Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
The brain has no central processor. There is no great decision making unit. There are many specialized processors which work in series and in parallel. Though no element can control their particles, the system can control its elements and that's where free will comes from.

How do you explain this conversation that we're having? How do you see no free will in what we're doing? If I choose to speak, I impact the universe of particles which then move in a predictable way, but I do not speak in a predictable manner.
That's where you are wrong. You don't choose to speak and you can't impact the universe in any way whatsoever. There is not a single particle in your body which course you can alter in any way. You can move your hand, but that is just a chain-reaction of particles flowing in your brain and giving an impulse to your muscles (perhaps because a bunch of photons hit your retina and started the reaction in the first place).

In a sense the particles in your brain don't flow freely, they flow freely within the structure of particles that your brain consists of. That's why your brain can do logical things and process thoughts, very much in the same way as electrons flowing inside a microprocessor.

I know that it is very very difficult to see how this discussion is possible without free will, but try to imagine two robots having a similar discussion - we sure know that robots don't have free will. I mean obviously this discussion is too advanced for a robot at this point in time, but perhaps not in 15 years.