I agree that you cannot prove a negative, nor should you have to. And, in a strict sense, you cannot prove a positive as well (I assume we are talking about empirical phenomena, and not a priori statements). You can only put hypotheses to test, refuting them (i.e., disproving them) if observations are inconsistent with it or strengthening them otherwise.
The main line of your argument against free will relies on the assumption that causal determinism is at the core of human psychology and behavior, which would make free will totally unfeasible. Now, I can't put this more clearly: I am not arguing that there is free will; I'm questioning the solidity of your argument against free will by shedding doubt on your premise regarding causal determinism. I propose that not only there is no overwhelming evidence for causal determinism to underlie our choices, but also that several observations actually conform more to a probabilistic description rather than a deterministic one.
We feel like we have free will. I believe this is motivation enough for testing the hypothesis that we do have some degree of free will. Also, I'm saying that the known laws of physics do not forbid a certain degree of free will to exist, while a substantial part of your argument proposes that physical laws do forbid it. Herein lies our disagreement, because it actually seems that we agree in many aspects of the discussion. What I've been trying to do is to illustrate how causal structures different from the deterministic one are embedded at the fundamental aspects of reality, and until we clearly understand the connection between neural states and mind states, it is highly questionable to use determinism to rule out free will.
I think part of the disagreement (at least) is that you have some more faith in humans to be their own devices whereas believe that we follow instinctive patterns. Sure we might be getting unique variations but the underlying mechanisms are very much deterministic. You are arguing more that every woman feels her hair differently (which is true) whereas I argue that they almost always do when they are interested in men. I argue for the mechanisms, what makes humans, human. You argue for the end result (which I agree is always unique but insignificant)
Personally, I do feel inclined to believe that there is a certain measure of free will in human agency and volition. In fact, both these terms would be utterly meaningless otherwise, but this is not the reason why I have this inclination.
Another important distinction that you seem to miss is that possessing free will is not the same thing as exercising it. You can find an overwhelming number of instances of people not exercising free will and simply letting their evolutionary autopilot mechanisms to do the job for them. Breathing is a fairly simple and universal example of something people do aside from any exertion of free will; they just do it. But while this list may be huge, it certainly does not entail that we do not have the ability to exercise free will. It even might be true that women almost always touch their hair when they are interested in men (I'm not sure about this, I've never seen any study pointing to it); it might be true that we act upon instinctual impulses a lot of the time; still, for free will to be null, it had to be true also that, when people do this, there was no way they could have done anything else, and this is where there is no compelling evidence whatsoever.
I'm not arguing for the end result; actually, I've been insisting on the nature of the causal mechanisms from the first comment I posted. You argue that determinism rules every event which concerns human agency, while I argue that this is largely an unsettled question, with the complexity of available data conforming more to probabilistic models than deterministic ones. Again, I restate my case: an argument against free will based on causal determinism is not a solid argument; it is not even an original one, being around since the ancient Greek philosophers; and determinism is not even a hard fact of reality, but at most an emergent feature of the fundamental probabilistic nature of reality relevant only to a subset of systems which are very large or very stable as compared to atomic scales.
Mental processes, which are very likely to arise from the complex activity going on in neural networks, may reasonably fall either side of this dichotomy between determinism and non-determinism, owing precisely to the intermediate dimensions of the system and phenomena which serve as its physical basis. Again, until we properly understand the connection between physiology and psychology, the question of free will is an open question.
I gave the example with the hair to draw a parallel. I believe I can do the same for every single action a human partakes with the environment. Much like breathing which is rather straight forward, I believe our mental faculties work much the same way — they are just not that obvious.
I think we have exhausted the topic. I also believe it has to do more with biology rather than philosophy. Anws. Let's agree to disagree.
I understand if you do not wish to pursue our discussion any further. I believe we might say that we agree on many aspects of human behavior while fundamentally disagreeing in their interpretation and logical consequences. Nonetheless, this back and forth has been a genuine pleasure for me, and I hope it has been for you as well. Although I ultimately do not agree with your argument, it is a valid argument nonetheless, and you have shown that you have put some thought into it. I appreciate that, and I respect that.
I hope we might discuss some other topics in the future. I'm going to follow you, and I invite you to do the same. Best regards!!
I enjoyed our discussion as well. We need more people like you on the platform. I am following you.