Quote Originally Posted by zook
I also don't think humans have free will. BUT, I think that fact is utterly meaningless. We feel like we have free will and we will never (and I'm saying never) be able to measure all the variables in the human brain such that we can accurately predict all future actions and decision-making.
You're making the assumption that since your brain does so many different things in seeing, hearing, feeling and processing internally in these same formats, that it has an almost indescribable set of differences and fine details. Or as you said: variables. What if there is one very describable theory which does not describe the differences of the brain but described its similarities. Then we would be able to know which details to not pay attention to and which details to pay attention to.

There are just too many variables at the cellular and circuit levels for us to accurately measure and model. However, we can already predict simple decision-making in monkeys and even influence it with tiny, well-placed electrodes. A friend of mine does this kind of research and it is awesome, but scary.
Again, you're assuming that because we have so much information on the subject and no way to comprehend it all that we won't be able to. I see people amassing information with a lack of an overall framework to understand it. Once we make that one non-intuitive step and come to some surprisingly elegant and unexpected conclusions, we will begin to understand much, much more of how it is our brains work.

I do think at some point we will create artificial intelligence that believes it has free will. At which point it will become more obvious that we ourselves don't.
If we do create an artificial intelligence which believes it has free will, it will have just as much free will as me. It is the old story of lose a leg but replace it with a perfectly functioning replica machine leg: I'm still human. Replace every functioning part of my body with a perfectly functioning machine replica, including each and every one of my neurons, I am still me. The me that has free will, you may classify me as humanoid or cyborg but I'm still me. If I play chess but replace the knight with an empty salt shaker, I'm still playing chess. Even if I replace every functioning piece, they still act exactly as the actual pieces and I am still actually playing chess.