@TheMiddleWay of my own opinion, what else ?

😂

@TheMiddleWay
We make decisions based on previous experience and expectations that result from experience.

Try this thought experiment....

Think of a time you made a significant decision.

Now, imagine you were to go back in time to the moment just before you made that decision, and that all of the preceding history was exactly the same, and you have no foreknowledge of the future.

Could you have made a different decision the second time around?

If you answer Yes, then you make your decision irrationally and at random.

I use this argument all the time. Its one of my favorites. It's also worth noting that if they say "Yes" they would could differently, you ask them why. They'll probably say something like "because I can" or "because I wanted to be random" or some such. Each one of those is a reason. Desire to buck the trend or "choose whichever" is still a thought process brought on by certain conditions. Even changing ones answer doesn't really escape it unless one can prove that absolutely nothing had an input. And in the unlikely event someone can name an example of choosing something with absolutely no influence upon it, then you're right. And to go one step further. Either A) We don't have free choice because our decisions are influenced in such a way that we could not do otherwise, or B) Our choices can be completely random and not subject to rationality (like you said)

If our decisions are out of our control due to influences there's no free choice. If we're choosing randomly without any desire or reason to do so, and it's literally just a die roll, that's not really free choice either. So either way we don't have that control over our actions

@TheMiddleWay
But, the coin would land the same way or would not be part of the experiment by definition of the experiment that all history would be the same since you went back to the moment prior to your decision and had no knowledge of the future.

@Ersomething
BINGO, you get it. It is a bit "disheartening" to realize how little control we have over our "free will". We all want to think we are Masters Of Our Destinies, but no. But then think of what life would be like if people did make random decisions. It would be utter chaos!

@TheMiddleWay
The funny thing about randomness is that it too, like Free Will, does not truly exist. What we call "random" is actually only an approximation of the imaginary concept of randomness. Any event is totally predictable if you know ALL the factors that lead to an outcome. Think of the "Psychohistorians" in Foundation by Issac Asimov.

@Reignmond yup! Of course it's practical to assume/act line there is free will in day to day life. When someone tries to act in accordance with there being no free will, life becomes a hit fatalistic. The lack of free will to me is mostly academic. I mean besides, we do make our own choices, after weighing costs and effects etc. They're just not necessarily free choices

@TheMiddleWay
As I used to tell some students; Go back and re-read the explanation of the problem. We are not replicating anything! It is a definite history repeated precisely in ALL its nuances, no matter how slight. Invoking Chaos theory or Quantum Mechanics is a violation of the very definition of the experiment.

@TheMiddleWay

Again, reread the experiment. Sorry to sound like a teacher. Old habits...

@TheMiddleWay
What we have, at the risk of invoking Einstein, is a limited understanding of reality.

@TheMiddleWay
But it is pretty easy to prove that there is no god, or at least none of relevance.

Or not -- take responsibility.
'If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice' -- Rush.