I do think if you unravel how every decision is made and the origins behind those opinions then you ultimately end up with every reaction being a result of either biology or circumstance.
I do think if you unravel how every decision is made and the origins behind those opinions then you ultimately end up with every reaction being a result of either biology or circumstance.
Most decisions are made with emotional compute, influenced by biology, past experience, and present psychological state.
At the same time, being mindful and observing those emotions (predicted pleasure from the flavor, predicted guilt...) does interrupt that emotional processing and allow a "decision" to be reached in a completely different way.
Free will may only exist subjectively, but mindfulness does free the self from the emotional decision-making of the monkey brain.
The positive spin on this is if we are going to apply a software development mindset to free will then you can also argue that the value of software isn’t its sentience but it’s usefulness. For example computer games don’t need sophisticated AI to be enjoyable. So however we argue the definition of free will, that shouldn’t take anything away from the experience of life.