Of course, but you're also capable of rational thinking and logic, right?
If you're about to say that these feelings and emotions compel you to ignore what you understand to be rationally true....that also undermines the whole argument. Perhaps you don't see how it's illogical and untrue because of some emotional satisfaction you get from it?
That's partly true - I don't live my everyday life in a constant stream of rational thought about how I feel I have free will but in fact my actions are all determined. In practice, it makes no significant difference, I live my life as I always have, mainly on 'autopilot', occasionally stopping to think rationally and logically about something. When someone cuts me up in traffic I feel a flash of anger or annoyance, then - if I'm not listening to a podcast - I may ratonalise both their action and my response.
I'm sure many people have a similar reaction and rationalise that the other driver may be sleep-deprived, or on drugs, or distracted, or not thinking straight for some reason. The difference is that by taking a deterministic POV, I don't stay angry or annoyed for long, because I rationalise away feelings of blame in favour of, say, sympathy, whereas others are more likely to go from blaming the driver for dangerous driving to rationalising the possible reason and further blaming them for driving in an unfit state, which only maintains or increases their stress level and distraction, which is unhealthy and potentially dangerous.
The logic and reasoning typically follows the feelings or emotions.
Most people find it difficult to stop their feelings from overwhelming their reason & logic at times, sometimes to their severe detriment (compulsive gambling, eating, etc). As Hume observed, we're creatures of passion, and often, "Reason is a slave to the passions".
What makes you certain you aren't a free agent if that's what your perception constantly telling you?
In a basic sense, I am a free agent. I'm free (unconstrained and uncoerced) to make choices & decisions that correspond to my desires, wants, & feelings. The difference is that I acknowledge that those desires, wants, & feelings have causal origins. They're products of my unique life experiences and my innate (genetically determined) predispositions, the things that have made me the unique individual I am.
Having said that, my perception constantly misleads me about what's going on - usually to make the world more intelligible or to compensate for sensory limitations, for example, below is the kind of image my eyes provide, but the world I perceive looks much nicer than that:
To argue that determinism is true despite no one being capable of acting as if it's true, thinking as if it's true, or speaking as if it's true....what exactly makes it a more accurate description of reality than free will?
Well, firstly as the image above shows, everyone who thinks they see the world as if the eyes are like two windows is mistaken, they perceive a predictive construct that uses the eyes to correct predictive errors. When they look around at a new scene, they think their vision sweeps smoothly across it, but the eyes jump around from point to point in 'saccades'. So while what we perceive visually may not reflect the reality of what our senses detect and can make odd mistakes (highlighted by illusions), it works very effectively, and the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.
IMO, the illusion of free will, in its social implications, causes more harm than good (blame, retribution, punishment for its own sake), so it would be better if a more human and productive approach (e.g. harm reduction, reparation, rehabilitation) was taken to infringements of social rules and laws.
I accept that any such change in most societies is unlikely and would be multi-generational, but I can see ways it might come about, e.g. through the medicalisation of anti-social and criminal behaviour (although there are potential pitfalls).
Yet despite the conclusion, you're completely incapable of ever proving it true, or behaving as if it's true....is that correct?
What would you accept as proof? I can give a reasonable explanation for why the common conception of free will is redundant and logically incoherent, and I haven't heard a coherent (incompatibilist) explanation of what free will is or how it works, beyond 'this is how it feels'...
But if you have a coherent definition & explanation of what free will is and/or how it works, I'd like to hear it.
You're using the word "wrong" in relationship with behaviors as if that's something rationally possible with a deterministic worldview.
You may feel like you've done something wrong....but if you genuinely concluded that you were unable to choose anything different from what you did....then you can only rationally conclude that "right and wrong or good and bad" are just irrational judgements of your emotional brain....not descriptions of anything true.
That's not quite the case. I used 'wrong' to mean some action that infringed the law or rules of acceptable behaviour. Laws and rules would still exist in a society where everyone thought free will was a nonsense. "Right and wrong or good and bad" might be irrational judgements of emotional brains, but would also refer to actions in light of social rules & laws. I still have emotions and feelings, and use reason and logic, like science, as tools to inform and guide, and they can even help to modify some feelings, given time.
A society that thinks the world is effectively deterministic won't be a society of angels, but a society that acknowledges that rule-breakers should be helped to achieve an acceptable level of behaviour if possible, and if they are a danger to others, they should be separated until they are no longer considered a threat. Not so different from our current society in many respects, but very different in some.
