Free Will Exists

Thank you for posting your argument. I will dedicate this round to rebuttals.Before I start, I'd like to say that I indeed agree with you on the definition of free will that we have discussed in the comments. It seems unlikely or impossible that free will is a physical or a spiritual "thing", as you have put it. Rather, I see it as a way to describe the nature of human thought and choices. I argue that this description contradicts the evidence that we have, and that it is not compatible with our reality. This is basically what I mean when I say that free will doesn't exist.1. Argument from experience.My opponent tries to support free will by providing evidence from experience. He states that humans are able to experience their choices, and, thus, have free will. He argues that I responded to his post because I exercised my own will, and that this qualifies as evidence for free will.However, I would completely disagree with the conclusion that our experience can be seen as a plain and obvious evidence for free will. I would like to reiterate some of my points that I brought up in my arguments in the 2nd round, especially in the "Pick a City" argument:a) Our experience shows that our thoughts, ideas and choices simply pop up in our minds.b) We do not have control over which choices pop up.c) We do not ultimately know why we choose something that we choose.Therefore, while we are able to experience our choices, it would seem that we experience them from a spectator's perspective, rather than from the perspective of an active entity, which is ultimately responsible for those choices. I see this as evidence against free will, rather than for free will. In essence, our experience is not only compatible with the notion of determinism, it actually shows evidence for it.My opponent tries to reinforce his argument by stating that "If Con responds to this post, he has used his will to do so". However, please notice that my will is not necessarily free in this case. Indeed, my response was likely predetermined by my opponent's statements & actions, the debate topic, format and the deadline. While I did, in a narrow sense, choose to post this rebuttal, I do not know why I ultimately chose this option, nor do I know why the reasons that I mentioned above had the effect that they had on my choice. Indeed, I could have chosen a completely different debate topic altogether, yet I chose to debate Free Will, and I, from my experience, certainly could not claim that I could have chosen otherwise, under the same circumstances.To sum up this point in a sentence, I want to say that while we are able to experience our choices, we are not able to choose our choices, nor are we able to know why we choose what we choose. As I said in my original argument, this contradicts the notion of free will.2. Our experience is unreliable.My opponent says that, if we assume that our experience is untrustworthy, then any evidence for and against free will is untrustworthy. He then provides an analogy about an apple, explaining how our experience and evidence leads to the conclusion that we have free will.I do not see the reason to argue against this, because I never said that free will doesn't exist because of the unreliability of our experience. I am indeed using arguments from experience myself in order to prove my case that free will is illusory. Indeed, if there is any place to look for evidence for/against free will, I would see human experience as the main source for such evidence, due to the nature of the definition of free will.My opponent, however, seems to misinterpret the experience itself. While I see our experience as something that contradicts free will, he sees our experience as something that shows evidence for free will. I have argued for why my arguments on this matter are stronger both in this, and in the previous round.3. The evidence is plain and insurmountable?My opponent provides several examples, supposedly showing evidence for free will. He says that we exercise free will, because:a) "we each have the choice at this moment to close our eyes or leave them open"b) "to continue reading or to choose not to finish reading this sentence"However, he provides no evidence at all for his assertion that we have those choices. Using similar argumentation that I used above, I would rather say that we do not have such choices, or, at the very best, we can only observe what we choose, not actually choose what we choose.Taking into account my arguments from 2nd round, and taking into account our deterministic model of the brain, I can only reiterate what I said: the choices that we make are not under our control. Firstly, we do not have control of our cellular and molecular machinery on which such choices rely on. Secondly, we cannot, from experience, see any evidence that we can actually make such choices psychologically. Both from experience, and from experiments, it seems that our choices are both determined, and, in some cases, predictable. In essence, they are not free.With this, I'd like to conclude my rebuttals. I'd like to again thank my opponent for engaging in this debate. I now await his rebuttals/arguments before we move on to the last round.