Take a group of diehard anti-free-will determinists to the deciding World Series game and have them watch their home team’s batter lose the Series … how many would bother to attend the game if they accepted that the decision whether or not to swing occurred entirely at a subliminal level?
It's interesting that whenever the discussion of free-will comes up, it's always in the context of someone making a decision on how to interpret if or how someone else has free-will. The diehard anti-free-will determinists have no choice in attending the game, and if they do or not is not dependent on how they see the outcome of the game as deterministic or not. In this vein, the classic free-will argument of if criminals deserve punishment if they don't have free-will is an argument made from a hubristic point of view, as if those deciding the punishment exist outside of determinism. This is often an attempt to get anti-free-will types in a contradiction, similar to the claim/argument that there no atheists in foxholes.
The problem with super determinism isn't contradiction it's the absurdity of the conclusions.
Every action, every thought, every motion of the atom is completely predetermined. Okay, fine, but then my deliberation on what to do next is also predetermined. But here I am recognizing that it is, so couldn't I just neglect the computation I do in my head if I really believed my next actions were predetermined?
This isn't hypothetical, I'm here, speaking to you, right now, about how if I believed in super determinism I don't need to deliberate on any future actions. You might say: Well you're going to anyway if it's determined and not if it's not determined. And so we are in an absurdity. My deliberation about my own determination is already determined and regardless of if it's determined that I stop deliberating or determined that I continue deliberating.
This just doesn't jive with observational experience. Not say that determinism isn't still sensible, but super determinism is not sensible, in my opinion, it would seem to me that the future is not fully predetermined, but that doesn't say anything about me being able to choose possible futures, just that my brain, as a computational mechanism, has to consider the possible futures because they are, you know, possible!
Going further with your line of reasoning, then it is also determined for some to find free will logical/believable, and some not to, irrespective of the truth or reality, no?
Related to this, I'd recommend looking into Philosopher John Searle and his thoughts on consciousness. He's pro-determinism and gives a good argument for why free-will is an illusion but one an illusion we can never 'escape' from.
He's also famous for the Chinese Box thought experiment, widely derided by everyone apart from his own students as the most high profile, idiotic, uninformative, trivially debunked thought experiment of all time, which teaches us negative information (in that it actually wastes time bringing up useless shit that otherwise wouldn't receive scholarly discussion except that he's an old white guy that was in the field early).
Searle is an absolute waste, nobody should engage with his drivel, ever, period.
Because of one thought experiment? It certainly generated a lot of conversation for being so trivially debunked. But it's not like it's the only thing he's ever talked about. And the old white dude reference is unnecessary.
But anyway, I think Searle had a point about semantics not being syntax with the Chinese Room. They system doesn't understand anything other than how to translate from A to B. And that's not what understanding language is about (see the later Wittgenstein or any philosophy of language).
However, as Daniel Dennett pointed out in his rebuttal, although one can produce a somewhat convincing fake to some people, similar to "passing" the Turing Test with ELIZA or any bot we've created so far, a genuine Chinese room would have to know the nuances of language at such a level that there would be no question that it understands what Chinese words mean. So Searle was wrong in his setup of the thought experiment, becuase it assumes the room is only following syntatic rules, instead of understanding the web of context and meaning that words take place in.
It's interesting that whenever the discussion of free-will comes up, it's always in the context of someone making a decision on how to interpret if or how someone else has free-will. The diehard anti-free-will determinists have no choice in attending the game, and if they do or not is not dependent on how they see the outcome of the game as deterministic or not. In this vein, the classic free-will argument of if criminals deserve punishment if they don't have free-will is an argument made from a hubristic point of view, as if those deciding the punishment exist outside of determinism. This is often an attempt to get anti-free-will types in a contradiction, similar to the claim/argument that there no atheists in foxholes.