Gone For A While and Pre-determinism

Hello,I have been gone for a while since I have been adjusting to getting back to school and getting back on a different time schedule with less free time.  Although not way less.  This won't happen again.

A recent thought that I have been thinking about is pre-determinism.  I have always been a believer in some sort of "free will" - like that we must have at least a 10% level of control over our fate.  However, the more I think about it, the more I realize the intense level of pre-determinism that exists (it seems to me) throughout the universe.

At least, let's think, in terms of individual human life.  The main area that free will derives from is the ability to make decisions for yourself.  The process of making a decision tends to go like this - certain choices are given to you, you make a choice, then you actualize that choice, actualizing that choice ends up being made up of a number of micro-decisions.  (For example, the decision to get off your ass and do something.)

So, one would argue, we can still make choices.  However, I think that the very framework for decision analysis is pre-determined for you, consequently the decisions you make will be consistently within that framework.  You are born, probably, with pre-dispositions towards certain types of decisions.  And as you get older certain forms of analysis seep into your psyche and start to override certain aspects of that biological decision making process (thus the move from emotion to more logical thinking as one ages).  However, you have virtually no control over the way that framework is formed.  One could argue that once that framework is established then you have control over how you decide within it.  But I don't think so.  I think that a certain amount of factors will always influence your thinking one way or the other. 

You may seek out advice to help with your decision making.  However, being someone "who seeks out advice" and even the person you seek advice from, and how you evaluate that advice and take it in are all based on this comnplex framework of analysis that we develop as individuals.  Now, let us broaden the picture.  Everyone is constantly moving with this framework of analysis that they have virtually no control over.  So, I go for advice, my friend is gone, because he decided to go to an extracurricular activity, or a date. He made the decision to leave at that moment within the decision calculus that he has no control over.  I went to seek advice at that moment because I felt it was the right time to get advice based on an emotional or intellectual decision analysis. 

All of us exist within these competing frameworks of analysis and none of this seems very random at all, or very controlled by us at all.  In fact, it appears to me that all of this is "pre-determined" in the sense that our framework of analysis is inevitably going to lead us to certain decisions over and over again.  In no instance can we escape the framework of analysis that we use to evaluate the choices we make and execute those choices.  The choices given to us are only a result of other's decision calculus.  It is inescapable.

Now, I don't necessarily have the knowledge of the weather and nature to make the furthest extent of this argument.  But basically I feel that cells, animals, everything acts from some sort of impulsive decision analysis.  It isn't probably nearly as analytical or complex as human analysis but it is still there.  The desire to act on hunger, for example, still moves more "primitive" life.  And will move them when hunger hits, which is probably relative to when they were born, or, whatever.  They still act within this framework of analysis and it seems like an impossibly complex computer script of overlapping analysis.

The one saving grace of this analysis, that saves us from the dreariness of a pre-determined life, I believe, is that we still HAVE TO make decisions.  Even though there will be an eventual solution that is pre-determined, we still have to make that decision.  And, for example, if this blog post makes you realize that there is a solution already waiting there, and you circumvent the decision process, then you have just changed your decision calculus, you haven't broken free of pre-determinism.  So, despite this, life still has drama, happiness, and joy, defeat, sorrow, and everything else and that will result from the decisions you make.  Just those decisions are already there, and we are already moving in a direction towards them.

I want to feel like we have some volition, and ability to control our futures.  But it seems the only responses I've gotten to this issue have been "I feel like we do" or the ever so famous "so you are saying we will make choices, consequently those choices are inevitable."  The former of those two arguments is way more appealing to me since I like to trust emotions as much as logic.  However, the second is non-sense, since I am specifically identifying a means of analysis that is pre-determined.  The fact is that the manner in which we make the decision is already defined for us.  Inescapably so.  So yes, we will make a decision, but the choices that lead to that decision, and the analysis for making that decision, is already inside of us.  And that is important to remember.

I am curious though too, about the effect of g-d in all this.  I personally believe in g-d, however, is g-d trapped within the same decision calculus problem?  Even if his/her ability to make decisions, or his/her decision analysis is infinitely more deep and complex than any humans, does s/he still have to make decisions in some way?  Is s/he still part of the script?  Or was the script set in motion by g-d, only to be lived out by us, and from that g-d derives its power?

I think without the concept of a g-d though, there is literally almost no flaw in the viewpoint that everything is pre-determined.  Normally I don't take strong opinions on issues (thus this blog) so this is a little disturbing to me.  But please make arguments in response to this concept.  Perhaps you can moderate me with your viewpoints on free will.

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