Dear Marion,

Thank you for your letter. I'm fascinated by the cogency
of your arguments, to which I find little to add.

> I like ... in particular the idea that we shouldn't try so hard
> to shoe horn our experiences into pre-fabricated concepts
> like "free will" or "pre-determined",
> but rather try to examine and understand
> what we actually experience independent of pre-conceptions about it.

I'm impressed by the extent to which our interpretations
are controlled and diminated by our throughts, by our language,
by our "verbal experience" if you will.
What, after all IS an action? 
Wiggling ones toe or sratching ones head may properly
be denominated as actions, but so may casting a vote,
taking a trip to Europe, writing "King Lear" or composing
the Ninth Symphony. The meaning of each "action" is the
absorption in it of the agent's personality.

> I think that ascribing our actions to free will
> is a cultural and ethical phenomenon. 

Gut gebruellt, Loewe. (Well roared, Lion; Midsummer Night's
Dream V,1) I very much agree.

> I we truly believed that everything, or the major things,
> that happen are pre-ordained, we would tend to be passive,
> especially in circumstances where we feel frightened
> or embarrassed or uncertain about inserting ourselves into events. 

Yes.

> If we feel we can exert free will,
> this encourages us to judge what would be possible to do,
> advantageous to do, ethical to do, and try to do it. 
> This gives us more of a chance to mould reality to our advantage. 
> And it gives us a chance to make an effort
> shoulder to shoulder with others
> and thus have a stake in the world and feel less isolated. 
> When we appear to alter events in our favor by our actions,
> we feel empowered.
> Putting our wishes into action must often have
> the desired result or else we would not believe in free will.  

You get "A plus" for this insight.

> So even though I agree with you
> that we often can't be sure whether an action "we take"
> is "caused" by us
> (for example when our conscious desires cannot fully explain
> the action and there is reason to suspect unconscious motives),
> I think it is important for us to count free will as being in our tool kit. 
> You of all people are so purposeful in your life;
> I can't imagine that you doubt your free will. 

Give it another try: Imagine again.

> The fact that you frequently act without elaborate planning
> immediately beforehand is not crucial. 
> Our brains do elaborate (social) calculations
> even when we don't give our attention to the matter.

If you're sufficiently agile to change the definition before 
the account is due, you'll find whatever you're looking for.
You go prospecting for gold and stumble on pyrite, and shout
gleefully: "Eureka!" But it's still pyrite.
But the enthusiastic proclamation doesn't turn pyrite into gold.
In my book, when I "act without elaborate planning immediately
beforehand" it's not "free will", even if it were "Eine kleine
Nachtmusik" that I composed, and especially then, because art
wells from the unconscious, and from nowhere else.

But I know we agree on this also. I'm arguing, quibbling about
words; and that's naughty.

It's time now to go grocery shopping. Maybe more later.

Jochen