[logicchains]

>The implication of the answer being "no" is that we are automaton, free will does not exist (it isn't even an illusion, you are as much a puppet thinking about it as you are trying to change your fate.

This is implied by logic anyway. Why do we make decision X at time T? Because of who we are at time T. Why are we that person at time T? Because of decisions made at time T-1. Why did we make those decision at T-1? Because of who we were then, which was the restult of decisions made at T-2. If we continue this process, we reach T-only-a-baby, when we were incapable of conscious decision making. So causally all our actions can be traced back to something we can't control. Unless, some of our decisions were entirely the result of chance, but in this case we still don't have free will, we just have actions that are random instead of predetermined.

[sgt101]

I think that there are a lot of assumptions in that chain. When you or I ask why did we make a decision X we can formulate answers but, for my account, I don't have access to all of the components of my thinking - I cannot articulate what I feel is really going on. I think that randomness in the universe is very hard to account for too - I was impressed by an essay that Scott Aaronson wrote about this : https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/giqtm3.pdf but I have read it several times and I am afraid I don't really understand it.