The concept of "choice" contradicts determinism and causality

I was a little wary when you said this would be your first, but you have presented a solid response, so I'm looking forward to this even more now. I agree that causality is deceptive in its seeming simplicity, which is part of why I think it gets passed over so cursorily in school, but that it is actually a hotbed of contention when it comes to closer examinations of our reality. For instance, a current experiment (1) is about to demonstrate super-positioning by making a glass bead exist in two places at once, pissing squarely in the face of both principals Locality and Identity which, in addition to Causality, are the foundations of epistemology; the tree of knowledge. Along with experiments on entanglement, tunneling and many other phenomena, it seems possible that it makes no sense to describe parts of this existence as being "here" or "there; this" or "that. " It is possibly fruitless to try to deconstruct into logic a thing which is dynamically interconnected and cannot be sundered. I suspect we will never know; that all we will ever have is beliefs about what reality is, and what our capacity is within it. However, I think that my theory about "choice" is applicable to all imaginable realities. The only reason I somewhat restricted this debate to a causal and deterministic universe is that such a universe is intelligible and can be discussed. If what went up did not come down, so to speak, and effects were not qualitatively related to their causes (indeterministic), or if causes did not even consistently generate effects, and effects could self-generate (non-causal), then there could be no stable concepts for use in logical processes. Discussion would be impossible, or at least unproductive. Furthermore, I believe that in any universe other than a causal and deterministic one, "choice" is very obviously rendered an impossibility because of the awareness factor. Even if an observant being could come to exist in an indeterministic or non-causal reality, it could not be called intelligent or aware of anything that might result from its actions because the universe in which it existed would not even be intelligible. We could not say that creatures in such universes are making "choices" or that they are responsible for what they do because any effects they generate would either be random, or they would just fail to generate effects at all. As for a causal, deterministic universe, I hear what you're saying about ergodic systems having a compounding complicating effect, such that macro-systems can seem effectively random, even if they are not actually random. * I've encountered that argument enough times that I have named it the Appeal to Uncertainty. It is essentially the argument that humans have freedom in their actions because all actions cannot be predicted. But ignorance is no excuse from the law, either in court or in the universe at large. That we cannot know exactly what we are going to do does not mean that we are free to choose. Our ignorance is only a symptom of the Uncertainty Principal: we are part of the system we are trying to observe, and therefore cannot make perfect observations because we change the system by observing it. That does not mean the system itself is uncertain and that our thoughts are deciding between actual multiple possibilities. The multiple possibilities we perceive for each moment are only figments of our inexact imaginations. But causality and determinism mean there is exactly one possibility per moment: the one that results deterministically from the previous Planck time, or whatever the shortest quanta of change ends up being. And the next Planck time will be determined exactly by this one, and on and on in either direction of time. You could only say there are multiple possibilities per moment in an indeterministic and/or non-causal universe, but in which case we observers would have no control over the results of our actions because the results would be random. To my logic, in order for a human to have the capacity for choice, we would have to be an entropically isolated system with one-way interactivity with the rest of nature, which is oxymoronic. We would have to be able to affect it, without it affecting us, which would mean generating causes within ourselves and then weaving them into the causal fabric of existence. It would mean being able to observe and then have thoughts about our observations that originated in our self; un-caused, rather than with the observation itself. But all human thought originates in observation. I have often challenged people to describe some thought that you could have while being deprived of all sensory input, or memory thereof. It can't be done. You can't even think about your own existence unless there is something to distinguish it from non-existence. There is no such thing as a priori thought, and there is no such thing as an isolated system within the rest of nature. Observation creates thought, which directs action, which feeds observation, which creates thought. .. .etc. Nowhere is the causal chain broken. Nowhere can a human say 'hold on a minute, I'd rather think this, or observe this, or do this. We do and think as we are compelled. It is only our ignorance of the mechanisms of our compulsions that allows us to believe that the causes of our actions started with what we call "us. " And ironically, it's our intelligence that re-enforces this view. By coming to know our vessel to the depth we are able, we can predict many of its repetitive behaviors, like being able to predict a familiar actor's catch phrases and quirks. We are such successful imitators that we are convinced we are the actors; the causors. We may find some day that it took a very specific balance of ignorance and intelligence to create a creature that believes it is a Prime Mover, and laugh at ourselves for our foolishness. Then again, we probably wouldn't find the truth all that amusing in comparison, so we might resist that conclusion as we have for thousands of years. Whatever we do, I suspect it couldn't have happened any other way, and I wont be holding myself responsible : -). *You mention that in reality we do have genuinely random events, but I want to clarify that these are only theoretical right now. We have no examples of randomness that have been demonstrated empirically. Quantum computers are just beginning to be operational for minor calculations; quantum cryptography has not been tested in practice. There are also various theories about randomizing events in supernovae and black holes, but those also have not been tested, and they are not thought to be truly random events because that would contradict the Principal of Conservation of Information, which is thought to be inviolable. If we had actual demonstrable examples of randomness, cryptographers and casinos would be using them and we would have unbreakable codes and un-cheat-able games. 1. . http://www.newscientist.com...