@FrankHubeny That actually sounds pretty intuitive to me; it kind of has to be true. However, I'm a bit wary of the text in that post claiming that the action occurs before the thought...

...it's not that it's not possible, but rather that it seems to suffer the same sort of problems. How do we know the thought doesn't precede the action but we're not aware of the thought until later?

There's possibly some quibble room for what constitutes a thought, but I think this is a major theme in discussions; people seem to be subject to a particular form of "selection bias" as to their perspective of what goes on in their heads. They treat what they are aware of as if it exists, but because they're only aware of it when they're aware of it, they presume that it only exists when they become aware of it

(I've typically been staying away from this room bc I view things from a materialist/analytic like perspective; this caught my eye since it falls underneath it)

@HWalters You make a good point: "How do we know the thought doesn't precede the action but we're not aware of the thought until later?"

I am trying to think of free will as something simple like taking a step that I was not aware of. Although I assume responsibility for taking that step do I have free will in that context or not.

@FrankHubeny Nope, but seems like he's not caught up on compatibilism; from the preview: "Compatibilism can be defined as the view that free will is compatible with determinism" ...very good definition. But: "Compatibilist views go back to at least Hobbes." ...at least is an understatement by about 2 millennia

In the ancient greek era determinism was possibly straight off the press, but it was more philosophically justified, from a point of view that we're probably determined since the gods/oracles have foreknowledge

"I am trying to think of free will as something simple like taking a step that I was not aware of." ...

Not sure if this would interest you, but here's a paper by Elisabeth Pacherie on phenomenology of action

Given this account you're describing a P-intention; which essentially is a category of intentions associated with immediate action (like "walking")... a higher level would be a "D-intention", which is associated with general goal states (like "driving to work", "getting a degree")

...and there's a lower level, M-intentions (motor intentions), involved with things such as particular muscle movements

Pacherie's proposal is that we're probably never aware of M-intentions, and we can carry out either or both D-intentions or M-intentions with or without awareness

So in the case you described, we would be carrying out a P-intention of walking without awareness

There's a lot more to this analytical type of view, but it's difficult to attach the concept "free will" to something particular within it

That is, it's difficult to look at a particular thing here and say, "yep... that's what free will is;" though there are models of particular things such as how your sense of control arises and such

@HWalters Pacherie's article seems interesting and useful. It might provide a way to describe the actions I am interested more precisely. I don't Balaguer is a compatibilist, but he clearly describes the position as claiming free will is doing what one wants to do with desire ultimately having prior event causes in the brain or elsewhere.

Considering the Conway, Kochen "Free Will Theorem" if we have free will so does a quantum system. To answer the question what free will is, whatever one comes up with will have to include such quantum systems. This is why I am most interested in activities such as mindless walking as being free acts. Ultimately free will as I see it is the ability to choose to make a choice. The brain implements that choice for our bodies.