As you wish. Thank you for your time and posts.

You want to remain ignorant instead of learning something new. How fascinating! I am not blaming you or crediting you. If I or another organism had your genes, environments, nutrients and experiences, I or another organism would have the same thoughts as you because we would be identical to you.
— Truth Seeker
I am not ignorant of the topic. I have no time to read a book that denies the reality of free will. Philosophers of mind still struggle with the Hard Problem of consciousness. I am wondering how then could address free will when they are unsure what consciousness is! — MoK

I am not a philosopher. I am a scientist. We make voluntary choices but our choices are never free from determinants, constraints and consequences. The so-called Hard Problem of Consciousness is not actually all that hard. It's a philosophical construct, nothing more. You could claim that I am a Philosophical Zombie. It would be impossible for me to prove to you that I am a conscious being. Just because it is impossible to prove to others that I am conscious, it does not mean I am a Philosophical Zombie. Philosophical Zombie is yet another philosophical construct, nothing more.

You want to remain ignorant instead of learning something new. How fascinating! I am not blaming you or crediting you. If I or another organism had your genes, environments, nutrients and experiences, I or another organism would have the same thoughts as you because we would be identical to you. No one deserves any blame or credit for anything.

No, doubt is not special. Just because you claim it to be special does not make it so. Have you read the two books I recommended?

The mental state of experiencing doubt is not something special that sets it apart from other mental states.
— Truth Seeker
It is special. If we accept the mental phenomenon of doubt, we can conclude that options are real.

We experience many sensory perceptions, thoughts and emotions. They are all produced by our brain activities.
— Truth Seeker
Yes, brain states are subject to change and are deterministic. The question is how doubt can arise from the brain, considering that it is a deterministic object. — MoK

No, doubting is not special. You clearly don't understand how the brain works. Please read "Being You: A New Science of Consciousness" by Anil Seth and "Determined: Life Without Free Will" by Robert M. Sapolsky. If you have any questions while reading these books, please ask here and I will do my best to answer them.

I am talking about mental state doubt. — MoK

The mental state of experiencing doubt is not something special that sets it apart from other mental states. We experience many sensory perceptions, thoughts and emotions. They are all produced by our brain activities. Our brain activities are determined by our genes, environments, nutrients and experiences.

Let me give you an example to help you understand. The selection of lottery numbers is entirely deterministic. I doubt I can predict them with 100% accuracy every time. My inability to predict which lottery numbers will be drawn at each draw has to do with my lack of omniscience and the large number of possibilities.

Doubts are not allowed in a deterministic world. Everything is certain in a deterministic world since by definition determinism refers to a worldview in which each state of matter uniquely defines another state of matter later. So, I ask you this question whether you have ever had a doubt. If yes, then we are dealing with a problem, the problem being how doubt is possible. I don't think that anyone has a clear answer to this. So to me, the mental phenomena are not easy to understand and do not follow the rule of determinism. — MoK

The statement: "Doubts are not allowed in a deterministic world." is false.

We never know all the long-term consequences of our actions.
— Truth Seeker
Then options are real if you don't know the consequences of your actions. — MoK

Knowing or not knowing the consequences of our actions has nothing to do with options being real or not real. We can make voluntary choices. My point is that our choices are never free from determinants (genes, environments, nutrients and experiences), constraints and consequences.

1. Clean up the dog poo.
2. Avoid stepping on the dog poo but not clean it up.
3. Step on the dog poo.
— Truth Seeker
4. Step on it and clean it up. — Patterner

Yes, the fourth option is also possible.

I talked about a situation when you are not certain, by this I mean you do not know the consequence of your decision. — MoK

We never know all the long-term consequences of our actions. For example, let's say in my previous example, I cleaned up the dog poo from the pavement. I know the immediate consequences of this action but I don't know what effect this action will have on myself and others a week, a month, a year, a decade, a century, a millennia and on and on down the line.

That means we are dealing with options in those situations where we are not sure. — MoK

Even when we are sure about the outcomes, we are still dealing with options. For example, let's say that I am walking and I notice dog poo on the pavement. I have thought of three options in this situation:

1. Clean up the dog poo.
2. Avoid stepping on the dog poo but not clean it up.
3. Step on the dog poo.

No one is coercing me to do any of the three things so my choice to do any of them is voluntary. However, my choice is not free from determinants, constraints and consequences.

If I choose option 1, it will cost me some time, effort and a plastic bag (if I have a plastic bag with me). Doing this will prevent someone else from stepping on the dog poo.

If I choose option 2, it will save me some time, effort and a plastic bag but there is still the risk of someone else stepping on the dog poo.

If I choose option 3, it will make my shoe dirty and I will have to either clean up my shoe or throw away my shoes or keep wearing shoes with dog poo on them and spread the dog poo from my shoes to the inside of my home.

Which of the three options I select is determined by my genes, my environments from my conception to the present, my nutrients from my conception to the present and my experiences from my conception to the present.

If I had the genes of a banana tree instead of the human genes I have, I would not be sentient and would not even notice the dog poo, never mind think about my options.

If I was in a life-threatening environment e.g. someone was shooting at me with a machine gun, I simply would not give the dog poo much thought. I would be preoccupied with how I can avoid getting shot by taking cover or running erratically.

If was deprived of nutrients as a zygote, I would not even get to be born. I would have died when I was in the womb.

If I experienced an accident which caused me to go blind, I would not have even noticed the dog poo.

I could go on and on and keep listing more and more scenarios but I don't want to spend any more time explaining how we are never free from determinants, constraints and consequences. Have you understood my point? If you haven't understood it, please let me know and I will try to explain further.

If the existence of options is not what causes us to be uncertain then what it is? — MoK

I did take on board your question and I answered it to the best of my knowledge. If you have a better answer, I am happy to read about it.

No one has chosen their genes. But people don't blame their genes for the choices they have made. Free will is your mental state, which has little to do with your genes, environments and nutrients.

Making a choice is your mental event based on your reasoning and thinking on the various options. Nothing else is involved in making choices. — Corvus

Our choices can be voluntary but they are not free from determinants, constraints and consequences. Our reasoning and thinking depend entirely on our genes, environments, nutrients and experiences.

As I already said in my previous post, we are uncertain because we are not all-knowing. Only an all-knowing being is always certain about everything.

I don't know.

There are maps, and there are territories. Our brain is a territory in itself, but it's a territory which contains maps of other territories. Those maps can be wrong. Being wrong is a feature of the map, not the territory. Uncertainty is a feature of the map, not the territory. — flannel jesus

I agree.

The important question is how could we possibly be uncertain if matter is a deterministic thing. — MoK

We are uncertain because we are not all-knowing. Which lottery numbers will be the winning numbers? If we knew that we would always be able to pick the winning numbers for the jackpot.

They could be thought of the qualities of your being. They are not direct effects and causes for your choices. Extending the effects and causes to your general qualities of being is committing the fallacy of relevance. — Corvus

My genes preceded me and formed the foundation of my existence and nature. I didn't choose my genes and I don't have direct control over them. The same goes for my early environments, nutrients and experiences. You should read "Determined: The Science of Life Without Free Will" by Professor Robert M. Sapolsky.

One tiny quantum event can (will) cascade into completely different weather in a couple months, (popularly known as the butterfly effect) so the history of the world and human decisions is significantly due to these quantum fluctuations. In other words, given a non-derministic interpretation of quantum mechanics, a person's decision is anything but inevitable from a given prior state. There's a significant list of non-deterministic interpretations. Are you so sure (without evidence) that they're all wrong? — noAxioms

I don't know enough about it to have an opinion about it. Please tell me more about how quantum events affect the weather. Is there a book you can recommend so I can learn more about this? Thank you.

Our choices can be voluntary but they are not free from determinants and constraints.
— Truth Seeker
... and also not free of consequences. :100: — 180 Proof

I agree. Thank you.

Thank you for telling me more about the different types of determinism. Quantum indeterminacy is irrelevant because at the macroscopic level, all the quantum weirdness (e.g. quantum indeterminacy and superposition) averages out.

I agree that options are real. I have been in mazes but not labyrinths.
— Truth Seeker
Then you can always choose to do otherwise if you agree that options are real. The example of a maze is one. Think of a situation in which you have plenty of money but you are unsure about investing in the market. There are many examples in our lives in which we are unsure about the situations. This means that options in such situations are real so you can always choose to do otherwise.
6 hours ago — MoK

I am not convinced. I have been carrying out experiments on myself for many years to see how choices are made. Every single experiment showed me that the choices arise as a result of the interactions of four groups of variables. These groups of variables are genes, environments from conception to the present, nutrients from conception to the present and experiences from conception to the present. I am 99.(an infinite number of 9s)% certain that all our choices are inevitable.

I am 100% certain of the following:

1. I am conscious.
2. I am typing in English.
3. I am not all-knowing.
4. I am not all-powerful.
5. I change.
6. I know concepts e.g. what a square or circle or triangle is.
7. I know apparent facts about reality e.g. the Earth orbits the Sun, the Moon orbits the Earth.
8. I know how to walk, run, eat, drink, cook, shop, work, read, write, type, go to the toilet, cycle, swim, etc.
9. I can't do lots of things I really want to do e.g. go back in time and prevent all suffering, inequality, injustice, and deaths and make all living things forever happy.
10. I do some things even though I don't want to do them. Here are some things I have done, currently do or will do even though I don't want to do them:

1. Breathe
2. Eat
3. Drink
4. Sleep
5. Dream
7. Pee
8. Poo
9. Fart
10. Burp
11. Sneeze
12. Cough
13. Age
14. Get ill
15. Get injured
16. Sweat
17. Cry
18. Suffer
19. Snore
20. Think
21. Feel
22. Choose
23. Be conceived
24. Be born
25. Remember some events that I don't want to remember
26. Forget information that I want to remember
27. Die

I am almost 100% certain of the following:

1. I and all the other organisms currently alive will die. Every second brings all organisms closer to death.
2. My body, other organisms, the Earth and the Universe really exist and they are not part of a simulation or hallucination or dream or illusion.
3. Other organisms e.g. humans, cows, dogs, cats, chickens, pigs, lions, elephants, butterflies, whales, dolphins, etc. are sentient beings who feel pain.
4. Being a non-consumer is more ethical than being an autotroph, being an autotroph is more ethical than being a vegan/herbivore, being a vegan is more ethical than being a vegetarian, and being a vegetarian is more ethical than being an omnivore or carnivore.
5. Gods do not exist.
6. Souls do not exist.
7. Reincarnation does not happen.
8. Resurrection does not happen.
10. Organisms evolved and were not created by God or Gods.
11. 99.9% of all the species to evolve so far on Earth became extinct in 5 mass extinctions long before humans evolved.
12. Humans and other organisms make choices but they are not free from determinants and constraints. Our choices are determined and constrained by our genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences. The reason I have put this one in the almost certain category is that it is possible, albeit extremely unlikely, that bodies, genes, cells, stars, planets, moons, galaxies, universes do not actually exist. These things could be part of a simulation or dream or hallucination or illusion I am experiencing. It is impossible to know about this with 100% certainty. I could be a solipsistic soul experiencing the illusion of being in a human body on a planet in a universe or I could be a body without any soul - I don't know these things for sure, hence I am an agnostic. There are many hypotheses that can't be tested e.g. simulation hypothesis, illusion hypothesis, dream hypothesis, hallucination hypothesis, solipsism hypothesis, philosophical zombie hypothesis, panpsychism hypothesis, deism hypothesis, theism hypothesis, pantheism hypothesis, panentheism hypothesis, etc. Just because a hypothesis can't be tested it does not mean it is true or false. It just means that it is currently untestable.

What are your thoughts about the above thoughts of mine?

Sure options are real. Have you ever been in a labyrinth? — MoK

I agree that options are real. I have been in mazes but not labyrinths.

I have proposed a small list of definitions of 'free choice' as distinct from choice that isn't free. I've also claimed at least 4 different kinds of determinism, but have not listed them in this topic. You've not clarified which ones are what you're talking about or not. — noAxioms

We make voluntary choices (e.g. my choice to post on this forum was voluntary) but we don't make choices that are free from determinants and constraints (e.g. my choice to post on this forum was both determined and constrained by my genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences). Do you understand what I have said?

Please tell me more about the 4 different kinds of determinism. Thank you.

Genes, environments and nutrients are not philosophical concepts.  They are the concepts in Genetics, Sociology and Biology, which has nothing to do with philosophical ideas. — Corvus

Genes, environments, nutrients and experiences are variables which determine and constrain our choices. They are real and their effects on our choices are real.

Those are not related to philosophical idea of free will. Constraints and determinants are the properties of your own being. They are not directly related to free will. — Corvus

Yes, they are. The second meaning of 'free will' is the "freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes". Our choices are never free from prior causes such as our genes, our environments from conception to the present, our nutrients from conception to the present and our experiences from the womb to the present. While we make voluntary choices, no one chooses their genes, their early environments, their early nutrients and their early experiences. As older children and adults we have limited choices about our environments, nutrients and experiences but even these limited choices are never free from the variables of genes, environments from conception to the present, nutrients from conception to the present and experiences from conception to the present.

Well, that is a misunderstanding the concept free will, I am afraid. You have free will. — Corvus

I am quoting the Merriam-Webster dictionary: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/free%20will

"noun
1
: voluntary choice or decision
I do this of my own free will
2
: freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention"

Our choices can be voluntary but they are not free from determinants and constraints.

I am not denying that I have a will. I am saying that my will is not free from determinants and constraints.

My point is not irrelevant. My point is that my choices are not free from my genes, environments from conception to the present, nutrients from conception to the present and experiences from the womb to the present. If you went back in time and altered any of the variables, you would also change my choices.

Because it's not those variables that made the choice, it is how you process them into the chosen selection that matters. — noAxioms

It's the variables (genes, environments from conception to the present, nutrients from conception to the present and experiences from the womb to the present) that determine my perceptions, thoughts, emotions, values, words and actions. For example, if I had the genes of a banana tree instead of my genes, I would never have been sentient and hence I would never have been able to think any thoughts. If aliens kidnapped me when I was a baby and placed on the surface of Venus, I would have died from the heat. If I was deprived of all nutrients when I was a zygote, I would never have lived long enough to become a human who can post messages online. If I never experienced learning the English language, I would not have been able to post in English on this forum. As you can see from my examples, my choices are the products of variables.

Banana tree gene is irrelevant premise for your conclusion. It makes no sense at all. There are many other reasons why you typed the post, other than your genes. But most of all, it was your free will which typed your posts. — Corvus

If I had the genes of a banana tree, instead of my human genes, I would have grown into a banana tree, provided I was in the appropriate environment and received the appropriate nutrients. Since no banana tree is sentient and types in English, it would have been impossible for me to post anything on this forum.

What do you mean by free will? My will is certainly not free from my genes, environments, nutrients and experiences. I think my will is both determined and constrained by my genes, environments, nutrients and experiences.

if they are determined, then identical choices would result from identical variables. — Banno

I agree. How would I know with 100% certainty if they are determined or not?

If I had the genes of a banana tree instead of my genes, I would indeed have grown up to be a banana tree instead of an adult human provided I had the appropriate environment and nutrients. Since banana trees are not sentient, they can't experience anything. I am trying to work out if anyone deserves any credit or blame for their choices. If the choices we make are the products of variables we didn't choose e.g. genes, environments, nutrients and experiences, then how can we be credited or blamed for anything?

Are the choices we make not determined by our genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences? If they are determined, then wouldn't identical choices result from identical variables?

But you might have done otherwise. — Banno

But I didn't do otherwise. Is it inevitable that I posted the original post and read your last reply and typed these words?

I am trying to understand how choices are made and if our choices are inevitable or not. Could I have refrained from posting in this forum? I don't know. Could I have posted a different question? I don't know. Was my post inevitable? I don't know.

There's a possible world in which you did not make that OP.

Simple application of modality. Time perceptions and quantum multiple universes are irrelevant. — Banno

How do you know this?

Could anyone have made a different choice in the past than the ones they made?
— Truth Seeker
Unless the universe (of determinant forces and constraints on one) changes too, I don't think so. — 180 Proof

I think you are right.

Could anyone have made a different choice in the past than the ones they made?
— Truth Seeker
Depends on several factors. Ignoring choice of deterministic interpretation of things or otherwise, in what way would this entity that makes a different choice in the past be you, or relative to what would that choice be 'different'? What ties you (that choses vanilla) to the possible T-S that choses chocolate?

I didn't vote because the question was vaguely worded.

If we couldn’t ever have made a different choice in the past, we didn’t ever make any choice at all.
— Fire Ologist
This also depends on definitions, but you seem to be using one that doesn't distinguish choice from free choice, rendering the adjective meaningless. — noAxioms

What I am exploring here is whether our choices are inevitable or not. Are we free agents or are our choices determined by variables such as genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences?