This Fhil-os-O-fi stuff is hard...
OK, I need someone to back me up, but I'll struggle until the ghost of Socrates comes to save me.
Originally posted by Spiderman
The problem with your "choices" is that you have no way of knowing if there is a "force" guiding your choices. You cannot "step outside of yourself" to look at your choices objectively.
Destiny could have guided you to buy the plane ticket. Your time was up
Yes, I can look at my choices objectivly, by looking back at the choices I've made in the past and seeing how they effected the outcome of whatever circumstances that I think best match the current situation.
I can also extrapolate and calculate what I belive to be the outcome, based on past expeirences, then consider the hypothetical outcome to what has not yet occured.
All of this envoles thinking.
If some pre-ordained action is involved with the decisions that I make, then that is not thinking. It makes me an automaton at the mercy of what ever is controlling "fate".
But, If I can consider past choices and use that make new choices, then I must be thinking, because a pre-ordained outcome would not involve me having to consider ANYTHING, I would simply be on some cosmic "auto-pilot".
So, we have this...
1) If I can consider past expierences when making new choices, or If I can invent probable outcomes, then I must be thinking.
2) If I am thinking, then there is no "invisible hand" guiding my actions, because the thoughts of consideration of the events would not have taken place at all as "fate" would have determined my choice for me.
3) If I am thinking as a guide for making my own choices, then I have made the choices myself.
4) If I have made the choice myself, then I have Free Will.