The illusion of free will has a definite evolutionary advantage. It makes learning faster. Instead of learning only from experience, we can run multiple scenarios in our mind. This requires the thinking: "If I did that, the outcome would be such," and "next time I'll do that," which implies agency and conscious choice.
@BartoszMilewski Doesn't look right...
To be a evolutionary advantage it needs to be 1) represented in the genes and 2) have a gradual* build-up from the state of totally lacking it to the state of "promotes counterfactual reasoning"
* with the slope depending of difficulty encoding such a thing vs marginal inclusive fitness
@BartoszMilewski what would that even mean to have a gradual build up of "illusion of free will"?..
@dpwiz There is a whole spectrum of beliefs between fatalism and free agency. Look at Ancient Greek tragedies.
@dpwiz I don't understand your objections. The burden of proof would be to show that something we posess is _not_ represented in genes, or that such reasoning came all at once, instead of gradually.