Do you mean ironic to comment on people&#x27;s beliefs while calling free will into question? Absolutely.<p>Consciousness might just be an illusion as well. But as you point out, these are the conceptual tools we have to work with.<p>I prefer to think of it like this. People like to think they are making conscious decisions most of the time while in reality most of the time they aren&#x27;t. Most of the time people are responding to conditioning&#x2F;stimuli&#x2F;response like a trained dancing bear or an insect following a pheromone trail.<p>Still... people have the <i>possibility</i> of having free will. Sometimes it glimmers through a little.. sometimes more, but in order to really have free will people have to step outside of conditioning&#x2F;stimuli&#x2F;response and conceive of themselves differently which is a psychological place most people don&#x27;t enter for long or very often if ever. But the possibility still exist. Again... just a conceptual model that works for me. Not sure there are hard and fast answers in this realm.