whereof, thereof.

there both is and is not free will. 

every object (i.e., anything to which one can point and give a name, including events and thoughts and people and stones) depends on the entire universal functioning which precedes its appearance in linear time. e.g., no matter the content of the words, if one hair which currently grows on my head had instead fallen off yesterday, the event of my typing this blog entry would have been factually different. because one is speaking of matters which include (and thus overshadow) human interests, one must disregard the human understanding of relative importance — the hair and the atom are as important as the war and the sword.

the entire universal functioning which leads up to this point in time — the now — includes and is composed of all choices made by all actors, including the consistent natural choices which we have come to know as the “laws of physics.”

“choices” appear to be made by human actors via thought. The universal functioning also includes the thoughts by which the “choices” are made. 

the Now is not locable in linear time — it is a constant. past and future both partake of now; thought of past or future brings past and future into Now. The Now is the only point of conscious access to the thing that we call time; thus there is no objective reality of the past and future (and the arrow of time) except as concept experienced in the now.

because of our perception of time as a series of “nows” flowing from past to future (a product of the entropy of the body and the world) we observe the thoughts which lead to choice in a series as a process of becoming. we take ownership of these thoughts and thereby take ownership of the choice which results. in this way, free will has reality for us. 

but every choice is necessary to the now: there can have been no other choice because even the thoughts which produce the choices depend on the entirety of the universal functioning: choices are made based immediately on, for instance, past experience, mood, belief and so forth, which each depend themselves on an infinite series of previous experiences, moods and beliefs, &c.

in addition, all choices depend on seemingly ‘random’ factors (physical happenings) such as how much iron or oxygen a given interstellar nebula contributed to a certain star we call the sun, &c.

and since no individual can claim total knowledge of the factors leading to a perceived choice, no individual can claim responsibility for the choice. The choice IS. the entire universe conspires to produce a thought which produces the necessary action. The individual is perceived only due to the conscious presence within the individual taking ownership of the thought and the action. without this pesky habit, there is no individual to choose or to take responsibility for anything: what is, is.