Regardless of if it’s practical to live that way in daily life, the world seems pretty determined. Everything happens because a vast amount of interactions between infinite factors causes it to. You can’t really say you choose between things as many influences have been taken in by you and many things have affected your psychological state. Has everything been practically decided by the big bang? Now, this is not to say we can know everything or predict the future, but we know what’s likely. Socialism or extinction may be inevitable, but we don’t know yet. Socialism can only happen if people keep fighting, regardless. People will be convinced or principled or not. Science seems to agree with this, and only few, like the wrong Sartre would propose we have ultimate free will. So are there any arguments against determinism? I know there is a saying that you’re freer when you recognize how your freedom is restricted, and that recognition may make your actions better, but isn’t there ultimately no freedom?
But sentient brings can make decisions, right? Unlike an ice cube. You can choose to have toast or oats for breakfast. You can’t choose to live in a mansion unless you have the credit score or cash. The smaller the decision, the more control you have, the bigger the decision, the less control, but the latter doesn’t discount some freedom to choose; it just means that at some point you come up against the limits of reality.
The idea that whether I chose toast or oats is pre-determined seems strange. We can’t ever prove or disprove it.
One way of looking at it could be between an idealist and a dialectical materialist conception of free will. From the idealist perspective, free will means unlimited free will. Like free expression or abstract ‘freedom’. But from a materialist perspective, if there’s free will, it must be understood as fettered and dialectically related to material conditions.
That is, we make history, but not under conditions of our choosing.
All this said, I’ve not thought about this question since becoming a Marxist and I’m somewhat persuaded by the above answer that the question may rely on something of a category error. I’ll be thinking more about that. Still a great question to ask, btw!