If free will does not exist, can we be held morally accountable for our actions?

if free will does not exist, then you are not freely deciding to punish another person for their deeds.

so it doesn't matter if you're accountable, it's already been determined whether or not you will be punished.

man why is philosophy so easy to BTFO

yes
nowhere is it written that lack of free will makes one morally unculpable

Pretending you, your fellows, and the world are other than they are is the real cowardice.

Determinists are arguably the only ones responsible for their actions in so far as responsibility means something, because they are aware of their limited agency and their awareness of it. That latter part is key, I suggest you think on it

"Free will" in the sense metaphysical libertarians use the phrase is a nonsensical idea. The notion that your will can create true randomness e.g. that you could somehow will a six sided die to come up twenty seven is not borne out in the physical world.

Determinism is an equally foolish idea. The determinist will hold that it is possible to predict everything, but that humans are beings without access to "true" i.e. "objective" knowledge. If the latter is true, how can the former be? Someone or something has to be doing the predicting. Measurements are a language like any other; they simply describe reality, they do not exist independently of the entity doing the measuring.

The problem is drivel: a language game. I have agency, I use this agency, and this is as far as it goes. My agency is not a "perfect" or "flawless" agency, nevertheless it is mine and not subject to factors other than those I subject it to.

Morally accountable? Idk. But this doesn't have to stop us from doing what we normally do.

Bacteria aren't morally accountable but you still cook your chicken. You don't hold a rabid dog morally accountable but you still put them down.

Humans don't have to be morally accountable for us to restrain and punish them for anti-social behaviors.

Furthermore, morality is fundamentally emotional to begin with, so a lack of free will doesn't mean we can't feel revulsion at antisocial behavior either. They may not have "had a choice" in the metaphysical sense but we can still find their behavior, and by extension, their thought processes and even more abstract concepts like their "personality", to be disgusting

Free will does exist but we can't be held morally accountable for our actions.

That's funny OP, I recently hacked into my ex's mailbox and there was an essay about it.

The will is a spiritual faculty, it determines its own movement. Spirit is a self-moving substance, a more simple and subtle substance than matter. It's not that the free-will introduces randomness to the material world, but that its action transcends the material world and is not bounded by it.

Athenian Stranger. Then I suppose that I must repeat the singular argument of those who manufacture the soul according to their own impious notions; they affirm that which is the first cause of the generation and destruction of all things, to be not first, but last, and that which is last to be first, and hence they have fallen into error about the true nature of the Gods.

Cleinias. Still I do not understand you.

Ath. Nearly all of them, my friends, seem to be ignorant of the nature and power of the soul, especially in what relates to her origin: they do not know that she is among the first of things, and before all bodies, and is the chief author of their changes and transpositions. And if this is true, and if the soul is older than the body, must not the things which are of the soul's kindred be of necessity prior to those which appertain to the body?

Cle. Certainly.

Ath. Then thought and attention and mind and art and law will be prior to that which is hard and soft and heavy and light; and the great and primitive works and actions will be works of art; they will be the first, and after them will come nature and works of nature, which however is a wrong term for men to apply to them; these will follow, and will be under the government of art and mind.

Cle. But why is the word "nature" wrong?

Ath. Because those who use the term mean to say that nature is the first creative power; but if the soul turn out to be the primeval element, and not fire or air, then in the truest sense and beyond other things the soul may be said to exist by nature; and this would be true if you proved that the soul is older than the body, but not otherwise.

[...]

classics.mit.edu/Plato/laws.10.x.html

The modern physics says that forces like gravity and electromagnetism (Plato uses the classical "fire" and "air") move matter. But what moves gravity and electromagnetism? Because matter is passive and not move anything, but can only BE moved - we need to posit a substance that CAN actively move, and ultimately one that is self-moving, and that is soul. Soul lies underneath matter; soul, moving itself, is the cause of all motion, all change. The All-Soul moves the whole material universe, the ens mobile, and activates ensouled beings like us to have our own self-motion in regards to our bodies.

If free will doesn't exist then are feminists allowed to complain about oppression?

>But what moves gravity and electromagnetism?
Gravity is a name used to describe a sort of motion. What "moves" gravity? Mass, the very thing you say cannot "move." Weight = mass*gravity. Seriously, have you ever studied physics?

There's no spirit, no soul in me: no "All-Soul" deigning to "ensoul" me. I am in me, and I myself create thoughts from nothing. I, as you, am the first mover. Stop this Platonic nonsense, there's a reason very few serious scientists adhere to the theory of forms.

If we have no free will and cannot be held accountable for our crimes, than whoever punishes cannot be blamed for doing so as he too has no free will.

holy...I want more.

See: Diogenes of Sinope

>If free will does not exist, can we be held morally accountable for our actions?
It doesn't matter, because we can't decide whether or not we hold other people accountable either.

>Gravity is a name used to describe a sort of motion. What "moves" gravity? Mass, the very thing you say cannot "move." Weight = mass*gravity. Seriously, have you ever studied physics?

This is the obfuscation. How can mass move itself? I do not say that mass cannot move at all - I say that it can only suffer passive motion, i.e. it can only BE moved, it cannot actively move anything. If mass can move itself, where does it get the power to do so? I thought the whole point of matter was that it can only be moved / acted upon by an external force. Matter does not act upon itself.

Newton never said that his theory of gravitation meant that mass moved itself. In fact, he said that his hypothesis DIDN'T include such a notion.

>I am in me, and I myself create thoughts from nothing.

And what material power, if you are a materialist, allows you to create thoughts out of nothing?

If we truly have so little free will that we cannot be held accountable for our actions then we must acknowledge that we have no agency at all of any kind and are stuck as part never ending chain of billions of intertwining causes and effects.

>I, as you, am the first mover.

The first mover of what? Your body? In a sense I agree, which is what gives you free will. If you think you are the first mover of your body, you do away with the determinist notion that we have no free will because we are only our bodies which are determined by external material forces.

If you think you are the universal first mover you are delusional (solipsism).

It does exist. Our free will exists in our ability to use the input we sense of reality to project multiple possible futures depending on our actions. Not in the choice we eventually make, for we will always pick the choice we project to bring us the most happiness.
Yes, this process might be determined. So what? When we judge a moral action we judge a person's ability to see possibilities and pick a proper one. Every human has that "choice projection" ability.

The free will aspect refers rather to whether someone is capable of seeing happiness in the moral choices or not. The definition of morality itself depends on the possibilities we can conceive of, not the choice.
The freedom of our free will therefore lies in our ability to see possible futures, not in the choices we eventually make.

Note: this also presupposes that God is not all-powerful or all-knowing consciousness, but created us to form a better view of reality itself. Our ability to foresee possibilities is what God uses to make his own forecasts.

so you're saying... and correct me if I am misunderstanding you... but youre saying that if we have no free will... then we don't have free will????

MIND=BLOWN

Das rite.

Like most philisophical questions, this question is meaningless and boils down to semantics.

Yes.

>soul is self-moving

This is incoherent. To say that something is self-moving is to say that nothing at all can be said of its movement. The principle of sufficient reason governs our empirical analysis. Each effect is a necessary result of a sufficient cause. For an object to cause itself would be a vicious circle, it does not actually *say* anything meaningful about the object, it's a trick of language

>forces move matter, but what moves forces?

Matter's behavior is *reduced* to the behavior of forces. The behavior of forces is reduced to the behavior of subatomic particles described in quantum physics. Maybe one day we'll have a good description of what to reduce quantum physics to. Maybe string theory.

It doesn't stop. Turtles all the way down. Reduction doesn't reach anything "more primary", it just zooms in on the fractal.

We do not ever achieve the perception of causation, we just get more "impressions" to use humes terms

Ok, let me put it this way; gravity moves mass. It is a description of how mass moves. In other words, gravity is a type of motion. To ask "what moves gravity" is the same as asking "what moves motion." All objects possess mass, so all objects possess a gravitational field that to a greater or lesser degree acts on other objects.

I know what you're trying to get at, something like "what is the general cause of mass" in the Aristotelian sense, but there is no such thing. Mass causes gravity, gravity*mass cause weight, etc. I am not a stellar physicist, but this is my understanding; there are certain empirical dogmas (e.g. Mass exists) that one has to adhere to for it to function, like any system. The "soul" is not one of these dogmas.

>And what material power, if you are a materialist, allows you to create thoughts out of nothing?
I'm not a "materialist," because the logical conclusion of that philosophy is determinism. I cannot be described strictly by the materials that constitute me; My power allows me to create thoughts out of nothing. I mean, come on, you do not think to think a thought, you simply think. You create thoughts from nothing as well as I do.

>If you think you are the universal first mover you are delusional (solipsism).
Eh, it's not really a relevant question anyway. The universe doesn't exist without me. That is, what I'm not perceiving for me, ostensibly, does not "exist." That's not to say it isn't out there, but it takes the form of a concept (a thought) until I put my hands on it. E.g. A tree cannot fall in the forest with no one around to hear it, because if no one is around to hear it, no one knows it has fallen. It's an impossible hypothetical, i.e. a paradox.

>thoughts come from nothing

Never have you witnessed a thought without it being accompanied by a brain and body. Maybe they are independent but that remains to be seen.

>the universe doesn't exist without me

Think of the moon. Now think of your thoughts of the moon. Clearly there is a difference that even pure idealists recognize. Is it possible to perceive the thing-in-itself? No, perception is a ideal process. But that doesn't mean that nothing exists outside your mind. Perceiving something's existence is a mental phenomena, but part of perceiving it is locating it in time and space, outside your mind. The paradox here is actually to claim that the universe is ONLY your mind, when your mind is an object in the universe

Source on that painting?

>Never have you witnessed a thought without it being accompanied by a brain and body.
By the definition of thinking as "using one's mind," certainly. That doesn't mean the brain itself or the body itself is the "cause" of the thought; I, who am more than both together, think. They (thoughts) are obviously not "independent" of me, but they are not "caused" by any part of my in itself, either. I know I do not think to think a thought; I create a thought, i.e. I think. I use my mind.

>the paradox is to claim that the universe is only in your mind
I agree, I didn't claim this. I am saying that, if I were dead, the universe would not exist *to me.* It may as well exist only in my mind at that point, for the purposes of pragmatism, but I recognize that it does not exist only there. Otherwise, I would be on the road to schizophrenia.

If there is no free will then why do people do certain actions that won't benefit them in the short or long term eg stealing will bring jail in the long term if repeated enough to get eventually caught.

Yes, because humans have significantly reduced the number of environmental factors pressuring our overall development in lieu of social behavior and technology. Even if there is no free will, we will hold those whose morality we do not like 'accountable' in an effort to ensure our own ideologies on morality survive and continue. Whether or not an individual can be held accountable is irrelevant, because they will be held accountable, regardless of free will.

>self-moving

Self-moving just means "moves by incomprehensible means"

Imagine a caveman looking at a car. They must assume it moves itself because they don't understand how it moves.

This is how the concept of a vital force came to exist. Not understanding the mechanism by which life moves. So we just put everything that moves by an incomprehensible mechanism in one category and call it life.

I thought about doing this way before a drawn bird. I was going to rent a cheap office and just offer advice for money. Not declare myself as anything but a "problem solver."

Plenty of retards fall for this kind of shit.

All right: what did you do?

>thoughts are not caused by any part of me

What makes you say this? Remove your brain, thoughts cease. Remove your arm, thoughts continue. It's pretty obvious to most people that the brain causes your thoughts.

You seem to have noticed that thoughts come when they come, you aren't in control of them. That should tell you that they are a result of some non-mental process, not that your whole mental life is part of some kind of free will

it does
God holds us accountable

The people that hold them accountable arent free to not hold them accountable, you see.

If free will exists, you must necessarily execute anybody who does wrong because they have chosen to do wrong and there is no way to change them.

>Remove your brain, thoughts cease
Along with everything else. As if I could move my arm without a brain.

>It's pretty obvious to most people that the brain causes your thoughts.
>You seem to have noticed that thoughts come when they come, you aren't in control of them. That should tell you that they are a result of some non-mental process

Pick one. Either the brain causes them and they're the result of mental processes, or the brain doesn't cause them and they're the result of "non-mental processes."

My brain cannot make thoughts in a vacuum, i.e. without senses (the body), nor can my perceptive capacities generate thoughts without a brain. I am the union of the two (brain and body). I am the only necessary condition for my thoughts, just as you are the only necessary condition for your own. Hack off my arm and see if it is still "my" arm, or the corpse of an arm. Hack off my head, and see if I can "think" or perform any other task.

>Remove your arm, thoughts continue.
Depends on the amount of blood you lose.

I thought on it, and it makes no sense. How does recognizing your limited agency have any effect on your responsibility?

>It's pretty obvious to most people that the brain causes your thoughts.

The brain measures that the thoughts are caused by something. Why that something is there and what it is, is the question of the human will. Don't try to conflate it with identity because that's an entirely different thing.

Your entire premise falls apart when one presents the argument that the so-called ability to foresee and ascertain the scenarios of possible futures, is also a inherent, unchangeable and biologically deterministic trait within a human being.

Thus in the core of the entire matter, you can still trace the origin in deterministic roots.

A better argument that one can make, again, from a purely materialistic and biological standpoint, is the duality/conflict of reason and instinct within individual's thoughts.

If it serves no purpose to allow the practice of free will and choice, then in which manner can we rationalize this phenomenon?

>either the brain causes them and they're the result of mental processes

Mental=/=neurological, sorry to have confused you

Oh, so your idea of "mind" is non-physical. To you "mind" already means "immaterial, mysterious causal agent of thought." If that's your definition, I really can't argue with you about its properties, since it doesn't exist to have any. Prove to me that this sort of "mind" exists at all outside of your brain.

In German, "geistig," literally "ghostly," is the word for "mentally." I don't believe in ghosts

Snap

Let me put it to you this way, when you decide to move your arm, it's been proven through scientific studies that your neurons begin the chain of nervous activity that results in your arm moving before your mind reports having decided mentally to do so

I don't really understand the mind, it's a mystery to me, clearly it's reliant on the physical brain, but I don't know it's purpose or what to make of it really, since all the causal work seems to be done by the brain

I was actually thinking along these lines also. Pretty straightforward I thought

oh boy. this one really got me.

To clarify, in my view, the mind either plays no causal role whatsoever, it's vestigial

>either

Didn't mean for that to be there

If quantum phases exist, it's possible that the same logic can apply to "free will". The future might be set in stone, but our reaction to each event might predetermine how that future unfolds. So too, could the event alter our response to it. So free will could exist, but we could also be held morally accountable for how we choose to ACT as a result of it. We have the power to choose what we will do in response to certain stimulus, and the fact that we don't all respond the same way is proof that free will does indeed exist. But we don't all act the same way, meaning that those actions are a direct result of our decision to perform them over the other options available. That decision is what we're being held accountable for. We could've chosen to act differently but we didn't and now we face the consequences of that choice.

>Let me put it to you this way, when you decide to move your arm, it's been proven through scientific studies that your neurons begin the chain of nervous activity that results in your arm moving before your mind reports having decided mentally to do so
define proof

>if quantum phases exist, it's possible the same logic can apply to free will

First of all, even if that's coherent (which it isn't), it would be more than a stretch, a totally unjustified leap

>the future might be set in stone, but our reaction to each event might predetermine how the future unfolds

There is no single event that does more or less work in determining the future than any other. The future is determined by the totality of the past. Everything is related

>could the event alter our response to it
The term "alter" here suggests a temporal process, first one thing, then a change occurs, resulting in another thing after the change. So if an event were to "alter our response to it", that would mean we already had a response to it, but then that response was altered by it. I hope I'm not the only one confused here

>the fact that we don't all respond he same way (to certain stimulus) is proof that free will does exist
Unfortunately no, that doesn't make sense. First of all, there's no reason to believe that any two stimuli can be exactly the same, nor is there any reason to assume that different people are predisposed to react to stimuli in exactly the same way. This is like saying because different chemicals react differently to heat and water, chemicals must have free will

The meme that these /r/atheism/ fags aren't telling you is that as soon as you accept that free will doesn't exist you simultaneously accept the premise that the self doesn't exist (which is irrational)

free will is undubitable in good faith

How about, consistent experimental results?

Anyway it doesn't really matter if you believe it for the time being, I'm curious as to whether you think that would be a nail in the coffin of your view that free will exists if it ended up being true. Do you think that would mean the mental plays no causal role in determining physical behavior?

>the self doesn't exist

Depends what you mean by this. Surely you can accept your lack of free will but still refer to your body as an individual object, which could be called the self

Not the user you're talking to, but nevertheless...

The Libet experiments you're talking about are critizised a lot from various sides.

The most profound of this critiques is from Hacker (a Wittgenstein scholar) who simply said there's no "feeling of the intention to move (a hand)", the term doesn't make sense - you move it or you don't - if you move it you had the intention to move it, if you don't move it, you didn't have the intention to move it, but there is no feeling at all who accompanies it. Therefore the Libet experiments are more or less based on a logically flawed experimental set-up.

Even guys who accept the set-up of said experiments don't agree they are "the nail in the coffin" of free will. Some of them object that a simple movement under laboratory conditions doesn't say anything about real decisions in real life which are a lot more complex. Others (like myself) don't even think determinism and free will have to exclude each other (so-called compatibilists).

So no. The Libet experiment is not a discussion ending argument - it's not even close to be something like that.

I think to only label that as the self would be a misnomer

what is worthy to be called a self is control, which there is not.

only a retard would called a self the ideas, tastes, opinions and body, organs, hair...

Not in the grand scheme of things, but to maintain happiness and safety in a society you need to accept the arbitrary and enforce rules anyways

Did you really intend to ask "shuld we be held morally accountable?"

Bc as to "can we", that question has really been played out to death, user-kun. Muh original sin, etc etc.

"Should we be held morally accountable" that is a more specific and interesting question.

I wasn't referring specifically to the libet experiments, but I decided to reread some stuff and it looks like I was confusing the libet experiments with other experiments on nerve signaling.

There have been multiple different experiments recording the existence of nerve signals firing a decent amount of time before movements happen, I was conflating those with the libet experiment which specifically dealt with the issue of conscious decision.

But anyway I wasn't actually trying to imply that it should put the nail in the coffin on free wil, I was asking if the other poster felt that way because their only response to the topic was to ask for proof

I think the concept of free will is incoherent so it actually doesn't matter to me what the latest neuroscience says. I just think it can be a good way of easing somebody into the idea that consciously willing yourself to move is at least somewhat deceptive

I think it's interesting that you brought up hacker's criticism because wouldn't that just make things worse for free will? If he thinks you just move and only when you are actually moving can you experience the state of willing yourself into motion, then that jus puts the moment of nerves firing even farther ahead of the conscious decision than the libet experiment implied.

If there is no free will then morality can't function beyond a social construct. Besides, even when not discussing free will, a lot of philosophers are critical of the existence of a moral right and wrong.
It's taken for granted far too much.

Control is a relative term. Every event is the result of an infinite number of identifiable causes, none of which are individually sufficient to produce the event, only together are they sufficient.

So the concept of control is used to highlight a particular cause, without which the result would be unrecognizable in some sense

For example, somebody playing a video game is said to control their avatar because although the movements of the avatar at determined by a number of causes from the programming of the game to the rendering on screen, an easy distinction can be made between an avatar moving without any player inputs and one being controlled by a player

So where I'm going with this is that many people are compatibilist who in some sense think you have no ability to move counterfactually, yet still think you have free will because your movements are aligned with your will

I consider myself to have a self for many reasons. My consciousness corresponds to one particular body. I only experience sensations that occur to my body, and nobody else can hear my thoughts. That is enough for a self the way I see it. I can still then believe that my thoughts and actions are caused by biological mechanisms I cannot experience

Free will does exist you fucking weak fuck.

TAKE CONTROL OVER YOUR OWN MIND.

This user gets it.

So you're basically asking me to believe in the "mind" a.k.a. "soul," i.e. have faith in this concept.

I have no use for your religion of mind. You can couch it in Plato, Aristotle, spooky neurology, whatever: it's a religion like any other.

>I think it's interesting that you brought up hacker's criticism because wouldn't that just make things worse for free will?
Bennett/Hacker (pic related, one of the more recommandable books when it comes to the philosophy of mind btw.) only dissect the language of neuroscientists. They analyse if something makes sense (is logically correct) or if it doesn't make sense (is logically incorrect). What they say is: an important part of Libet's experiment doesn't make sense (asking for a feeling which doesn't exist in reality) - therefore, the whole experiment is flawed and worthless.

>I think the concept of free will is incoherent
I might completely misunderstand you, but it always flabbergasted me how easily people are willing to let go of such fundamental concepts like free will (especially natural scientists) - although there's not nearly enough data or evidence for it's non-existence. Maybe there's a problem with the vague meaning of the words "free"/"freedom", I don't know.

I mean, you can even argue for it from a evolutionary point of view:
You have a consciousness (I doubt there are many people who would argue that).
If your consciousness is just an observer (nothing else), it doesn't make a lot of sense: it's just a huge waste of the energy you need to operate said consciousness with. It only makes sense if your consciousness gives you any advantages.
The advantage it gives you is the ability to make choices (do I run around the tree on the left or on the right side?). And this advantage is obviously enough to make it a model of success although it needs a lot of energy to run.
So you're able to choose (but I wouldn't call that "free will").
On the other hand you have a certain motivation to do some things which are normally implied via your sensation of your environment (for example "great meal -> want to eat" or "beautiful girl -> want to reproduce"). Nevertheless, you have your ability to chose and you use it (you can chose not to eat or not to reproduce). Therefore, you have a certain ability to chose what you want. (I still wouldn't call that "free will" but I think you get what I'm trying to say.)
If for example my brain would make all these choices on a simple cause and effect base, why am I conscious of them - I don't need to be, it's just a wast of energy.
Therefore, it's likely there is a certain feedback mechanism with which your consciousness can influence your choices in a certain way. (You don't even need any immaterial substance like a cartesian soul for such a feedback - everything corresponding to this process might just happen in your brain).

For example there are certain ways to induct ideas into the consciousness unconsciously. If you induct the idea of freedom into the "consciousnesses" of a group of people while you sneak the idea of determinism into the "consciousnesses" of a control group and you afterwards make a test how moral people act, the people who "had" the word "freedom" in their "consciousnesses" act a lot more ethically. That means the very idea of freedom/morality enables you to act free/moral.

>Determinism is an equally foolish idea. The determinist will hold that it is possible to predict everything, but that humans are beings without access to "true" i.e. "objective" knowledge. If the latter is true, how can the former be?
This is genuinely retarded. It's like saying if someone doesn't understand gravity, it doesn't exist. Our knowledge of something being imperfect doesn't preclude its reality.

>Cartesian dualism
>1917

Very good. Cayce would have concurred with this literature.

So free will is an illusion...

Name me any other illusion that we may doubt before the illusion subsides.

Free will is indubitable in good faith. You may rationalize away free will but you can never doubt free will similarly to how you can never authentically doubt you exist.

>he thinks he exists
The delusion of the self is one such delusion.

I hope you can one day find the inspiration to seek to live an authentic life in good faith and stop denying the indubitable essence of your human experience

what's free will got to do with it?
you are morally accountable for your action, no matter.

t. Sartre

If I've free will I wouldn't have made many of the choices I've made throughout life, which are obviously on the wrong end of any cost/benefit analysis. How can I one day come to believe I've free will with the entire past a contradiction? Such a person wouldn't be able to exist in the present.

Life coach.

Accountable to what, exactly?

Morality cannot exist without choice.

That makes sense, like I said before, consciousness is a mystery to me. I've considered that maybe it's a byproduct of complex nervous systems. perhaps it doesn't do anything but the brain also doesn't go "out of its way" to give us the "audio/video feed" so to speak, it's something that appears with any super complex system of nerves

But anyway I think what you're saying sounds reasonable, I'll just concede that consciousness probably does serve a causal purpose

I still think free will is incoherent. For the same reason I said earlier that it makes no sense to say an object "moves itself", or that an effect "causes itself". Consciousness might be part of the casual interactions of the body but it's still just part of the system.

You do not choose to think things, thoughts come when they will, and though you can act according to your desires, you don't choose what you desire, you play the hand you are dealt. Can you act against your desires? Only if you have a stronger desire push you the other way. I just don't understand how anybody can believe in free will, regardless of the science.

If you don't have free will then how could you make any decision except that which is the most beneficial to you, given you are fully rational?

Free will gives you the ability to do less than optimal actions vis a vis your self-interest

>this level of casuistry
No free will != total rationality.

Just the opposite, you are subject to all kinds of internal forces like doubt, fear, worry, laziness, indifference, etc.. In fact it is free will that posits you are magically free from these influences and thus able to act in some objective self-interest.

Nice try sophist.

Instead of fully rational, I suppose I should've said compos mentis.

Man has the ability to regulate his passions through reason and can overcome that doubt, fear, etc.

And yet most people do not act in their own interests. Very few are successful, and then not by reason, but rather by favorable causal chains.

I'm very confused by this post, clearly the other poster is a materialist

how would one go about proving that free will exists?

Even a computer can make choices, unless you use an arbitrary definition of "choice".

>And yet most people do not act in their own interests.

This is evidence of free will.

Determinism would imply that the relation of sub-atomic particles in motion that make up your brain gives you a desire to act a certain way that any "self" cannot control.

You might be defining "interests" as ego-centric utility which would be incorrect.

First you have to coherently and specifically describe what it is, which is impossible

Better to just say you have free will and not worry about if it's true or not