But in a way this is like saying “I want to make sense of this thing we call ‘water’ which appears as a continuous medium to our immediate experience, therefore I don’t have time to listen for those who claim that water is made out of tiny bits”, or “I want to make sense of this ‘blueness’ that happens in the outside environment, therefore I am not listening to those that claim that direct realism is an illusion”. You can’t give legitimacy to things this way.

Also, i’ve even heard a few physicists and philosophers saying that the concept of “free will” isn’t even a properly defined/definable thing, making any acceptance or rejection inappropriate. But, if defined as a supernatural ability to make different choices given the same exact state, choices that don’t stem from quantum randomness (which isn’t congruent with what we intuitively understand free will to be), then i’m sure the vast proportion of scientists and philosophers would say that it’s absurd.

I’ve heard a professor of literature and eastern philosophy say something along the lines of: Necessary causes & conditions already stand ready at the artificially isolated moment of choice and life’s a succession of these moments such that there isn’t any privileged moment in which “I” can manifest myself outside causes & conditions. The essence of such things as Daoism or Zen is to merge the “I” and “causes & conditions”.