Do we have FREE WILL?

[MineralMan]

18. Good questions. I don't have good answers.

All of our decisions, of course, are affected by cognitive biases. Some, we make without thinking, because that's convenient and necessary much of the time. Others, we make after some sort of logical process, although our logic is altered by those biases. I'm not sure, however, that it matters all that much, in discussing free will.

If I get a cup of coffee and want something to eat to go with it, I typically have some choices available. All are choices I've selected at one point or another. Do I have the chocolate chip cookie? One of the brownies I baked yesterday (another decision), or a Hostess Snowball? Or, do I decide to have nothing, in an attempt to control my weight? It doesn't matter, really, which choice I make, but I will make a choice. It's an insignificant choice, but it's a conscious one that is limited by other choices I have made regarding snacks in the past.

Or, more immediately, what do I write in the current paragraph regarding free will? I could present some other examples of choices, both rationally and irrationally made. I am deciding as I type. My decision is not to add any more to this post, and that decision was made just now.