I sent that by accident, I didn't finish. But I think I got the point across thankfully. Have I made a mistake in my thinking somewhere? Please let me know.

Well part of the problem is that Free Will is purported to explain animal decision making only (not simple physical systems), thus terms like "non-deterministic world" implies that somehow nothing causes anything.

As to what a Free Will world looks like, it looks like our world. Remember it is Determinism that tells us that what we perceive as decision making every single day is, in fact an illusion and that in reality "decisions" are not the product of pondering, rather are determined by the physical and electrical state of the brain before the supposed "decision" is made.

So do you say we do have free will, or that free will does exist in our world? What do you mean when you say free will? Because you say a free will world looks like ours, but also seem to imply that decision is an illusion.

Determinists state that decisions are an illusion (in favor of antecedent brain states instead). I happen to believe that while brain states can and do INFLUENCE decision making, that there is another factor beyond brain states that participate in TRUE decision making (just as we internally perceive every day). You can label this factor Free Will, or pondering or thinking or true decision making. It doesn't matter what you call it.

Thus if you walk up to an ice cream cone counter and have to choose a flavor, Determinism says that your brain state will Determine which flavor you will "choose" though that choice is an illusion, you were always going to "choose" vanilla because you were in a vanilla brain state when you walked up. All of the pondering you perceive in your thoughts did not determine vanilla, it was just window dressing before the Determined conclusion of vanilla was voiced.

I believe that the pondering we all perceive in our minds in fact do play a role (perhaps a smaller role than we assume) in the final outcome, such that if we had a different internal conversation on the various pros and cons of vanilla, we may have chosen chocolate, even with the identical antecedent brain state.

If it's generally believed that free will can't exist in a deterministic world — Jerry

Some define free will that way, as simply a choice not being determined exactly by prior physical state. The alternative is randomness, producing non-deterministic outcomes.
Anything that makes decisions seems to have evolved methods for doing so that eliminate randomness from the process as much as possible, so determinism seems to be your friend here.

If you want that sort of free will, all you need to have free will is to choose a quantum interpretation that isn't deterministic (and also allows the concept of identity). Poof! You have a valid non-deterministic description of the world which cannot be falsified.

But more people define free will as making choices that are not a function of physical state at all, not even random outcomes. It is unclear why this would be a desirable thing. I can think of examples where this would result in horrible decisions and almost immediate elimination from the gene pool.

There are other definitions: To do what one wants: I want out of this jail cell, but can't do it. I lack the necessary free will.
The non-superdeterminism definition (this is the one physics talks about when performing quantum experiments), which says there are monsters all around you but your choices of where to look and what to measure always makes you look away from them. You are prevented from gleaning the true nature of reality by these continuous superdeterministic choices being made for you.

Well part of the problem is that Free Will is purported to explain animal decision making only (not simple physical systems), thus terms like "non-deterministic world" implies that somehow nothing causes anything. — LuckyR

Don't see how that follows, so perhaps not understanding. Wind causes a leaf to flutter. How does this broader anthropomorphism in any way imply otherwise?

Remember it is Determinism that tells us that what we perceive as decision making every single day is, in fact an illusion and that in reality "decisions" are not the product of pondering, rather are determined by the physical and electrical state of the brain before the supposed "decision" is made.

This makes it sound like 'pondering' and 'physical and electrical state of the brain' are necessarily mutually exclusive, sort of like 'computing' and 'transistor switching' are similarly exclusive, instead of one consisting of the other.

Free will in a deterministic world would not be free will as it is conceived in the libertarian sense. It would simply consist in a lack of constraints preventing you from acting according to your antecedently determined nature.

Let me highlight one of the questions I had asked initially: What would a non-determinant world look like? I could theoretically imagine a world where there aren't any regulatory rules that govern how things behave, but such a world would seem to be chaos. To me, it feels like the logical principle of explosion; if a single rule can be broken, anything is possible. So a world—at least a reasonable one—must have such unbreakable, unchanging rules. But then, does that inherently imply determinism? Or can there still be an indeterminant world with unbreakable, unchanging rules?

Sorry for not responding to anyone in particular or addressing specific points, but I think my comment is relevant to each of your responses in some way.

What would a non-determinant world look like? — Jerry

It would look just like the one you see.
Pretty much any QM interpretation with wave function collapse is non-deterministic.
The only popular deterministic ones are Bohmian and MWI.

There are still very much rules and regulations and causality, but not 'always'. For instance, the decay of some radioactive isotope is not caused in a non-deterministic interpretation. It would be a true random event. That doesn't mean that causality is gone and it won't hurt if you drop a rock on your foot.

Free will seems to have little to do with this debate. Indeterminism opens the door to some definitions of free will, but it does not grant it. Randomness is not free will, it is chaos, which is why we're evolved to avoid it in making most decisions unless the point of the decision is to be unpredictable.

I listed at least 4 definitions of free will and you didn't really indicate which (if any) of those you are talking about. There are other definitions, but I've never found one that turns out to be something you'd probably want to have, except the ability to get out of that jail cell. That one (essentially someone with infinite wishes to be granted) would be useful, at least to a single individual, but not to everybody in a society.

I'll be 100% honest, and maybe it's just because I'm quite tired, but I'm having difficulty extracting the meaning of the definitions you gave in your first post. I think I understand something though: "But more people define free will as making choices that are not a function of physical state at all". I would disagree with this, because I am arguing that the free will I'm talking about—which is generally the ability to "do different", make choices that can alter your future—is dependent on prior physical state, as there has to be some input from the external world that may trigger an internal thought or decision.

I guess my argument is that, whether it's a deterministic or indeterministic process, free will (the ability to choose a path from multiple outcomes) is possible despite the external macro world (i.e. not the quantum realm in which things seem indeterministic) being deterministic. And this is not saying that the freedom to choose is because or related to the indeterminacy in quantum systems. So to be clear, these examples of indeterminacy you're bringing up in terms of quantum phenomena I am not considering completely relevant, but do illuminate an example of possible indeterminant systems.

Let me ask you directly: given that the macro-scale universe is causally determined, do you think it's possible to still have the ability to choose different paths (free will)? Is the quantum phenomena involved in your assessment?

This makes it sound like 'pondering' and 'physical and electrical state of the brain' are necessarily mutually exclusive, sort of like 'computing' and 'transistor switching' are similarly exclusive, instead of one consisting of the other.

Just to be clear, the ANTECEDENT brain state is what I describe as the physical and electrical state of the brain. While pondering occurs (obviously) DURING decision making (assuming there is, in fact decision making). Thus they are different entities, but are not mutually exclusive.

Long story short, in Determinism antecedent state X always leads to resultant answer Y, never Z. In Free Will antecedent state X can lead to resultant answer Y or Z depending on the decision making process which occurred.

It seems to me that what we tend to mean by free will is not that our actions are not determined (random), but rather that, free from external determination to at least some degree, I determine my actions. And importantly, this determination is made consciously. This seems to require that antecedent physical causes (or perhaps any causes) do not fully determine which choices I will make. And at the same time, my actions are not random. They are not non-determined (sorry for the double-negative!). I determine them. So in some sense, it seems, the physical causal chain must be broken right "behind" me. It almost seems to require that I am something extra-physical that injects itself into the causal chain. And I must be to some extent causa sui. It also seems to require that I am in some sense an individual that is somewhat independent of the world.

If there are only chains of causes, where what we call people at a given moment are just links in that causal chain that precedes them, it seems that there are no true agents or individual selves in any real sense at all. It then isn't I who cause my actions, but whatever causes external to me that determined my state just prior to my "acting".

Consider some hypothetical world, a world I would call deterministic because it follows these principles: it obeys certain laws/rules/regularities, such that an outcome follows directly from previous states, these laws/rules/regulations do not change and that they are unbreakable. This is like our universe, governed by regularity, but what I'd like to ask is to consider an alternative foundation—that is, instead of a world where the bedrock objects are (for example) elementary particles which follow forces described by the laws of physics, consider that the bedrock objects are agents, and the laws that govern them describe how these agents make choices. — Jerry

What are these agents? What does it mean to be an agent? What is agency? This world that is an unbroken causal chain, of which these "agents" are just a part, with the causes just flowing through them, seems to me just a matter of using different words to describe what others would describe as a causally-closed physical world without any real agents.

A puppet seems to be acting. We get the sense of an agent when the illusion works. But because the actions are being determined from the outside, because the puppet isn't free, isn't self-determined to some extent, it is a mistake to regard it as a real agent. If everything I do is determined by causes I had nothing to do with, that existed prior to me, then I am really powerless. I am like the puppet. And I am neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy. There is really only the larger flow of energy, the great chain of causation, the universe itself unfolding as it must. My own 'I' too, as a separate self, is then just an illusion.

I think it is interesting how it seems to be necessary to consider consciousness when thinking about free will. It is hard to see how you could freely choose your actions while not at all conscious. Furthermore, if all of our actions are determined by low-level physical causes prior to our consciousness, it is hard to see how we could be anything but epiphenomenally conscious. And in that case, all of our behavioral references to consciousness in our thought and behavior could not in fact have anything to do with any real consciousness that we might have. When we talk about being conscious then, we are talking nonsense. How would we even know if we are epiphenomenally conscious? How could any phenomenal event cause a brain state to contain information about it if it is causally inefficacious?

I am tempted to think that if we are to believe that we are not talking nonsense when we talk about our consciousness, and that we are not mistaken in our belief that we are conscious, we must then also have something that suspiciously resembles a condition for free will. If there is a real center of agency, it is that which is conscious. Or it is the consciousness itself. And it must be able somehow to consciously determine behavior to at least some small degree in a way that isn't fully accounted for by prior non-conscious physical causes. This consciousness must be partly the cause of the behavior.

I cannot conceive of how this could work, but then again I am completely baffled by most basic things like time, space, materiality at all, existence at all, and so on. My inability to conceive of how it could work or how it could be is no argument against it being the case. I am, after all, a dumb primate. Nevertheless, it at least seems clear to me that I am conscious and that if this isn't nonsense, the experiential aspect of me must also, in its very experientiality, be somehow able to inject some evidence of its existence into the shape of my brain states and behavior if I am to be able to think and talk about it. My consciousness must be a cause in itself, not fully determined by non-conscious antecedent physical causes, that acts in the world.

Perhaps we could define free will more simply as conscious causation.

I've long felt that I can rationally disprove free will rather easily. And I find it extremely difficult if not impossible to rationally justify a belief in free will. But the sense that I am freely determining my actions is so strong that it leads me to be skeptical of my ability to think about it properly. It makes me doubt that I can decide what is the case simply by seeing what rational arguments I can come up with for or against. All my musings then I must take with a grain of salt and a healthy dose of epistemic humility.

You are trying to build a system that includes freedom. This is contradictory. Why do you want to introduce freedom in a system? We introduce elements in a system if they are needed to explain something. What does freedom explain in a system? Nothing. It's like wanting to imagine the existence of a new planet in an astronomical system where everything is already explained. Why do you want to introduce another unneeded planet? Moreover, if you find an answer to this "why?", then you have found the cause of freedom, but, if freedom has a cause, it is not freedom.
In other words, freedom must be, by definition, impossible to explain, otherwise it is not freedom. If it is impossible to explain, then you cannot make it part of a system.
That's why it is nonsense to discuss about freedom in any philosophy that wants to be a system, a systematic philosophy.
Freedom is a psichological, emotional, human need, so it is good for non systematic philosophies, like nihilism, or postmodernism. In systematic philosophies it just creates contradictions.

In other words, freedom must be, by definition, impossible to explain, otherwise it is not freedom. — Angelo Cannata

This seems to suggest that the notion of freedom depends on ignorance.

Our brains model the world in ways we are largely ignorant of, and therefore our brains' modeling of the world allows us the ignorance to simplistically see our modelling of the world as causal. Furthermore, it isn't unreasonable for us to recognize that our brains' (weakly) emergent modelling of the world does, for practical purposes, play a causal role in our behavior, in light of our inability to be conscious of the complex underlying physical causality.

I am arguing that the free will I'm talking about—which is generally the ability to "do different", make choices that can alter your future—is dependent on prior physical state, as there has to be some input from the external world that may trigger an internal thought or decision. — Jerry

I'm trying to take this apart. To 'do different' seems to simply mean that a choice is present. My typical example is crossing the street. One can go now, or 'do different' and wait for a gap in the traffic. Watching the traffic is the significant portion of the external input of which you speak.
Now the bit about 'alter your future' needs clarification. The future of a given moment is very much a function of your choices today. Choose to cross now, and the future is you in hospital. Choose wait and the future is you on the other side of the road. That makes it a function of your choice, but it doesn't make it an alteration of anything since from the standpoint of where the choice is made, there is not yet a future state in need of alteration.

free will (the ability to choose a path from multiple outcomes) is possible despite the external macro world (i.e. not the quantum realm in which things seem indeterministic) being deterministic

I don't see where free will comes into play here, vs doing the exact same thing without it. That's the part I'm trying to nail down. Having choice and having free will are not the same thing, but you seem to define it as simply having choice. Of course we have choice, else we'd not have evolved better brains to make better choices.
I do agree that classical (non-quantum) physics is deterministic, and our decisions seem to be made via classical processes using deterministic mechanisms. I see for instance no devices in biology whose purpose seems to be to leverage non-deterministic processes, despite the ease of evolving such mechanisms were they to be beneficial to fitness.
Looking at QM is just an excuse to point out that 'the future' is not set. Single random uncaused quantum events can be (and are) responsible for hurricanes and such, as well as your very existence, but none of those things were chosen.

Let me ask you directly: given that the macro-scale universe is causally determined

Well, it would be if physics was classical, but it isn't, so I cannot agree with a statement that macro-scale things are determined. They're just not. The existence of our solar system is a chance occurrence and would very likely not happen from an identical state of the local universe 10 billion years ago.

But again, this is off topic. Such things have nothing to do with free will or the lack of it, at least by most definitions of free will.

do you think it's possible to still have the ability to choose different paths (free will)?

1) Yes, it is not only possible, but critical to be able to select from choices. As I said above, we'd not have evolved brains to make better choices if this were not so. If that is your definition of free will, then we have it, deterministic physics or not. It is kind of a Libertarian definition.

Is the quantum phenomena involved in your assessment?

Irrelevant, and thus no, at least given that definition.

Just to be clear, the ANTECEDENT brain state is what I describe as the physical and electrical state of the brain. While pondering occurs (obviously) DURING decision making (assuming there is, in fact decision making). Thus they are different entities, but are not mutually exclusive. — LuckyR

But the subsequent 'pondering' is also describable as physical and electrical state of the brain. They're just a little bit later. This is of course presuming that 'pondering' is a function of the brain, which plenty of people deny.

Long story shory, in Determinism antecedent state X always leads to resultant answer Y, never Z.

Given said determinism, agree. It doesn't mean that decision making is not going on, that choices are not being made. That would be fate, something different than determinism.

In Free Will antecedent state X can lead to resultant answer Y or Z depending on the decision making process which occurred.

There you go. That definition says that there can be no free will given deterministic physics, and it even goes so far as to imply that truly random acts are the only example of free will.

It seems to me that what we tend to mean by free will is not that our actions are not determined (random), but rather that, free from external determination to at least some degree, I determine my actions. — petrichor

This I guess depends heavily on how you define 'I'. If animals are self-contained and make their own choices, but humans are special and have a supernatural 'mind' or 'soul' or however you frame it, then the animal is free willed, but the human body is possessed by this supernatural entity. The body becomes an un-free avatar to the possessing entity, which refers to itself as 'I', and thus 'I' (the supernatural thing) is doing the choosing, and yes, it is free. The avatar on the other hand is not free since it is reduced to puppetry. I see no reason why a free creature would yield its fate to an external agent like that, or how the two would find each other.

That's my take on dualism anyway. Not sure if that's what you're talking about by 'external determination', but I see no other way to interpret that.

And importantly, this determination is made consciously.

As opposed to what, choices made in your sleep? In the end, almost all decisions are made subconsciously since that is the portion in charge of actually making any decision. The conscious part seems to be an advisory role, and is often the originator of the significant choice eventually made. I say 'significant' for choices like where to plant the tree, and not more common choices like which key to press next on the piano, which requires decisions far faster than the conscious portion of mental process can handle.
Crossing the busy street is probably a conscious decision, but not always.

This seems to require that antecedent physical causes (or perhaps any causes) do not fully determine which choices I will make.

What it seems to require is a mechanism that amplifies the external (non-physical) input into something that makes a measurable physical difference. Has any such mechanism been found? I did a whole topic once on where evolution would take you if such a mechanism were available, and there was also available the external entity from which the signals could be received.

Why do you want to introduce freedom in a system? — Angelo Cannata

:up:

The problem of determinism is that nothing else in the universe can be found to determine a person’s acts. If nothing else determines or wills a person’s acts, then given the evidence one has to conclude the person determines them. Even appeals to “antecedent states” point to the person in a sort of post hoc analysis. In my opinion the will is radically free.

Consider some hypothetical world, a world I would call deterministic because it follows these principles: it obeys certain laws/rules/regularities, such that an outcome follows directly from previous states, these laws/rules/regulations do not change and that they are unbreakable. — Jerry

Why do you all like to speak theoretically and hypothetically without any examples? Not a single example here. How can one relate all this with reality, the world, life and so on? How can one understand what do you actually have in mind? What is your frame of reference, the context in which you are referring to free will?

In short, what kind of "free will" do you have in mind?

It seems that you are talking about free will and determinism in (the context of) the physical world and the physical laws, as if stones, gravity, light ... any physical object, element, entity, force, etc. could have free will ...

Just to be clear, the ANTECEDENT brain state is what I describe as the physical and electrical state of the brain. While pondering occurs (obviously) DURING decision making (assuming there is, in fact decision making). Thus they are different entities, but are not mutually exclusive.
— LuckyR
But the subsequent 'pondering' is also describable as physical and electrical state of the brain. They're just a little bit later. This is of course presuming that 'pondering' is a function of the brain, which plenty of people deny.

Long story shory, in Determinism antecedent state X always leads to resultant answer Y, never Z.

Given said determinism, agree. It doesn't mean that decision making is not going on, that choices are not being made. That would be fate, something different than determinism.

In Free Will antecedent state X can lead to resultant answer Y or Z depending on the decision making process which occurred.

There you go. That definition says that there can be no free will given deterministic physics, and it even goes so far as to imply that truly random acts are the only example of free will.

To my understanding your comments make no sense.

Firstly, if antecedent state X ALWAYS leads to resultant state Y, there can't be decision making going on since there are no other choices to choose between, it's always going to be Y. Thus the Determinists are right (decision making is an illusion) in that scenario. "Fate" is just a layman's label for the result they notice without a theory (which Determinists have) as to why.

Second, I am at a loss how you got your bolded conclusion from what I posted (and you quoted). Perhaps you're not getting that in a Free Will universe, Deterministic physics doesn't fully account for animal decision making, that is in addition to physics, there's a process called... you guessed it... Free Will (randomness not required).

Firstly, if antecedent state X ALWAYS leads to resultant state Y, there can't be decision making going on since there are no other choices to choose between, it's always going to be Y. — LuckyR

That doesn't seem at all obvious to me. An agent who doesn't know what the future holds can still undergo a process of "decision making" even if that agent is fully deterministic and it will always make the same decision given the same starting state.

A deterministic chess program for example, which looks at a number of legal moves and decides which one it "likes" more based on some position-rating algorithm

What I'm getting at, is I believe you can create a formal system that, in its axioms, defines the "laws of choice" that act on its fundamental objects, agents. These laws would of course be unchanging, unbreakable, and, in some sense, determine the proceedings of phenomena in this world. If this is indeed a possible world, what I have described is a deterministic world with the concept of free will embedded in the system, at the axiomatic level. — Jerry

I can imagine a world where there was an event yet nothing preceded it, ie, a deterministic world of free will. I can imagine a world where elephants were orange, could run at 100 km/hour and every afternoon would stop for a coffee at Pret A Manger.

Because I can imagine such a world, why would it follow that such a world is possible?

Firstly, if antecedent state X ALWAYS leads to resultant state Y, there can't be decision making going on since there are no other choices to choose between, it's always going to be Y — LuckyR

This is a non-sequitur. There are other choices available. There is still a choice being made, and it is Y. It being entirely deterministic or not seems to have nothing to do with the fact that a choice is being made, and by something capable of considering alternatives.

Your definition of 'choice' seems to be different than the usual one, which is a selection between multiple options. You apparently think the alternative options are not open to being chosen, rather than your processes having the option, but rejecting them.
Going to court and pleading 'not-guilty because physics made me do it' doesn't stand up. Your criteria for making the selection is what made you do it, and it is that criteria for which you are responsible.

An agent who doesn't know what the future holds can still undergo a process of "decision making" even if that agent is fully deterministic and it will always make the same decision given the same starting state. — flannel jesus

Agree, and furthermore, if said 'agent' actually knew said future, it wouldn't really be an agent any more than is a rock, which sort of brings up a contradiction of an omnipotent omniscient being powerful enough to alter what it knew was going to happen. Either way, the being could not be both omnipotent and omniscient.


Have we lost Jerry?

Have we lost Jerry? — noAxioms

Just busy, and trying to figure out how to respond to the points being made lol. I mean, I feel like most of our disagreements are kind of semantic, we both agree (I think) that we have the power to choose from alternate options, and so possess free will, despite the fact that classical mechanics appears deterministic. I guess I just don't understand by what means you personally think the decision-making process realizes itself.

That's why it is nonsense to discuss about freedom in any philosophy that wants to be a system, a systematic philosophy.
Freedom is a psichological, emotional, human need, so it is good for non systematic philosophies, like nihilism, or postmodernism. In systematic philosophies it just creates contradictions. — Angelo Cannata

Isn't every philosophy that wants to speak about the nature of the world systematic? Because nature/reality is systematic? Another way of saying it is, is there a possible world that is not systematic? And if not, then isn't freedom simply not possible and intelligible? Just curious of your view.

I hate to keep derailing the conversation with new points but there was another observation that I had that I want to ask about: Is it not possible for an event to have multiple possible outcomes, particularly in our reality? Because obviously we could consider probabilistic events, so I guess I ask if its possible for events in reality to be truly probabilistic? If not, why not? And if it is possible for an event to have multiple possible outcomes, must it necessarily be random? Im just trying to test our understanding of causality and determinism to see if perhaps there is a misunderstanding we have that precludes free will (again, the ability to choose an action from multiple possibilities).

we both agree (I think) that we have the power to choose from alternate options, and so possess free will, — Jerry

Well, I was looking for you or LuckyR to come up with an example of something having choice, but not free choice, will, but not free will. What distinction does the word 'free' make in either case? Both of you seem to equate them rather than hold them distinct.

I said that us having free will is dependent on the definition of it used, and I didn't assert any particular definition. I suppose I would define it as making one's one choices and not having them made for me by something else, my example of un-free will being a cat possessed by a demon. The demon gains the ability to make choices, and the cat loses it.

Is it not possible for an event to have multiple possible outcomes, particularly in our reality? — Jerry

An event is just that, one thing, and it doesn't have outcomes.
I think you're asking if a closed system in a given state can evolve in more than one way, and the answer is dependent on one's interpretation of QM. So for instance, the decay of an atom appears to be totally random, uncaused, but with known probability. But maybe that's only an appearance, and the decay is actually determined by some internal variable to which we have no access.
Quantum theory is a probabilistic theory, not a deterministic one. Most of the classical rules and intuitions are invalid, such as the whole concept of 'a system in a given state', something meaningless in most interpretations. Hence the quip about the moon not being there when unobserved.

And if it is possible for an event to have multiple possible outcomes, must it necessarily be random? — Jerry

What alternative is there besides 'random'?

Why would I want a decision to be based on a non-deterministic method? What possible benefit would there be in doing so? Even rock-paper-scissors only requires you to be unpredictable, without a requirement for any actual randomness.

You can't say anything about the nature of the world, because in that case you are just making metaphysics, which is self contradictory, because metaphysics claims to be able to embrace all perspectives, while actually it ignores that itself belongs to a limited perspective.
So, you can't say that the world is systematic, because in that case you are just generalising a concept that actually belongs to your specific perspective.

That doesn't seem at all obvious to me. An agent who doesn't know what the future holds can still undergo a process of "decision making" even if that agent is fully deterministic and it will always make the same decision given the same starting state.

A deterministic chess program for example, which looks at a number of legal moves and decides which one it "likes" more based on some position-rating algorithm

True, from the "decider's" perspective, he's going through the motions we commonly associate with decision making, but to an outside observer who has true insight (in this example of Determinist universe), would see that as Determinists claim, the idea of choice (and thus a true decision) is an illusion.

In your example you're presenting as if the program and the algorithm are two separate entities akin to the man and his mind. In reality all there is is an algorithm, which is at it's core a glorified set of equations. Just as an algebraic equation doesn't "choose" between all possible answers, finally arriving at the one, true answer. It just has one true answer.

There are other choices available. There is still a choice being made, and it is Y. It being entirely deterministic or not seems to have nothing to do with the fact that a choice is being made, and by something capable of considering alternatives.

Your definition of 'choice' seems to be different than the usual one, which is a selection between multiple options. You apparently think the alternative options are not open to being chosen, rather than your processes having the option, but rejecting them.
Going to court and pleading 'not-guilty because physics made me do it' doesn't stand up. Your criteria for making the selection is what made you do it, and it is that criteria for which you are responsible

I am, in fact saying your use of the word "available" is nonstandard. If an "alternative" will never be selected, is it really available? I do not consider "possible" and "available" to be synonyms. It's really a matter of perspective. From the perspective of POSSIBLE conclusions, there are many. From the perspective of the purported decider, there was always going to be one conclusion. Identical to the situation where there is only one possible solution.

Kind of like two sports betting guys arguing whether the "better" pro team can ever lose, since some consider the outcome of the game as the definition of "better". Well, if you use that definition (the better team is the one thst beat it's opponent), then, no, the better team can never lose.

As to your last paragraph, some would label what you call: "your criteria" as Free Will.

but to an outside observer who has true insight (in this example of Determinist universe), would see that as Determinists claim, the idea of choice (and thus a true decision) is an illusion. — LuckyR

I don't see it that way at all

you're presenting as if the program and the algorithm are two separate entities — LuckyR

I don't think I am. The rating algorithm is one part of the program, I don't think my words implied otherwise. There are of course other algorithms in a piece of software that chooses a chess move.

Basically, there are three temporal steps in what we label decision making: just before, during and the outcome. The outcome is completely observable, the brain state status before is grossly (but not finely) understood and what happens during is perceivable internally but essentially not understood externally. Determinists (that I commonly interact with) say that the brain state BEFORE Determines what happens DURING and therefore afterwards. Therefore the three are linked such that observed variation in conclusions are caused by variation in the brain state before (since no true variation occurs during). Believers in Free Will (that I know) believe that the brain state before influences (but does not determine) the process during decision making, such that at least some of the final outcome is created by the pondering or thinking step independent of the initial brain state.

None of us know the gradular details of human decision making,. That's why there is a logical debate between Determinists and those who believe in Free Will. Neither can disprove the other at the current state of knowledge. All we can do it observe what goes into and comes out of the Black Box that is what I called: "during" decision making.

Every single group of observational data ever collected is consistent with Free Will, though that is absolutely NOT proof that Free Will exists. Basically it comes down to what seems most logical/reasonable to you.