What ever I do is caused, but I get to choose between possible caused actions .My choice is free insofar as it is governed by me and my willingness to impose my will as I see fit. From direct experience I know that I am able to choose to do things based on reason/knowledge ( the bedrock of freedom) that I may not be naturally inclined to do.
You should consider the retort that your “choice,” too, is “caused.”
What does it mean for something to be “governed by” you, if you are the product of a causal chain? Your willingness may, of course, only be a seemingly free willingness. You’ve done nothing to refute determinism with such a claim. Unless, of course, you only mean to explain the concept of free will, and not provide a sound argument for its validity.
I don’t want my choices to be free from my will, I want them to be caused by me and I want to take full responsibility for them…but I am able to randomise my choices (ie, free them utterly from determinism).
I am obviously caused by something outside of me, but my actions belong to me, and if I use reason and knowledge I am able to free myself from impulses.
Random =/= Free
Whatever choice you might make to attempt to free yourself from causality was itself caused. You can’t just up and decide to be immune from the universe. You can’t just wake up one morning and decide that physics doesn’t apply to you any more. Reason and knowledge ARE impulses, just ones that we don’t tend to recognize as such.
As without-music pointed out, it’s going to take quite a bit more to refute determinism.
So if we act spontaneously we are not free, but if we stifle our instinctive response and mull something over - reason - we can then be free? This doesn’t seem correct to me. Are we only sometimes free?
Maybe all actions have an infinite number of compounding causes, thus the result is effectively indeterminate…infinitely complex…thus free-will 
Or maybe one can think of the infinite stream of causes as one infinite-stream-of causes back in time, that a whole has no cause itself, simply is, and thus any action is a result of will.
Or what of the fact of the loop of interaction. While the universe may cause us to act…we act on the universe and cause change in it…that causes change in us, that then relates to change in it through us… a sort of infinite loop…or something
If the last case is reasonable then one would further perhaps need to ask, what was the cause…the first cause (a chicken or the egg sort of thing) was it the environment that caused us or was there some first thought or free will that caused the universe…be that us or some other being or entity…
First off, the concept of free will is one of the most contentious concepts in philosophy. It’s been so for millenia and I really don’t think any one here is going to come up with the magic wand needed to change that. That said, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, does it?
Determinism says there can be no free-will because everything we do is the result of what we’ve done before and we can’t change the past–therefore, free-will isn’t compatible with determinism. Does determinism then mean ‘inevitable?’ Dennett says "“inevitable means unavoidable.” Dennett believes that all creatures are masters of avoidance and that avoidance is innate (what so many of you call ‘hardwired.’) If fear is the basic emotion, then doesn’t avoidance arise from fear? Avoid that which causes you fear.
How you avoid that which causes you fear can then become a moral issue–and, to me, that’s what free will is about.
“you” is caused, too. just another link in the chain. you don’t exist behind the scenes, so to speak, away from all of the universe, directing how things unfold in this side of things. volcanoes, ground shattering and canyons shaping earthquakes, land swallowing waves, supernovas, fucking entire galaxies vanishing into nothingness, but apparently the universe needs your permission before unfolding.
Still, it’s a useful fiction.
What about the word “entropy”? This implies a disorder (or lack of order) of some kind. But can we define “order”? No matter what our definition is, we assume there is such a thing. A “law of entropy” is an oxymoron of sorts, because a law implies order and “entropy” implies disorder. It is useful in certain contexts, but not in determining whether or not free will exists. I take a compatibilist view of free will. I think there is order when we define something to be orderly, and there is disorder when we we define something to be disorderly. I think this is what reality is based on: free will.
I thought I’d already covered that? Everything I do is caused but I get to decide which caused action I take. I have freedom of action bounded by real world restrictions , but that freedom, though restricted, has infinite possible outcomes (kind of like chess has restrictions but there are infinite possible set ups…no one can force you to make a particular move).
Real freedom is where the self consciously controls itself…self control.Impulsive actions are not free because they ignore conscious control…they are slaves to the impulse.
If we know that everything is a matter of determinism, and can see how we are effected would such not create a paradox when we acted? or a sort of loop…might that be how “free-will” works?
Consciousness can free itself from that which surrounds it…we can do something totally unpredictable, whereas nature around us is predictable .
I think free will works because the world around us doesn’t actually cause us, the world is a dream with rules.
I don’t know about that today’s social engineers are pretty good at predicting what people will do… But then I think also that what is “predictable” is a matter of perception in the first place. Whether something is predictable or not depends on the capacity for for-sight or perhaps mindfulness of the person. so technically given a ridiculously intellectual being it is reasonable that we might be quite predictable…
Determinism is the ultimate excuse for all behaviour and is therefore the ultimate expression of fear. Only brave people believe they are utterly free to seriously fuck up.
Perhaps it is a dream that is limited because others are participating in the dream: in other words I can’t changing reality because everyone else believes it is something specific…
Abstract,
We can predict generalities about human actions, what the mass might do next, or what a well studied individual might do next, but if you tell me that you can predict what I’m about to do , I know I can prove you wrong.
If the universe is a conscious construct (rather that a material one) then we are central to its unfolding.
It seems to me that determinists are people seeking an excuse for their behaviour.