Free choice
Recently, I saw on the Elya forum an argument against free choice that seems to be a very strong argument. I am copying it here and would love to hear what the Rabbi thinks about this argument.
The third law is avoided.
The term "free will" refers to the possibility of choosing between several alternatives. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume two. When a choice needs to be made between them, it can be done deterministically, according to a fixed algorithm, similar to a flowchart common to programmers, and it can be done randomly by rolling a die, or by using its quantum equivalent – a radioactive atom and a Geiger counter. Trying to find another option besides these two quickly brings us to the same conclusion that Avigdor Kahalani reached when the ballots were counted: there is no third way. When someone claims that in addition to these two options, one can also choose "freely", and we press him to explain how such a choice is made, it always ends up with him bringing another factor into play: his desire, or his will, or his soul – factors "free" from any physical limitation, which are supposed, somehow, to answer our request. "I freely chose according to what I felt like, what my will commanded me," he will say.
But after a second of thought, it becomes clear that Mr. Ratzon, the new agent called to the flag, also has to make the same mysterious "free" choice from one list or another, and we haven't solved anything. After all, "free will" itself also has to decide in some way what it wants or what it deems appropriate, and it too is faced with a list and the same problem from which we started. The lists, by the way, don't have to be the same: "I" can be faced with a list that includes the two items "eat the bar of chocolate in front of me" or "don't eat the bar," and my will instructs me according to the choice he made from another list: "diet is good" and "chocolate is delicious." The lists are different, but the problem is the same, and hence these agents solve nothing; they only roll the problem to another level, as in "he who wants to confuse, let his testimony be removed." Even in the world of souls free from any physical constraint, in a world with laws that are unfamiliar to us or in a world without laws at all, it is impossible for the agent we have chosen to evade the need to choose. Apart from calling another agent and rolling this hot potato into his hands, I have not come across any satisfactory explanation for the question: How, in the end, do we choose freely?
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