[andrei_says_]

This is a beautiful way to put it. Contemporary Advaita provides many pointers, one of which is to observe your choices and try to find a force independent of observable causality chains.

Unpacking what we call “free will” in this way is a really sobering experience, leading to automatic compassion for everyone.

[pmoriarty]

"Contemporary Advaita provides many pointers, one of which is to observe your choices and try to find a force independent of observable causality chains."

How can we observe causality?

We can observe a sequence of events, but that one event causes another is not something we can observe.

See Hume's critique of causality for more on this.

[andrei_says_]

If this was a non-rhetorical question - the way I use this pointer is to focus on an action I feel tension about, usually detectable as guilt.

“I shouldn’t have rushed my nephew in the store.”

The inquiry goes something like this: what emotions did I have at the moment? Did I choose those or were they caused by something? What thoughts did I have? Did I choose them or did they spontaneously appear or were they caused by something like conditioning, habits, traumatic patterns? Were we on our way to a concert? Is my nature patient or not so patient and chill and when did I get a say in my preference in how my neuropathways will get organized? Was my nephew fascinated by those books? Did I choose him to be? Did he choose to have interest in some things and not others? Did he choose to have a bit of difficulty when transitioning away from interesting activities? Did I choose how I was treated when I was a child in his situation?

Given all of these, including feeling overwhelmed and out of options, and having only the tools I had at the moment, my existing genetic makeup, thoughts, beliefs and environment, can I find a force independent of all of these that made me raise my voice at the child?

No, I cannot. It happened and I kind of witnessed it but that’s it. What I call a choice or a free will, when unpacked, is a combination of infinite causality chains which happen to express themselves through me in this moment.