What is "free will"? Here is the right direction to answer that question.

Sentient beings (let's just say "animal" ) evolved consciousness. Then they evolved the ability to be conscious of their own consciousness. And that's it, the rest are details, as in:

For instance, a dog is conscious: he is "aware" of a tree by experiencing the perception of the tree. A person is not only aware of the tree; he is also aware that he is aware of the tree. In other words, he can think about his thinking. I submit that this ability gives a person the ability to change his mental content.

He can now recall the tree from memory and IMAGINE it differently. Whether or not he will do so, if he will do so, how he will do it, and when is not determined at all. In other words, he can choose to self-reflect, change his mind, think about things, or not. That is, thru this META-cognition, the process of thought becomes the first process in his autonomic nervous system.

The fact that 99.9% of the people -- 99.9% of the time -- choose to not self-reflect critically, is important, but it does not nullify the existence of the non-deterministic abilities inherent in self-awareness.

Sure, most people most of the time, take their conceptual programming as THE GIVEN and then let their subconscious minds dictate what is real and true thru their emotions. But some people choose to struggle against their inherent vices, and those are the leaders of the world, for good and bad.

That is why I say that we should use Reason and Logic to learn, but use mostly Persuasion to teach. Otherwise, you will end up being very frustrated at people, just like Scott Adams has been teaching us.