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Let's define free will as the ability for a human being to make a choice that does not completely depend on the history of the universe. The universe may be assumed to be indeterministic. Any simple choice will do: am I going to order a Coke or a Sprite?

Has anyone described what the universe must be like in order for this kind of free will to be able to exist? A universe where an agent making the choice exerts causal influence on the universe? In what kind of universe would this be possible, while not running afoul of dualism?

[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-theories/#3

Confusion
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    Hi, welcome to Philosophy SE. This question has been asked before and already has answers, see In what type of world is free will possible, if at all? The short answer is that our own universe may well be like that. Nothing we know contradicts agent causation by humans, and libertarians maintain that it is exactly what happens. – Conifold Feb 21 '17 at 21:20
  • ha, good name. yeah, describing it is the same was that question. descriptions may be helpful :) –  Feb 21 '17 at 21:53
  • Unfortunately none of the answers there answers my question. I'm looking for a more detailed account of how exactly agent causation could take place and how it can avoid dualism. – Confusion Feb 22 '17 at 10:59
  • In that case the question should have been phrased very differently. But it is obscure what you mean by "how exactly agent causation could take place", agents would simply act as self-causes. Perhaps you mean how this is reconciled with physics, in which case How do defenders of libertarian freewill reconcile it with constraints imposed by the laws of physics? might be what you are looking for. – Conifold Feb 22 '17 at 22:56
  • That comes closer to what I am wondering about. However, like anything I have found so far, that basically gives arguments for why free will, in general, is not impossible. I'm interested in something stronger than 'not impossible': a proposal for how free will could actually operate. So far I have e.g. not found any proposal for how the agent-that-acts-as-a-self-cause would actually act upon the physical universe. Does anyone e.g. propose the spontaneous appearance of electrical signals in neurons as the 'action' of the agent on the universe? Fine by me: [continued] – Confusion Feb 23 '17 at 19:15
  • I'm interested in what such a proposal would mean about our universe. For instance, I don't think this example proposal contradicts any known physics, but it would still imply new, unexpected, properties of the universe.

    Are there any ideas for how the physical universe acts upon the part of the agent doing the deciding? Where does the freedom enter into a deliberation? Perhaps even an account of the difference between a choice that is strongly determined by the history of the agent in the universe and a choice that seems to be more free? [continued]

     – Confusion Feb 23 '17 at 19:16
  • Perhaps I'm looking for reductionist accounts of agent-caused free will, by which I do not mean 'reduced to physics', but 'reduced to smaller parts/concepts and interactions between those parts/concepts'. For all I care the proposal proposes they operate together in ineffable ways, as long as it deconstructs the 'free agent' goliath. Am I making sense? Does anything like that exist (without being completely, obviously, crackpottish)? – Confusion Feb 23 '17 at 19:16
  • These issues have been discussed very extensively too, and there are many specific models of free will operation. See How does Quantum Mechanics affect the modern account of free will and determinism? for a short description, and this survey of Two-Stage Models for Free Will for more details and references. – Conifold Feb 23 '17 at 23:27

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