Free will exists. It is just incredibly hard work. Free will is not simply deciding. It is training yourself to decide. It is creating the environment where it is possible to decide. Where your decisions are not forced. Where the constraints within which those decisions are made are chosen, dismantled, or changed consciously.
Computers don’t know what the 1s and 0s mean. They just apply the algorithms, and something happens. If there is a glitch... a coder has to consciously find it and change it. For that to happen, they have to become intimate with the code. Open it up. Unpack it. Understand the steps, consequences, and connections.
The further decisions are from consequences, the more information is lost because of oversimplification, and the length of time till feedback is felt.
This is David Attenborough’s case for biodiversity as a response to climate change. Increasing the capacity for local reaction. Feeling decisions. The ability to adapt to conditions rather than the monoculture of distant central decision-making behemoths. Building flexibility and firebreaks for when (not if) things go wrong.
The unintended consequences of big decisions may have conspicuous results, but they often hide until it is too late. Free will requires you to pay intimate attention, and do the work.
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