https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/311093

Hang on here Possibility, let me just understand exactly what you mean by the term "will". You had initially defined it as "the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action." But in this subsequent post you added to that definition stating that "will, as I understand it, is an underlying faculty that is inherent in every element of matter". That amplifies the concept beyond your initial definition. Can you clarify that for me? Because depending on what you mean I may have a response. Thanks.

On the watch analogy - doesn't it depend on the sequencing? If you set about to buy a watch, but are not aware at that point of a particular watch that your conscious mind has decided on, then when you reach the store and are faced with say 5 watches, then the point at which you become aware of a decision to purchase one particular watch, and then but that one watch, is the point at which your will has decided to act and carries out that act. But you only became aware of that decision at the point at which you were faced with a concrete reality that necessitates a decision regarding the 5 watches. In that sense free will is simply the point at which you were faced with a reality that necessitated a decision to move forward into the future. Whether or not what preceded that "awareness" of that decision is itself "free" is constrained by the fact that we don't really understand how that awareness happens. And whether the process through which that awareness happens is deterministic is constrained by our lack of understanding of it -but the constant requirement to act in the face of an uncertain future means that the idea of "free will" is useful to us and the fact that we use it daily is evidence of its utility as a concept.

Maybe it is simply about the utility of "free will" as a concept which can usefully be applied to a multiplicity of situations and which we therefore use?

If will is defined as "the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action" then the next logical step is to define the word "free". If by "free" you mean a decision of the "will" that is not determined by any causal factors then that becomes difficult to nail down as it becomes an infinite regress. But if you define "free" as the ability of the "will" to decide, or choose, between a multiplicity of actions and possibilities that it has become aware of then that is simply that particular faculty of the will that in the end makes that decision. That is to say that given our limited understanding of a) how the faculty of the will operates within our biological and environmental constraints, b) our limited understanding of how that complex process projects possible future scenarios, c) and then how that process selects between the multiplicity of possible futures, then free will is a useful concept to define that process. Using that argument I then see no problem with that term as it is always grounded in specific instances and is a useful term we use to describe that process.