Well, here we are, watching the other people in the restaurant browse the menu and then place their order. Are we having an illusion?
The illusion is that the people think they are making choices when they are not.
But we're not them. We're watching them as they browse the menu and then place their order. They are performing a logical operation called "choosing". Choosing inputs multiple options, such as those listed on the restaurant menu, then applies some criteria for comparing those options, and then selects a single dinner order that they then communicate to the waiter. The waiter takes their order to the kitchen and comes back with their chosen dinner and the bill.
It cannot be denied that choosing is actually happening, right there in front of us, and we are not having any illusions.
You are asserting that two contradictory statements agree with each other.
Each customer in the restaurant is choosing for themselves what they will order, according to their own tastes and dietary goals.
1. Because the choice is their own, it is free will.
2. Because the choice is reliably caused, it is deterministic.
Can you prove that either of these claims is false?
If both are true, then they cannot be contradictory.
It's not a choice at all! How many times do I need to say this before you actually see it?
How many times do I need to drag you to this restaurant before you actually see it?
A choice requires multiple options with non-zero probability. If one particular outcome is inevitable, then one outcome has 100% probability and all others have 0% probability.
There are 50 dinners on the menu. When they open the menu, each dinner has a 2% probability of being chosen. None of the options will have 0% or 100%. They all start out at 2%. Now, if we learn that certain customers have food allergies and others are vegan, then we can adjust our probabilities to 0% for certain meals. But without that knowledge every option has a probability of 2%.
Then the outcome is not inevitable and can't be the result of purely deterministic forces. Otherwise some being with perfect knowledge about the state of the universe at a point BEFORE the order was placed could perform the required calculations and determine what would be ordered, thus eliminating all but one of the outcomes.
Well, an omniscient being, such as God, or Laplace's Daemon, or the guy's wife, could theoretically tell us what he would inevitably order for dinner. And after they tell us, we can adjust that option's probability to 100%. But they won't tell us.
They won't even tell our customer. So, until he starts considering the different items listed, and adjusting the probabilities himself, until he finds the perfect dinner for tonight, he won't know either. After choosing his dinner, he and we and the waiter will all know which option had the 100% probability. But not before that.
And our knowledge will come from the choosing, not from a prediction (not unless his wife whispers it to us in advance).
As you can see, the choosing had to happen in order to know which dinner was inevitable.
And you seem incapable of seeing that a deterministic universe is completely predictable in theory.
If the customer could simply predict his choice then he wouldn't have bothered going through the process of choosing. But he could not predict his choice. So, his only way of knowing what his choice would be was by considering the different items on the menu in terms of his personal tastes and dietary goals, and selecting the option that seemed best at the time.
His choosing had to happen or he would have no dinner at all. It was unavoidable.
You are locked into that one single course of action, but you can still do anything you want. But you won't.
What you've overlooked is that my "want" will also be set in stone, such that determinism will never compel me to do anything that I do not already want to do. I will actually do what I want, and since I want to order the chicken, I will.
The only thing that I am "locked into" is doing exactly what I wanted to do. Thus, determinism poses no threat to free will.
So you will inevitably do one thing, and you will inevitably believe that you want that thing. Doesn't change the fact that you couldn't have done any differently. The thing you will inevitably do has a probability of 100% precisely because it's inevitable. Therefore, all other options you think are possible really have a probability of 0% and are actually IMpossible.
The thing about a possibility is that it remains a possibility even if it never happens. If it is inevitable that I will choose the chicken, then I will choose the chicken, even though I could have chosen the steak. Please note that "I chose the chicken, even though I could have chosen the steak" is a true statement in both its parts.