Free will and determinism

I'm happy to allow spirits to make their own decisions. But how? Again, you can propose any source of free decisions and I'll go along with it. But my question is about how those spirits make free decisions.

Sorry, but I don't experience myself making a free decision. If I did, then I'd know something about how that is accomplished. What I experience is a short or long series of thoughts, perhaps spread over many days, followed by a decision. I do not experience the way in which I eliminate one of the two semi-final choices and end up with the final choice. That lack of experience may feel free to you, but to me it's just a gap, a leap, a poof!

Now, for simple decisions I may have two semi-final choices. Then I think "oh, but I don't have any shrimp." So then the dinner choice is clear. But that doesn't feel free, either. Instead, if anything, it feels deterministic.

~~ Paul

Maybe it helps to get away from food choices - which Americans always seem to come up with! Think perhaps of a romantic decision. What you describe sounds to me like a series of decisions to think before you act, followed by a decision that you now have your thoughts in place, followed by your ultimate decision.

Think of a tough programming decision. First you decide that the decision is hard but important. Then you go through a process of picking through the pros and cons of various approaches, they you wait until the following day, then you make the decision. Again, all those decisions are free will.

(I realise that what I have written will not satisfy you)

David