In attempting to address your reply, I get stuck on your challenge of conciliating free will and determinism. If I take what the sciences, particularly physics and biology, are saying about how the world and humans operate, there is no room for the concept of free will, as the different concepts we have attributed to it can be traced back to neurological responses and external processes. Therefore, the conciliation happens automatically by way of freeing us from the concept entirely. Am I misunderstanding your answer, or do you believe the argument is not sufficient in removing free will?

@Sammich My point is to take free will as the capability of a person to take decisions and to act in accordance with oneself. We may feel free or constrained by inner factors. Those factors may result from past experience and from all sort of inner conflicts. To have free will means to be free of these inner constraints in one’s decision making. - That’s how I understand Bieri’s approach. - And Mitchell argues for a similar kind of agency bottom-up during the phylogenesis of the biological evolution.

Another excellent compatibilist account is Daniel C. Dennet, "Elbow Room - The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting". According to Dennet what we care about in "free will" is control, we want to be in control of our actions. This is also what is relevant to ethical culpability (or praise). And being in control requires some form of "determinism" or predictability of our own and other's actions.

@Sammich - You can also think of it this way: My past, my history shapes my personality and shapes who I am. At this moment, I can predict how I will react and what I will do (or choose given the choice) in all kinds of future situations. I might still be surprised (because I'd actually be less or more courageous in an actual situation), but overall my predictions are reliable. So, all of that (what I will actually do) is really determined by who or what I am now. -- Does this rob me of my autonomy? Or of my agency or "free will" in that sense? -- No, it affirms it.

The dismissal of the 2nd point relies on an implicit assumption that determinism is a "well, duh" decision.

@JohnDoe - Not quite sure what you mean? Did you mean to say that I am (or Dennet is) dismissing Jo Wheler's 2nd point? I don't think I am. (I do see that there is a problem of exactly how to define or describe "determinism" in this context. The main non-trivial assumption I think -- which is rarely discussed when talking about "free will" -- is an assumption of some temporal continuity of the acting agent. So, this form of compatibilist account does shift the problem to the problem of "who or what is this acting/deciding 'self'", what is "agency"?)

@mudskipper Sorry, I was replying to the answer and my comment is ambiguous. Specifically, considering erroneous the "I have free will and we are not deterministic" position

It's interesting that Wehler describes free will as a subjective impression, but determinism as a ruling principle. Seems that this prejudices one's conclusions pretty severely. Also, the fact that a definition is not operationable doesn't mean that it's erroneous.

@LarsH I changed the term "subjective impression" to avoid misinterpretation. - A definition cannot be judged according to true or false, but according to useful or useless. IMO a definition is useless when non-operationable.

@Sammich Determinism and physicalism are perfectly well describing an important aspect or plain of human life. The most common mistake, though, is a caregory mistake: human life is obviously richer than having a physical body that does stuff. The human being consists of experiencing this body and having a self that is actively positioned within and in relation to both the physical body and our experienced body. Are these aspects of human life wrong because they cannot explain physical events? They won't disappear, they're human. There, there's plenty of space for free will.

@PhilipKlöcking Human life is only richer in the eye of the human experiencing it. Even if you could get other humans to agree with your statement, how can you decide if their acknowledgement is either a representation of our species "richness", as you claim, or an in-group reinforcement, as those who agree will also count you as part of their group? How do you exclude an octopus or an orca from having a richer internal experience than just having a physical body? What you describe in terms of human experience is an explanation of physical events, and free will does not arise from it.

I'm not sure you're right that a definition cannot be true or false; especially when you yourself characterize it as "erroneous." But regardless of that, clearly a definition can be useful even when not operationable... we use definitions in thought experiments all the time. Nor does "useless" imply "erroneous."

Furthermore, the idea that determinism is a "ruling principle from the third person stance of science" is highly debatable. If "free will means one could have decided in a different way" is not operationable and therefore useless, what possible operationable definition could one have for determinism? Even leaving aside the 1st-person interpretation that is a necessary part of the scientific process, what objective evidence could be so convincing that determinism is true?

@LarsH (1/2) I denote an approach erroneous when it starts with a definition which is not operationable. I did not mark the definition erroneous. – Thought experiments using definitions which are not operationable are questionable in their explanatory power. – I agree, the role of determinism in science deserves a separate discussion. It took place in many posts on this blog. – An operationable definition of determinism requires a law of forecast and retrospect, which has been confirmed in all relevant situations.

@LarsH (2/2) The only examples of indeterminism in science I know are from quantum mechanics. Neuroscience and philosophy, both agree with different arguments that randomness on the quantum level is not relevant to explain free-will.

I see now that you were describing the approach, not the definition, as erroneous. My mistake. Regarding determinism, can you cite some sources about the evidence you find confirmational? I'd like to understand what your definition of determinism means operationally. Also, while I agree that QM indeterminism doesn't explain free will (nor do I see a need for it to do so), it does appear to soundly undermine the claim that determinism is a ruling principle according to science.

@LarsH (1/2) Classical “laws of nature” like Newtonian mechanics, Maxwell’s electrodynamics, Einstein’s General Relativity: They show how to forecast and retrospect follow from the mathematical concept of differential equations together with the specification of boundary conditions. Differential equations are a very successful tool to formalize determinism. The results of these physical theories can be compared to experiments. This shows in which sense their concepts are operationable.

@LarsH (2/2) On the contrary, the ontology of quantum mechanics (QM) introduces the world of possibilites with random results when observed. I agree, one can discuss how to balance the weight of indeterminism in QM and determinism in the other theories named above. Which paradigm is ruling and which approach is the exception?

I'm happy to move this discussion to chat if you wish -- will leave that up to you. It seems that you mean "the ruling principle" in a much weaker sense than I initially thought, since you allow it to have major exceptions (such as QM). In that case, why is there a "seeming contradiction between free will and determinism;" why is it a "challenge... to conciliate" the two? Why should not free will just be a major exception to determinism?

@LarsH The seeming contradiction: From the first person stance we feel as decision maker and as the agent of our actions. From the third person stance neuroscience operates on the assumption of determinism, which excludes any alternative to the chain of actual events. - The challenge is to show: It only seems to be a contradiction. – To consider free-will as an exception to determinism means to raise the white flag. That's Kant’s exception: As a citizen in the reign of freedom humans are capable to start new causal chains. – I propose to substitute further comments by new separate questions.

- Since my questions are about your statements, it seems unlikely that they'd be of general interest. - Yes, many scientists operate on an assumption of determinism ... so is the apparent contradiction you speak of is merely with an assumption? - What do you mean by a white flag... surrender of/to what? It sounds as if you think we have some duty to defend determinism. - Since QM contains exceptions to determinism, does it constitute raising a white flag too?

I wouldn't say (philosophy of) (neuro)science as some imaginary coherent whole operates on the assumption of determinism. A certain large camp may say (of themselves) so, but far too often this is presented as some consensus which is unwise to even question. It's also a bit funny that this presentation will come from the same camp that will have no qualms with saying that QM is "fundamental", when the question of how to view the world in light of QM is perhaps an even more variegated topic (notably containing views which are deterministic, probabilistic, or neither).

@LarsH To raise a white flag = capitulation to solve a problem. - Of course we do not have the duty to defend determinism. But neuroscience faces the challenge to explain on the basis of determinism - and not on the basis of quantum mechanical randomness - our experience of free will. - QM is a successfull theory of physics, but the underlying ontology, notably the interplay of probability and indeterminism is not yet understood.