They're not euphemisms at all, but rather accurate descriptions. Calling "supernatural" something that one concludes does not exist is simply dishonest on your part. Calling it an assumption, as you continually do, is simply trolling on your part.
I get it, I really do: you want our free will to be the conscious selection between genuine alternatives. Unfortunately every example you give, every argument you put forward, doesn't even get close to showing it. They at best show how things appear, and you're content with that. I get it.
I'm not the one hiding the physical situation, iceaura. You hide behind complexity, logical levels, etc without ever looking at the process itself. You look at the television picture without realising that it is just a series of coloured panels. The only freedom you can come up with is, to use Baldeee's description, trivial. Yet look at the actual process that is in operation, not just at how it appears, and you can see that there is no real freedom. It doesn't exist. That is the conclusion. Not an assumption, but the conclusion. Unless you think you're assuming Socrates to be mortal from the get go as well?
It is from reasoning, and there is no assumption, that is what being a conclusion means.
One starts with the premises: deterministic universe, and then explore what that means in reality (e.g. predetermination) and conclude that there is no freedom (other than the trivial kind) to be had.
Your only rebuttal, fallacious as it is, seems to be to claim that I'm assuming that freedom is supernatural. For the last time: no, I'm concluding it doesn't exist. Your inability to see the difference is why I will be following Baldeee's example after I have finished this post, and putting you on ignore.
No, it is not backed by what we logically understand of the process. The appearance is of an ability to choose from between genuine alternatives, but the logic from the assumption of determinism says otherwise. That logic concludes that everything is predetermined, and the only freedom is of trivial kinds.
I can add failing to comprehend what people post to the list of reasons to put you on ignore. If you think reference to floating bricks, to Teslas in space, to trivial kinds of freedom is to not acknowledge them, to different inputs leading to different outputs is not acknowledging them.... Hey ho.
No, for each process there is a single input. Sure, you can rerun the process again with a different input, but it again has a single input. And each input results in a predetermined output. Yes, the results of different inputs can be different, but that is a trivial notion. Thermostats attest to that.
It involves a process of concluding from between multiple imagined alternatives, yes. The imagined alternatives it comes up with are predetermined. The input to the system is predetermined. The imagined alternative it concludes on is predetermined. If the input and thus the output are predetermined, where is there a non-trivial freedom?
But it does, at least if we're considering non-trivial notions of what it means to be free... i.e. notions that in principle can not be demonstrated by a thermostat.
Yes, more than we see in a thermostat, but of the same trivial variety.
There's no such thing to drop. If you instead ask us to drop the conclusion that free will doesn't exist, and to focus on the type of free will that even we accept exists (as a process) and is (trivially) free, then that would at least be an honest request on your part. Because I don't believe that you genuinely can't/don't recognise the difference between conclusion and assumption.
Oh, but they are, because you are trying to distinguish this free will from something that a thermostat might exhibit, albeit with less complexity. If what we feel and sense about what we're doing, if being conscious is not involved (because that's what those things amount to), then you have relegated every example you come up with to a thermostat. And it's "free will" to turn on and off.
But, from what you've just said, with no actual sensation or feeling of making a choice? So just a reaction then? Instinct?
Seriously, when was the last time you made a choice and wasn't conscious of it, or didn't have a sense of being able to choose?
Yes, I'm well aware that you're only interested in the trivial notion of degrees of freedom, plus your inability (or unwilling) to differentiate between genuine alternatives and merely imagined ones.
I don't need to leave them out, I just need to understand them for what they are. Something you don't seem capable of.
Given your inability to distinguish conclusion from assumption, I'm sure you believe what you say.
No, I have a notion that I conclude doesn't exist. Your desire to dress it up as supernatural, and as an assumption, is sad.
All you've done is post to criticise the incompatibilist position, so I have no sympathy for you at all. Ever tried ignoring posts that don't discuss what you want to discuss? Baldeee stated up front in this thread that he wasn't interested in what he sees as a trivial notion of "free". Since then he has been simply replying to criticisms of his view, however poorly argued those criticisms have been.
Do you feel compelled to similarly criticise the incompatibilist position rather than discuss what you seem to want to?
If so, that's rather sad, isn't it?
A mic-drop post
