Free Will Debate

[polymath257]

If I will something, it doesn't stop beingh willed simply because it was pre-determined.

---

Yes, there is. if something had been slightly different within my brain, then I would have made a different decision. If, instead, something in that first cell had been slightly different, I would not have been at the store at all.

Yes, the mind (and will) are intermediate stages in a process going back billions of years. So? that doesn't change the fact that my mind is where the 'decision' was made.

the question seems to me to be, can something be sufficiently different in your brain to have caused you to make different decision, without that difference being directly traceably to an earlier difference that had already existed outside your brain? 

if not, then no decision really originated in your brain.   it is just first perceived by you as a difference in your brain.

Why would that be desirable? I *want* my decisions to be based on my experiences (outside events affecting me). It would be exceedingly strange if they were not.

Most likely, that small difference in my brain that 'decided' is the result great number of previous events, both inside and outside of my brain. No single one of them would be enough for a different decision, most likely. Those previous influences had to come together to affect the activity of my brain for the decision to happen.

In other words, both external and internal events affect my decisions. Duh.