well it would make sense that you can only do something that a force led you to do.... but that force could simply be one's own will

How could I be forced to do what I want to do?

for the same reason you can't will something you don't will

I just mean your will is what's doing what it wants....you're body and mind is forced to do what your will wants.

for me, I am not my body, and I am not my brain but I am bound to these things

I see no way or reconciling free will without holding a similar view

I don't understand what you are saying. My will is not some entity separate from me. It is not something that wants to do anything. When I want to do something, it is not my will that wants to do something. It is I who want to do it. You are treating what you call, "the will" as a kind of little individual with desires of its own. But that really makes no sense.

what makes sense to me is this:

Choice 1 and Choice 2
If choice 1 exerts more influence on me than choice 2
then choice 1 will be chosen

Unless our "will" is one of the factors adding in which choice exerts the most influence, then we are talking about hard determinism. Aren't we?

And if choice 1 was not chosen, I suppose you would say that choice 1 did not exert the most influence, but choice 2 did. Right? So the choice you make is the one over which the most influence was exerted, and the one over which most influence was exerted was the choice you made. How could anyone not agree? It is true by definition. I don't understand your last sentence. A hard determinist holds that you could not have done other than you did do.

Does "will" have causal efficiency in the world?

My view would be that "mind, will" does have causal efficiency. My view would be that nothing about causality denies the possible efficacy of will. Mind is one among many causes. Determinism (Laplace type) fixes the future and the past and thus denies "will" as anything but "illusion". Determinism also denies notions of meaningful novelty, creativity and freedom. Complete randomness and complete chaos would destroy "freedom" in the same sense that complete determinism does. A little "freedom" is all you need and all you really want.

Your "free will" is always constrained by the laws of nature; but the laws of nature are not deterministic only causal.

everything needs a cause except for the original causer(or cause) and in the case of our actions, why can't our will be that causer?

But yet about compulsion:

A subject that manipulates\acts upon other is not at all different from a force that acts upon something...actually in detail and at an atomic level it acts exactly in the same way...

They do make choices, in the sense that they consider various courses of action and then act in accordance with their wishes. But they do not choose their wishes.

Some factor (e.g. God himself, or the laws of nature) determines (forces) people's wishes, and hence, indirectly, their actions

Making a choice is considering various courses of action and then acting in accordance with desire.

I didn't choose my wishes? You mean to say that because I didn't choose the set of available options prior to me making a choice, the choice I'm now about to make isn't a real choice? Suppose I was given three cars to choose from... Wait! If I'm given three cars to choose from, instead of me choosing the number of cars I can choose from, I'm not making a real choice?



Of course there's going to be some factor which is the cause of choice, just as there's a cause of me jumping - but we wouldn't say I'm not jumping just because there is a cause. I don't even understand how your conception of choice would even theoretically exist; there must always be a cause for all that happens.

I ask, again, what would a real, or pure, choice look like to you? It would be a choice with no cause? Because all causes, to you, force?

Cause, implies not truly choosing, or that choice, is far less, then what it seams...

The underlying point is that we cannot be compelled to do that which we want to do, but I'd like to take a shot at making an objection. I'm not flopping sides; I'm just testing the water.

You and I are in separate vehicles in traffic and approach a red light where the ordinary option is to either go straight or go right. I want to go straight, and you want to go right. There is an officer at the light directing everyone to the right.

You are doing just what it is you want to do (go right), but I am not doing what I want to do (which is go straight). According to the stance we have been taking, you are not compelled to go right, but I am compelled to go right.

I would like to give you a reason for thinking that you are also compelled to go right even though you want to go right, and that reason is you must do it or suffer the consequences. I have to go right (or suffer the consequences), just as you have to go right (or suffer the consequences), and I think that's important, and why I think that's important is because although you have a choice, you have no good choice. You can't change your mind about what you want to do without your free will being affected.

Then answer the same question I posed to ACB, please: What would a real, or pure, choice be to you? It would be a choice with no cause? How do you even imagine this is possible? And if you agree it isn't possible, why won't you acknowledge that what we call choosing is choosing?

Once again, I think we're mystifying what it is to make a choice.

Would you say I'm not jumping simply because my jump was caused by the kinetic energy in my hind legs? No, you would probably admit that I did in fact jump. But it's not the same with choice? I can't choose if it's caused by something?

The problem stands precisely that choice is a false concept....There can?t be a PURE choice...what there is, is causal concordance, when things go according to your plans...Statistics make it possible...sometimes you win sometimes you lose...of course, also statistically, causal concordance does not allays go with your rational planning...you cannot account for every variable !