For you to make a choice [and thus exercise free will] your mind needs information [otherwise it would be a "toss-of-the-coin" decision] and the "causes" you mention are simply events/triggers that PROVIDE your mind with the apropriate information. BUT--the actual DECISION is up to you.
Vendi, Vidi, Vici, Mucho denero.
[I came, I saw, I conquered, I got paid--my mercenary motto]
Okay I'll use the "snooze button theory".
The alarm clock goes off. You hit the snooze button. You know that you will be late for what ever you needed to get up for but you stay there anyway and hit the snooze button again.
Sure you knew you would be late but you made that choice, no one else did, and it wasn't written in the stars that you would be late. You could just as easily gotten up.
You just used free will even though you knew the out come.
No matter the situation you still have 2 options, but you still must choose.
David Rogalski
cainam_nazier@hotmail.com
I am he who walks in the light but is masked by the shadows.
http://www.prepaidliving.com/vip/David127385
tao philosophy says, "even when you choose NOT to make a choice, you are still making a choice." Not doing something can affect you just as much as doing something.
We live in deterministic universe. Is it possible that we have free will? When i am looking on my behaviour i see the cause of every choice. It is very pessimistic... How can you explain that? Please, don't use Heisenberg's theory.