Who’s that?

I probably would be considered compatibilist, I was just being cheeky at first because free will vs. determinism vs. compatibilism is such a played out college philosophy debate that doesn’t hit on particularly presient issues.

I think my focus on freedom comes more from a perspective of trying to conceptualize decision-making from a timeless perspective. The notion of time being phenomenal, and its linearity being a human mental construct, is fundamental in understanding the odd state of free will that has it seemingly existing and not at once. If you don't consider time as necessarily linear, then the notion of a decision being an "experience" that a being cannot opt out of becomes more clear. I think "will" is a stratified concept, and the same way an aware entity, such as a dog, sees an insect or plant as less free, a layman sees a dog as less free, and a rich man sees a layman as less free, and an enlightened thinker sees the rich man as less free, and the man surrounded by supportive community sees the enlightened thinker as less free, and this implies a degree to which freedom is simultaneously relative to and a guarantee to any entity, but in a way that is fundamentally tied to its level of understanding. I find that the language of "free will vs. determinism" distracts from the more important metaphysical fact of the oneness of human-kind through our common thread of perception, since the highest known form of freedom is that afforded through social cohesion.

But if all experience is necessarily phenomenal, then free will is a moot point, is moreso what I’m trying to point at. Certainly decisions are made by freely acting entities, and if saying that makes me a “compatibilist,” then fine, but every “decision” made is a synthesis of opposed phenomena playing out their dialectical relationship through the mechanism of human perception. The “decision” is but a phenomenon we experience, which is pretty antithetical to the traditional understanding of free will.

Basically, people who contribute to the philosophical “canon.” You could get a phd in Phil and study Plato until you’re the foremost expert, but you will only have learned philosophy, not become a philosopher. Kant put forth that all human experience is phenomenal, which would make “free will” a concept of phenomena. Since Kant, no refutation of this philosophy has stuck that wasn’t a rehashing of enlightenment rationalism. All lasting contributions to the canon have added onto Kant’s philosophy.

I bet they did

It depends on who you consider to a be a philosopher

It both is and isn’t an if. It’s dialectical. Phenomenology and existentialism get at the nature of what it means to be and perceive. Sure that’s a subjective reality, which you need not pay attention to, but I similarly need not consider your skepticism to be well informed.

That’s the thing about philosophy tho. It asks questions that get beneath the material fabric of reality. Even if it’s real, it can still be an illusion, just a real illusion, which is what everyone agrees on since Kant. So like yeah, it’s a if, but I make the subjective value judgement that rational beings can see the intuitive truth in that logic, when it’s laid out properly, since the underlying reason that I see reflected in all (perceived) entities around me informs my consciousness as well, and I see the reason Kant lies out as necessarily true.

>if

Yeah dawg, western philosophers been agreeing this is all an illusion for almost two centuries now