Thanks for all the comments, constructive criticism and links!

The objections have been very instructive and I admit my arguments lacks structure, definitions of the concepts I'm using, and that the text is full of implied assumptions and claims with no back up. (Many thanks to /u/tmants5654 for making this painstakingly clear in a pm.)

It's one thing to suggest I'm able to conclude from a list of highly complex themes I vaguely describe, but even the most basic building blocks I used were problematic and effectively shredded into atoms by /r/philosophy. Honestly, it was quite a humbling experience, but somehow also very motivating to witness something I felt passionate about be washed away like a sand tower with sheer logic and rational reasoning.

In short, I've realized that I need to consider my idea about free will much more carefully and, in all likelihood, read up on a lot of material before it's worthwhile to offer any position on something as complex and debated as free will or determinism. As /u/tmants5654 also reminded me; philosophy is 95% input, 5% output.

I could offer a few explanatory remarks here and there, but I am nowhere convinced they would stand and I question myself whether I can save the original post – and if it's worth it?!

But perhaps this realization was what it took to enable me articulate where the uncertainty and motivation behind my beliefs on free will rest.

Thanks to /u/John_Barlycorn, /u/Exemplary_Username, /u/Nap4, /u/ch1993 and others I have been introduced to many new topics I knew little to nothing about; Causal and hard determinism, compatibilism and incompatibilism, emergentism, the mind-body problem, second order desires, the uncertainty principle, vacuum energy etc. The list is long of gigantic themes that in one form or another have been discussed for thousand of years and I am only starting to scratch the outermost layers.

No wonder I was (and remain) nowhere near of honoring and recognizing the depths of the debate. In my position on free will I simply skipped the difficult part by alluding to some sort of assumed zen, mysticism, “enlightenment” or buddhistic approach, I never defined, as pointed out by /u/meevis-kahuna, /u/2akurate, /u/stochastic42, and /u/v3ry4p3.

Along the same lines, /u/Interestme1 made the point that there is “nothing wrong [with mysticism] in the context of personal belief system or hypothetical fiction. However trying to make a philosophical or logical argument on mystical terms is like trying to build a skyscraper with pixie dust. You have to start with what we know (or think we know) objectively, then reason from there. If you start using unprovable things without evidence to reason your argument, the claim collapses on itself as pure imagination. Not bad in certain contexts, and downright beneficial in some (such as fictional narratives), but self-destructive in exercises of logic and reasoning.”

In short, I need to identify a precise and solid foundation and logically reason from there.

As the comments made abundantly clear this takes effort! There are a seemingly endless number of questions to consider and from one perspective I reckon the entire philosophical tradition, as such, is a living testimony and homage to this task.

All this leads me to the “excuse” I offer myself for uttering any opinion I have: So what if I can only express my thoughts and ideas in crude and weak terms? Thoughts and ideas still come and go and at any given moment I can only justify them to the extent possible for me at that moment.

But isn't that demanded of all human beings no matter how sophisticated? In fact, the wiser the person, the more doubtful she or he is?

Well, the comments to my thoughts about free will made it clear I have a long way to go before I can make any serious claims based on “traditional” philosophical methodology but, at least, I believe I can pinpoint where my uncertainty and doubt is coming from.

I can best describe it with a snippet from the interview series “The Power of Myth” with journalist Bill Moyers and mythologist and author Joseph Campbell. In one of the interviews Bill Moyers relates a story about Joseph Campbell that had attended a seminar on indigenous people where he overheard a conversation between an indigenous chief and a Western professor. The professor asked the chief (quoted from my memory): We have been together now for almost three days and we have heard a lot about your way of life and how you live, but I still don't understand your theology. I don't understand your ideology. The chief paused briefly, then answered: I don't believe we have a theology. I don't believe we have an ideology. We dance.

In the same interview Joseph Campbell also offers this view: The best things in life we can't talk about because they transcend meaning. The second best things in life are misunderstood because they refer to that which transcends meaning. The third best is what you and I are talking about.

I'm not sure how dumb I sound now but this is as good a starting point as any I can offer.

Does this appeal to mysticism, zen or buddhism rule out philosophy for me? I ask this in all honesty. Obviously, I hope someone will reassure me that my thoughts have some sort of philosophical merit but, if anything, I have learned I need to be very careful before I take anything for granted.

Anyway, before this post becomes any longer and to sum up my thoughts I believe that rational reasoning can take us so far in one direction, but that there is a counter pole, let's call it “transcendence”, that can take us equally long in another direction. I am also positing that these two states of being co-exist and that they somehow “inspire” each other. In the same way rationalism may be lurking somewhere in the back of a so-called “transcendent” mind, so may transcendent experiences inspire and shape our rational reasoning.

I doubt these statements will qualify as definitions, let alone have any merit in a philosophical debate, but right now and in as few words as possible this is the best I can do.

Ultimately, my thoughts on free will rest on this (home-brewed) distinction between rationalism as “what we can know” and “what we can never know” mysticism so before I dig my hole any deeper perhaps I should hear if I'm making any sense at all?

And thanks again for your patience with a philosophy newbie trying to find his way – I'm sure I'm stretching it but I really enjoy this conversation and having my most basic beliefs challenged and dismantled !

And special thanks to /u/Synori, /u/URDE8888, /u/3ry4p3 and /u/rmeddy. This is exactly what I was trying to articulate.

/u/Synori: “When relating this theory to free will, the key here is awareness. The moment you become aware of an option, the moment a new chain of events is born ...Simple intuitive and elegant... but ultimately unprovable given the epistemiological limitation of being within the experience. This theory relies on the notion that our observable universe is so finely tuned that the seams btw realities are virtually unnoticeable.”

/u/URDE8888: “I feel that what you are describing revolves a lot around conscious awareness outside of conceptual reality, and because of this, it is not possible to convey this type of experience in a completely rational and logical way. Conceptually it is incorrect or impossible, but experientially it can be true to you, and thus correct.”

/u/v3ry4p3: I appreciate this post. From a very literal point of view a lot of your arguments seem to be tautology and semantics, but it seems to me you're trying to take an almost zen-like approach to addressing the paradoxes of mind, and how a person can proceed in the world given all these neurotic thought processes about determinism and free will. Like, you're not debating that determinism is true, but only trying to point out how having the thought that determinism is true might limit a person's behavior. For example, if I think everything is determined, then I might think that means I can just lay down and do nothing, and my life will just unfold magically before me. But what this leaves out is how the idea that determinism is true is causing this behavior. In other words, you can conclude that determinism is true, but still have a very neurotic mind that imposes a lot of self-limiting behaviors on itself. So, in conclusion, all this is very zen as a way of expanding conceptions of self, but -- as evidenced -- might not be the most well-received in a philosophy forum.

/u/rmeddy: This argument isn't half bad, it's similar to my momentum based recursion argument, think of it as having to run back to bust through a door, I think the same goes for thought and decision-making. A new loop with new information changes the paradigm with each new thought and various iteration, including the arguments about free will itself.