Why is the Rabbi calling it an assumption? Is the fact that a person does not know what is happening in his brain an assumption? It is a fact.

“Why don’t you demand that, in order to say that a person does not choose freely, we must know the entire causal chain that led to his decision?”
Of course I would demand that from anyone who comes and claims that there is no free choice.

As far as I’m concerned, it is obvious that nowadays, a person who thinks seriously about the matter should reach the same conclusion: that it is far more reasonable that there is no free choice, because things in general have causes, and there is no serious reason to exclude choice from the rule.

My question is what makes the Rabbi think the opposite, that is, the opposite of what is obvious to common sense. Apparently there is something in this obvious point that I do not know, so the Rabbi should reveal it. It is even more difficult since elsewhere the Rabbi rejects divine intervention in nature—why is God not allowed to violate the laws of nature, but a human being is allowed to?

I could not understand the connection to the political-social-legal libertarian view in which a person can do whatever he feels like. My questions are about the physical-factual-scientific causes that brought about whatever he feels like.

In short, Peshita, instead of babbling on, do yourself a favor and read “The Science of Freedom.” At least the article that summarizes it, which is on the site.

No. The assumption is that for a person to be a libertarian he has to know all the mental processes that occur within him. That is absurd, of course. And I already noted that for the other side, for some reason, you do not demand this. And the ridiculous psychological reduction you make regarding theologians is just baseless speculation devoid of sense. But apparently you are allowed to make unsupported speculations.
What makes me think this is a direct awareness that I have free choice. And that is much clearer and stronger than anything else I see or experience. There is no need for any additional reason. The burden of proof is on whoever thinks this experience is an illusion. Just as the burden of proof would be on someone who says that my vision is an illusion and does not reflect the world.
I was not dealing with political-social approaches. Libertarianism in this discussion is the view that a person has free will.
If you want to understand my position better, you can read the article here on the site or in my book “The Science of Freedom.” There I explained the matter at length.

So the Rabbi is taking proof from feeling: “Since I feel this way, that is how reality is.” But no one disputes that—everyone feels that he has free choice. There are no differences here between human beings; determinists and non-determinists, skeptics and believers all feel the same feelings.

But this is not philosophical thought; it is a feeling.

(A person suddenly feels like eating a certain food, without knowing why. Would the Rabbi claim that this desire occurred just like that, without a physical cause in reality? A free desire?)

Philosophical thought only reinforces this feeling: “Of course you feel that way; you could not possibly feel otherwise; you could not have felt otherwise; this feeling that you are free is forced upon you. Why? Because you do not know, are not aware of, and do not feel the processes that led you to choose what you choose.”
But that same thought also says that reality is not decided by this or that feeling, but by findings and facts. And as far as we know, in our world, things have causes, and that includes the things a person experiences and feels—things have causes. And there is no serious philosophical argument showing that there is something special and different about the feeling of choice compared to other processes. Only the ego, which one must beware of, because it wants to feel free and exalted, and therefore one must investigate and examine every claim that favors the ego. That is the common-sense view.

Approaches and positions do not interest me all that much; that is less interesting. Reality is not affected by what this or that person thought over the course of history. I only asked why the Rabbi does not follow common sense on this matter.

The ridiculous psychological reduction that I make regarding theologians is very well grounded. Because only that explains why theologians cry out every time human dignity is put to the test. The truth does not interest them—only their honor. Truth is in the service of the ego. For example, the theologian cries out when someone comes and claims that his forefathers were some kind of ape. The theologian prefers to think that he is the handiwork of God. The truth does not interest him—only honor and ego. The theologian is a ridiculous creature who uses reason in the service of honor.

Who spoke about feeling?! I know that I have free will exactly as I see the wall in front of me. This is awareness (= intuition), not feeling (emotion). I am definitely following common sense here. Determinism is a baseless and bizarre position in my view, on the intellectual plane, with no connection to religiosity, feelings, or psychologies.
I do not see any point in addressing the rest of the ridiculous arguments that you keep repeating regarding theologians. Repeating the same thing over and over does not make it true.
It seems to me that we have exhausted the matter.

Any mental process that is not a process of thought is, for this purpose, a feeling. And it does not matter whether you call it awareness, intuition, or any other mental process. The fact that you see that you are standing in front of a wall does not stem from reason but from visual processes, which are a kind of feeling in every sense of the term, just with a great deal of information, and so we do not call it a feeling.

I would believe you that this is common sense if you knew nothing at all about the world and knew only your inner sensations. But since you do know things about the world, then you know that things have causes. Therefore your belief in your free choice runs contrary to common sense. Apparently, regarding free choice, you consciously choose to ignore the fact, obvious to all, that things have causes, and then you are left only with feeling.

The matter is not connected to determinism at all, but to the question of what is probable. If the Rabbi were to reveal a reason why it is more reasonable to think that there is free choice, I would immediately change my mind and think that there is free choice. But you have revealed nothing of the sort. The feeling you described is known and familiar and there is nothing unique about it, and as we have seen it has no weight at all in the factual argument, because one had to feel it that way. The only remaining reason is to save human dignity.

In general it is also unclear why the Rabbi uses all kinds of concepts from foreign fields to describe human freedom. When God says to man, “Of every tree of the garden you may surely eat,” He grants him complete freedom—what more is required than that? The libertarians did not invent freedom.

Causality does not negate freedom of choice. When a person stands before two options, each of the options has a cause, and the person chooses which cause to go with.

Daniel, you are mistaken. A cause is a sufficient condition for its effect. And the principle of causality states that everything has a cause.

Rabbi, may he live long, he means the principle of sufficient reason.

If so, then that is obvious. What is the novelty here?

There is none, but in my opinion that is the deeper plain meaning of what Daniel said. And Ockham’s words are well known. And likewise among halakhic decisors, that it is better to bend the wording rather than the reasoning.

Daniel ignores the act of choosing itself. What is the cause that led the person to choose one of the two options?

And it is not only that. The story begins long before the final decision-making process, in the process by which a person decides how many options he has. Both the initial filtering of the options and the final decision have a cause.

(It may be that a person thinks that because he engages in give-and-take reasoning in order to reach the final decision, and because the intellect is not subject to any external coercion, the decision is therefore free. But that is simply a misunderstanding of the concept of free choice, which includes freedom from any coercion whatsoever, including intellectual constraints.)

You’re such a blabbermouth. Go read the book.

Shir, you can also give the reading recommendation without the superlatives, and preferably with the name of the book: “The Science of Freedom.”