So are we just a player piano (dust or divine) with a nifty rationalization gadget or are we free to alter our behavior in meaningful ways?

I actually do believe that free-will is a story our brain (or gut - if you’re a Colbert fan) tells us.

But I don’t think we can dismiss it as “just” a story.  I think the stories that we tell ourselves are our (possible) escape hatch from determinism.    We can’t change our parents, our genes, our birthplace etc. but we can constantly tell new stories about the world.

Our ability to tell stories about the world, allows us to try out different behaviors.  It opens the door for real novelty and creativity. 

Having said that, my own sense is that we tend to wildly overestimate the ways in which we have free will. So much of our behavior is determined in ways that are opaque to us. Much of the rest we rationalize.

But I do think that we have the capacity as humans to become close observers of the workings of our own minds (see the Wallace quote above) . In doing so we can begin to re-shape the stories that we tell ourselves so they become more nuanced and descriptive. I think that this is the art of good subjective science (or Wisdom as they called it back in the day).

Recovery from addiction is a good example of how a change of story can change behavior. Paradoxically addicts admit that they are powerless (lack free-will?) over their addictions. In changing the story they open new possibilities in their patterns of behavior.

Its almost as if we have to recognize the many ways in which we lack free-will, in order to be able to really act on the very few ways in which we do have free will.

 I hope that makes some degree of sense. I am curious to hear what observations have led you to the gut feeling that we do indeed have free will.