choice

Hello Rabbi Michael, I heard your lesson ‘Free Will and Choice’ on YouTube and a question came to my mind.

You explained that one of the differences between the deterministic view and the libertarian view is that according to determinism, reality dictates a person’s actions, while in the libertarian view, reality influences a person but he navigates his life.
And another explanation you gave: in the deterministic view, man is the collection of influences upon him, and in the libertarian view, man operates within the influences.

The question is where is the choice in the libertarian view, after all, a person is guided by a collection of influences, and the path he chooses is the path that the strongest influence took him to.
In the parable you brought about topography, there are influences that are the hills and the ravines and there is the person who decides, and my question is that it is clear with certainty that he will decide what is easier, and if he chooses the harder one, it is because of other, stronger internal or external influences (for example, the desire to prove himself) that forced him to take the difficult path.
Therefore, a certain influence does not dictate but rather influences, but the collection of influences together dictates what the choice will be, and calculating all the data will make it possible to accurately predict what the person will do.

With thanks