Free will, the sense, that you could have done otherwise, is an illusion.
We make choices based on either what we have to do, or what we want to do. There’s no freedom in having to do something, but you’re also not free to choose your wants. If you felt like having tea this morning instead of coffee, then having tea is the only thing you could have done. You wanted tea, not coffee. Now, if we rewind the clock back in time to the moment before you decided, you’d pick tea again, and again, and again. Everything else being the same, your desire for tea will override the desire for coffee every time. And you didn’t choose that desire.
Free will, the sense, that you could have done otherwise, is an illusion.
We make choices based on either what we have to do, or what we want to do. There’s no freedom in having to do something, but you’re also not free to choose your wants. If you felt like having tea this morning instead of coffee, then having tea is the only thing you could have done. You wanted tea, not coffee. Now, if we rewind the clock back in time to the moment before you decided, you’d pick tea again, and again, and again. Everything else being the same, your desire for tea will override the desire for coffee every time. And you didn’t choose that desire.