Is free-will an illusion?

This is the excellent foppery of the world that when we are sick in fortune—often the surfeit of our own behavior—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars, as if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence, and all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting-on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon’s tail and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. Fut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.

The free will debate is specifically about making conscious decisions.

How the brain constructs consciousness is still a mystery, and cracking it open would have a significant bearing on the question of free will. Numerous different models have been proposed, for example, the Multiple Drafts Model which argues that there is no central Cartesian theater where conscious experience would be represented, but rather that consciousness is located all across the brain. This model would explain the delay between the decision and conscious realization...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will

In contrast, there exist models of Cartesian materialism that have gained recognition by neuroscience, implying that there might be special brain areas that store the contents of consciousness; this does not, however, rule out the possibility of a conscious will[/b]

Other models such as epiphenomenalism argue that conscious will is an illusion, and that consciousness is a by-product of physical states of the world. Work in this sector is still highly speculative, [/i]and researchers favor no single model of consciousness. (See also: Philosophy of mind.)

...scientists, especially in the last few years, have been on a rampage - writing ill-considered public pronouncements about free will which... verge on social irresponsibility.

Nature Neuroscience 11, 543 - 545 (2008)
Published online: 13 April 2008 | doi:10.1038/nn.2112

Chun Siong Soon
Marcel Brass
Hans-Jochen Heinze
John-Dylan Haynes
Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain

Chun Siong Soon1,2, Marcel Brass1,3, Hans-Jochen Heinze4 & John-Dylan Haynes1,2

Abstract
There has been a long controversy as to whether subjectively 'free' decisions are determined by brain activity ahead of time. We found that the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 10 s before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.

Internally Generated Preactivation of Single Neurons in Human Medial Frontal Cortex Predicts Volition
Itzhak Friedcorrespondenceemail, Roy Mukamel, Gabriel Kreiman

Highlights
Progressive changes in firing rates precede self-initiated movements
Medial frontal cortex units signal volition onset before subjects' awareness
Prediction level is high (90%) based on neuronal responses in single trials
Volition could arise from accumulation of ensemble activity crossing a threshold
Summary
Understanding how self-initiated behavior is encoded by neuronal circuits in the human brain remains elusive. We recorded the activity of 1019 neurons while twelve subjects performed self-initiated finger movement. We report progressive neuronal recruitment over ∼1500 ms before subjects report making the decision to move. We observed progressive increase or decrease in neuronal firing rate, particularly in the supplementary motor area (SMA), as the reported time of decision was approached. A population of 256 SMA neurons is sufficient to predict in single trials the impending decision to move with accuracy greater than 80% already 700 ms prior to subjects' awareness. Furthermore, we predict, with a precision of a few hundred ms, the actual time point of this voluntary decision to move. We implement a computational model whereby volition emerges once a change in internally generated firing rate of neuronal assemblies crosses a threshold.

Seems that when people do actual experiments, rather than indulge in a priori speculation, the results don't look good for free will so far:

I was basing my argument on the undeterminist behavior of biochemicals, not sub-atomic particles, but nevermind. The whole point is that stuff can happen by chance. The future is not predetermined. Hazard is a factor, a 'cause' in this world. Do we know what causes hazard? Isn't that a cause without cause, at least in apparence?

I don't buy any of the anti-free-will experiments I've read about bet you a beer I can beat any of these. Just concentrate on the red button like crazy and then press the GREEN. Do that half of the times and their RMI-hooked computer will get lost.

And just because some scientist thinks that consciousness is the end-all be-all of free will doesn't mean it's true. Free will can be conceptualuzed in several ways.

Some (opponents of free will) in this thread have suggested that belief in free will arises from some sort of authoritarian psychological condition that seeks to mete out punishment.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world…..Then he will say to those on his left, Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels….then they will go away to eternal punishment.

I don't buy any of the anti-free-will experiments I've read about

A study conducted by Jeff Miller and Judy Trevena (2009) suggests that the readiness potential (RP) signal in Libet's experiments doesn't represent a decision to move, but that it's merely a sign that the brain is paying attention...The researchers found that there was the same RP signal in both cases, regardless of whether or not volunteers actually elected to tap, which suggests that the RP signal doesn't indicate that a decision has been made..

Libet's interpretation of the ramping up of brain activity prior to the report of conscious "will" continues to draw heavy criticism. Studies have questioned participants' ability to report the timing of their "will"....Despite his findings, Libet himself did not interpret his experiment as evidence of the inefficacy of conscious free will.

Seems that when people do actual experiments, rather than indulge in a priori speculation, the results don't look good for free will so far

In the bible it was written that animals that kill people need to be stoned to death.

There have always been arguments in favor of "punishment" that have nothing to do with "moral responsibility."...I can see no more effective means of accomplishing "specific deterrence" than by imposing the death penalty, know what I'm sayin?

General deterrence: The idea here is that people other than the perpetrator will, by witnessing the punishment imposed, be deterred from acting in a similar fashion