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Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos  Come on David, this is nonsense. First of all, you have no idea what 99% of humanity pictures when they think of free will.
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I think this is absolutely wrong. We know
precisely what the vast majority of people understand by free will. They would 100% agree with what I say on my blog where I say:
"We tend to think of our behaviour as being a result of our desires and intentions. Thus, for example, in waking up in the morning I might have the choice of having either porridge, or eggs and bacon for breakfast. I am immediately aware of having the power to choose which to have. I might choose eggs and bacon because I prefer the taste. Or I might choose porridge, maybe not because I prefer the taste, but because I am concerned with my weight or health. But whatever I choose it seems for all the world that it is my choice, and it is ultimately my choice even though I might be heavily influenced in making one choice or the other. Thus I may have no problems with my health and weight, have no ethical problems with eating meat, and vastly prefer the taste of eggs and bacon. Therefore it would seem I have no reason to choose to eat porridge for breakfast and every reason to eat eggs and bacon instead. Yet, notwithstanding all of this, I nevertheless still appear to have the power to choose to eat porridge. This power to choose between alternatives is what most of us tend to refer to as free will".
It's only the materialists who fail to understand what free will means -- just like they fail to understand what consciousness means. No one else has any difficulty whatsoever. Materialists seem to have this strange mental block preventing them from understanding in this subject area. This mental block isn't there for any other subject though.
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Secondly, I'm not trying to change the meaning of the term. There already are a spectrum of meanings: libertarian free will, incompatibilist free will, compatibilist free will.
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I do not agree there is a spectrum of meanings. People of sound commonsense understand there is only one meaning of free will.