This idea of free will is quite a idea. I personally believe in a small amount of free will. I also, believe that you already have your destiny foretold. I think that the universe has a plan for all of us and the only free choice we have is how we come to that destiny.

If you look at time as being unlinear then there would have to be an end point, unless you consider there to be multiple universes and every possiblye future outcome is played on through the interactions of quantum mechanics.

However for me, trying to rationally view the subject of free will is an immense amount of questioning and contradictions. Whether you believe in the force of free will or not you wont live your life differently, i hope.

On another note though, you do have the freedom to control conscious thought. You do have the power to use conscious thought to rewire the paths that your brain functions on. Meaning that over time you have the ability to make your perception be that of a lucky, happy, optimistic caring nature. Or you can just as easily walk into a world of narcissism, unluckiness, and depression. However then you question what lead you to think in that way and that leads to the concept of determinism which is always true when looking backwards on time.

My 2 cents is everything is paradoxically intertwined. Remaining isolated yet being maintained through interactions.

Sometimes I see life as a river. Whenever in my life I tried to swim against the water flow I crashed, regretted and felt sad. This has not got to do about big or small decisions of my life but most something like good and bad energy gravitation and repulse respectively and reversely. I never believe anything I don't see or cant be proved by science but there is an inner feeling that makes me thoughtful and says only if you let your life's script to play it's own till the end you will get the best and the most of it. So free will is something relative as all things and forces seem to be in the cosmos. The difference is if you hold a mirror or a sponge and against what kind of divine energy?

But this doesn´t contradict the notion of will. It only contradicts some interpretations of the word 'free'.

When free will is defined as something that has no external cause, then this experiment ofcourse shows that it doesn´t seem to exist, or at least, that some theory´s about the brain could fully replace theory´s that rely on a metaphysical sort of concept of free will. It also shows then, that this theory´s about the brain are even better than the old metaphysical theories, because they rely on something that can be empirically verified, while the metaphysical theories need to accept the existence of a brain that could fully explain all aspects of human behaviour by itself (as the experiment shows) and then rely on an extra element that has never be seen and the existence of wich can´t be proved nor falsified.

When you tend to see free will as the outcome of a whole bunch of processes though, and not as the driving force behind all of these processes, then there is no problem at all.

Then free will is simply an element of human nature, simmilar to thoughts, emotions and intuitions.

Would anybody argue that an emotion is not real because we can see on a brainscan by wich mechanisms it´s caused?

It would be like arguing that a car isn´t moving by itself....the fact that the idea of a car moving out of it´s own inherent metaphysical energy is false, doesn´t make the very notion of it moving false as well.

It moves. The cause of it is just a different one than you initially thought.

Free will is an act of going against the natural laws nature lays out for us. As you said above "just because we do things that are not positive does not make them any less your free will". Well I would agree with this, but change it too "Because you do things that are not positive proves that you have free will".

Now we would all agree animals do not have free will. Or at least to a certain extent, we are not sure if they do or don't. But we observe a continual obedience towards the laws of nature from animals that humans seem to not possess.

We as humans have ideas such as selfishness, objectivism, individualism. That all seem to scream free will.

If I am not mistaken Immanuel Kant describes good as whatever helps the masses, and is agreed upon. Well we see animals do this all the time, it is all in good intention for the masses.

So basicly what I am trying to say, I don't want to keep going on and on, is that FREE WILL is produced from the human concept of being able to go against the GOOD or the MASSES DECISION. We can choose to do things that harm us, even when it is completely illogical and will benefit no one. We can even decide against the good one when put in a conflict.