Do you control what you believe?

[IATIA]

A decision is making a choice. A choice is a set of options.

And are you defining our "set of options" as necessarily free? Or can we have a "set of options" and it not be free because despite the fact that they're "optional", they are only optional in the sense that they are possible and it is ultimately not us that is doing the opting?

I am defining nothing as free. For any thought, desire, choice, decision, (whatever word you wish, just pop it in there) to be free, there must be some thought that did not originate from the biochemical reactions of the body. It is moot what leads to this point. If the conscious mind has a thought that is not a direct deterministic result of the physiology of the body, then from whence did this thought come?

To make a decision or to choose from a set of options is the same thing.

So the question is then, do you define all decision-making as free-decision making? If you do, then if "free will" is the ability to make free decisions then that would imply that by merely making decisions we have "free will"

I believe that we are no more than a highly developed bio-mechanical robot that is completely subservient to the physiological processes of the robot. Our awareness is simply an illusion that 'tricks' us into believing that we have a choice.

The semantics of making a decision to choose have no bearing on the free will process.

True, but if we are going to talk about the relevance of whether "free will" exists or not it needs a definition, otherwise we don't even know what we're talking about, so semantics is relevant to us discussing "free will". If we get one definition of "free will" mixed up with another we're not talking about the same thing, we're equivocating.

I do not think so. Regardless of the semantics of decision/choice or the levels involved, the question is where does any free will originate?

There is not an issue of infinite regression. Everything we are, starts with the Big bang (or for the theists, "let there be light").

I'm saying that if our conscious motivation needs more of our conscious motivation to have "free will" then for the same reason we'd keep needing more and more and so that leads to an infinite regress. So we only have "free will" if we draw the line somewhere. If we don't and we follow the logic of "conscious motivation requires conscious motivation for free will to work" then it leads to an infinite regress, so that kind of "free will" can't work.

Is an amoeba aware? At what point does awareness kick in? does it take two cells or two trillion? how about one trillion nine hundred and ninety nine cells? This is your cut off. You cannot let yourself get caught in Zeno's paradox or else the infinite regression arises.

As far as an individual is concerned, the determinism that brought them into being has little effect other than bring them to being.

If everything that exists in the universe, including them, and including everything they've ever done said or thought and all their motives for action, all of their "will", is ultimately entirely determined from the big-bang, how do they have "free will"? Where do you draw the line between "will" and "free will"? At what point did their existence have a will and then at what point did that will become free? And if their will became free as soon as it existed, how is it free if it's determined entirely out of no choice of their own?

And that my dear Watson is the crux of the situation. Theists will have you believe that god initiated free will. As there is no god, it would not be possible for free will to 'appear' ergo, there is no free will.

Everything after that is what shapes who we are and what decisions we will make.

And everything done is still ultimately entirely determined from the big bang. It's a causal chain. We're part of the causal chain of the universe, including our decisions. So we don't have "free will". Or, if there isn't a causal chain then the universe is indeterministic so we can't determine anything, so we have no "free will".

This is where it can truly get involved. Quantum mechanics does not project the path of a particle or wave, it projects the "statistically probable' path of a particle. This means that one really cannot project far into the future. If a particle or wave did not take the highest probable path, that would affect any future calculations.

We really are not in control.

Ultimately we're not in control at all. I agree. Libertarian "free will" is false. But we are in control in the sense that fatalism is false: We do have motives and those motivations of course motivate us and influence our life, so, in another sense, that is our "control".

Again, the nature of consciousness only 'tricks' us into believing that we have any control.

[...]Your awareness will always exist attached to some reality.

Therefore our awareness is ultimately entirely determined from the big bang because it is attached to reality. And if our awareness and therefore our conscious motivation is ultimately entirely determined from the big bang then, how do we have "free will"?

This is the out of context portion. That statement was based on the philosophies of an awareness within the quantum world, not from the body and is not necessarily my viewpoint.

The bottom line in this train of thought is that if this is true, then one should be able to force this shift of worlds through other means. Now you're talking free will.

If the "quantum suicide" philosophies are correct, then we truly do have free will and how to control it rather than 'drive it' remains the ultimate question.How could we force it if the world is indeterministic? If the world is indeterministic then our "will" can't be determined so we can't determine our "will" ourselves so, in what sense is it "free"? And if our "will" can't determine anything because the world is indeterministic in what sense do you mean we could "force" anything?

Actually, in an "indeterministic" world, control is easy. An "indeterministic" world allows for true free will, but still does not explain the origin. IMHO, I believe that if MY awareness is all that is real and everything else is simply a construct of my imagination, then free will can exist and control of my total existence can exist.

On the other hand if the scientifically indeterministic - in the sense that it is unpredictable - quantum world is nevertheless philosophically deterministic, then everything is still ultimately entirely determined so in what sense do we ever "force" anything if "we" are ultimately entirely forced by the causal chain back to the big-bang that precedes us?

The half-life of uranium-238 4.468 billion years. This means that in ANY sample of uranium-238, at the end of 4.468 billion years, one half of the sample will have decayed. This is a clockwork system of precision. There are other radioactive materials and they all have the same properties albeit different half-lives. Fully, precisely, predictable. But we have not a clue one which atom is next or why. Absolutely, completely unpredictable. If they do one day figure it out, then the last vestige of hope for any free will or indeterminate universe flushes down the drain.