My position: Irrespective of whether you believe that the Universe is deterministic or probabilistic, free will (meaningful choice) is incompatible with either world view.
I maintain an open mind at all times and pride myself on rational, logical argumentation.
We have the choice to control ourselves or let go of control. Control is something very difficult to learn and also something not normally noticed by many people.
If there are things in the past, that made you mentally ill and resentful, you still have the choice to learn to control youtself.
If there is something in your DNA making your character a certain way, you still have the choice to learn to control yourself.
This is the power of will. This is the difficulty of life.
Freedom of course is another question and very subjective for everyone.
Remember that science as well as philosophies are just systems made by people to perceive the actual world as best as they can.
We have the capacity to make the choices that influence our lives, to choose our beliefs, eating habits, relationships and bigger things such as when to marry and whether to respect what other people believe. Yes society and the people around us may not accept our choices or what we do with our free will, but that doesn’t change the fact that we still have the right to choose and therefore I say yes, despite societies norms and influences we still have free will
You have the right answer but you got there in the wrong way based on the question being asked. The answer is yes, free will exists, but it does not matter because the universe is still deterministic as far as we can tell.
The issue is that the existence of free choice doesn’t change that the universe is deterministic. Assuming we can only travel forward in time at a constant pace, each event can only take place once. Therefore, once a choice is made, it becomes clear that it was the choice that was always going to be made. You can think of it as a cosmic game of billiards. Sure, you made this shot because it was obviously your best shot and you chose freely, but all of the factors leading there made it the obvious shot in the first place and we are back to determinism.
