Hi, probably a newbie question for many of you, but I have some thoughts I'd like to verify publicly. My text presents two potential reasons to act according to the free will paradigm (not to believe blindly nor say it's true). Points are divided by "horizontal line".

For starters, let's define free will (FW). If it was stated that an action/change in the physical world was caused by consciousness and that this action/change was at least partially undetermined or non-random then I would call it free will. Consciousness: an object that can feel sensations and can reflect on its thoughts. (So called metacognition).

First point

So although FW is most probably unverifiable and most likely it doesn't exist it has still not been fully refuted, to my knowledge. So there's a chance it's real.

To my mind, if you believed in FW but the reality was deterministic or random then nothing "bad" or "wrong" would happen (since you cannot even define it). It was like a fatum or dice roll or both combined.

On the other hand, if free will existed and you didn't believe in it, you would limit your options. It's not "bad/wrong" until you define it that way in your value system. It's a personal question: assuming FW exists, would you like to limit your choice? I bet many would rather not.

In a nutshell, I state that believing FW is just more optimal. (for most people)

Second point

Concerning only people who currently assume, there's FW.

Assuming there's FW, then every time you can choose, you can choose to act in line with any values. (Of course, you can choose to act without looking at any value). And more or less of our time, we do (try to) that to fulfill some long-term values.

So from the FW perspective: what's even the reason to find out whether FW is real or not? Unless one's value is to gain knowledge about this particular case (or it's within their broader values like "know all truth"), then there's no reason to do that. As for the first argument, it's a sort of personal question.

From perspective where is no FW we cannot speak about any reasons.

To sum up: neither from FW perspective nor deterministic/randomness perspecitve there's a reason to find out truth about underlaying mechanism. Assuming there's FW and you don't choose to know if it's real you don't need to do it. Assuming there's no FW, reasons don't exist at all.

I would like you to

tell me if you think it's reasonable.
If you have paradigms, you think/feel one "should" or it's "better" to act according to than this presented there.
recommend literature (of course including lesswrong) related to the topic.