wilbjammin,
I am not going to answer all of your queries line by line, instead I will try to re-iterate my view form a different angle and try to tackle all the problems you posed. PS. Sweet new avatar you got there
A common definition of freewill is the ability to freely exercise one’s will. Where “will” is defined as the mental faculty by which one deliberately chooses or decides upon a course of action. Since the reason behind the choice or decision as well as their unimpeded execution are always determined such freewill does not exist.
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The human mind and the material world are two separate realities. With interaction happening between the two via the body. The mind interprets reality and responds accordingly. Each mind develops though experience; no two experiences are the same. So all minds are unique. Therefore people have a unique metaphorical reality within their minds. Yet the processes of the mind are not free from the laws of causality.
Consequently when we respond to an event our mind does not follow the same laws of causality as the event that caused it. The event is translated into the minds interpretation of reality. The response is determined according to the laws of causality within the mind. The mind then uses the body to translate its response back into the physical reality at which point physical causality continues.
The above said; even though the laws of causality bind us, our exact behavior would be incredibly hard or impossible to predict. In order to precisely determine all human action one would have to know the exact composition of the brain at birth as well as the precise growth pattern of inborn attributes; one would have to know all that has been experienced by the mind and determine how this experience is processed by the mind; one would have to be aware of past casual events in order to determine the events that will force input from the individual. Thus each individual’s actions are determined by an incredibly complex causal system. If one were to determine the outcome of events based on social interaction then one would need to know all information for each individual involved in the web of causality. Hence only an omnipotent mind would be able to predict exact human behavior. Though it is possible to roughly predict behavior if we are aware of enough factors. Our minds perform such tasks every day by predicting the actions of individuals we interact with.
I believe that the laws of causality bind all actions within the mind including imagination and creativity. These rather fascinating aspects of humanity are not all that mystical. Fundamentally creativity is an extension of our problem solving skills combined with our memory, communication skills and emotions. When one looks upon new ideas one will notice that they are a recycled or rehashed or modified existing concepts. The human mind holds no originality, but each mind is uniquely developed due to our one-of-a-kind perspective. Hence Van Gogh was caused to paint Starry Night. Due to the uniqueness of his experience the odds of some one else creating the exact same work of art are astronomical. Therefore I do not believe that creativity is outside causality.
Obviously the burden of proof rests with me and all I have is speculation at the moment. There is still much to learn.
One undetermined factor that often comes up is randomness. Even if random events could happen I do not see how they would give us freewill.
Some people prefer to define freewill as the ability to perform an undetermined or un-caused action. I would argue that such definition is better suited for the term “random action”. As such an even would not allow meditation within the mind. If our action is a random event then certainly we have no freedom in its occurrence, from there on the random event will fall into the web of causality and we end up no less determined then before.