that free will in action.

In your example, "I" decided to move my arm, apparently after the action happened - well the rest of my nervous system, beyond just the conscious decision-making part, is also "I".

IMO nothing "has" free will objectively. It's observer-dependent, in that "Does this have free will?" is exactly equivalent to asking "Can I perfectly predict the behavior of this?"

This is correct. What I generally tell people is that, due to the complexity and unpredictability of human cognition, it's practically indistinguishable from free will (but ultimately deterministic, otherwise why even have psychology.)

After all, a coin flip is considered random but there are observable forces acting on it to ultimately determine if it is heads or tails-- and that's just things like the initial force and angle, the air resistance, etc., and that's still considered random. Now imagine something magnitudes more chaotic and complex and you have the human experience.

Thats…not how any of this works. What study are you referencing?