| Ponder this. Can you ever willfully choose option C, if you never knew or had anything lead you to think that option C was even an option? Or better yet, can you willfully imagine a new color that's not in any way related to the colors or any combination of colors you've already seen before? Or further, not related to ANY CONCEPT you're already aware of? You can't. But if you could, how would you ever describe it to someone? After all, if you describe this new color using other ideas you're already acquainted with, then it is thus in some way related to those very ideas used to describe it... This shows that, any "new" ideas you imagine, are nothing but a combination of ideas you're already familiar with. Otherwise, to become familiar with ideas that are not in any way related to what you're already familiar with, can ONLY come from your senses. Hence, all concepts/thoughts/ideas you ever have ultimately stem from your senses (seeing, hearing, etc). Since all ideas ultimately originate from our senses, then the thoughts we have and decisions we make are ultimately subject to the stimuli inputted to us. Thus we are as mechanical as anything else in this world. Fundamentally no different than a rock in how it operates on the physical stimuli inputted on it. Granted we are much more complex than a rock and hence have much more complex responses to our stimuli, but nonetheless just as deterministic. The brain may attempt to control what's external to it, but the way it does so has been programmed from the stimuli inputted on it (from DNA instructions, to nutrition, to physical stimuli). |
Everything you're saying is old hat to anyone as familiar with the literature on free will and cognitive science as I am.
Nothing you are saying is in any way inconsistent with the view of free will I have been defending.