Ok, so first -
The simple summary of what you are saying is that I didn't CHOOSE to reply to you. It's an illusion that I have any choice at all - my entire deliberation process, and my eventual choice, are unfolding as a cascade of events where each event is caused by the previous one.
I get it, it's a coherent position.
But my question is - why would you observe a person choosing, and then decide that what you observe is an illusion, but what you imagine to be occurring instead is reality?
This goes against the scientific method, doesn't it?
You didn't just observe me having the illusion of choice. You observed me making a choice.
The illusion part.. is something you imagined to be true, but you've never actually observed it in any experiment done to date.
If you could build an AI algorithm that predicts a person's behavior with 100% certainty.. now that would be an observation that confirms choice is illusory. But so far this only happens in Asimov novels.
Second -
You're making an obviously correct argument that "lack of cause will result in lack of effect". This is a perfect segue.
So if we observe free will, but we do not observe anything in the universe that can possible cause it - the cause has to have come from outside the observable universe, didn't it?
That's my entire argument against the "emergent property" hypothesis.
We have two options here and they come as package deals:
1. The mind is an emergent property of the universe, but then free will must be an illusion.
2. Free will is real, but then the mind must have come from outside the observable universe.
I think the number of observations directly confirming option #2 is much greater. It is also falsifiable - the moment you make that computer that predicts 100% of my choices, or the moment you can show a mechanism by which free will emerges from something observable, I'll concede that option #2 is wrong.
But until then, option #2 is the only one that resembles a scientific theory (many empirical confirmations + clearly stated falsifiability criteria).
