Is free will just an illusion? Are our decisions predetermined by patterns in our neural connections? We can argue that we have the ability to make any choice we want, based on our own reasons for making them, but can we? Any decision can be justified after we've made it, but were we really free to make any choice?
We've all had fun at predicting the reactions of our friends. Most people are very predictable. And we've all made decisions that we don't really understand. "What was I thinking?" Is a common phrase. And the apology, "I'm sorry, I don't know why I did that" is very common as well. Perhaps these aren't just thoughtless excuses. Perhaps we really don't know why we made those choices, because we never had any real choice. Who we are determined the choice. Our personality, our experiences, our mental programming, made the choice for us and then justified that choice later. It is the conscious justification that we are aware of, not the act of making the choice, which was no more than a reflex.
Do circumstances have more effect on the choices we make than conscious thought? Do we make decisions based on logical thought processes, analyzing the benefits and risks of each choice? Or do we simply react to the sensory input and the feelings generated by our neural machinery?
Is our life simply a matter of "going with your gut feeling" and being led through life by predetermined choices hardwired into our brain and our ultimate success or failure is therefore merely a matter of whether or not we have the proper cranial algorithms in place?