> I'm curious, then, do you believe in free will, grem? Your definition seems to imply that the actions of a being with free will would not need to have any direct antecedent. Do you think this sort of free will exists in our reality? If so, how do you think it works?
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> Stephen

Nope, I don't believe in free will (under any definition I've seen, not just my strict concept). However, I also don't believe that humankind will ever be able to conclusively decide the question -- we'll never be able to delve deep enough and measure precisely enough to see the deepest patterns of cause and effect. I'm also becoming more and more skeptical of QM (not based on any actual research of the material -- I know that formulations we use now hold up really well under all sorts of tests, but based on philosophy). I think that ultimately the mechanism for apparent randomness is not inherent randomness, but the interaction of the measurable universe with another "layer", perhaps something like Bohm's quantum field. And since the verification of this would be outside the scope of science, it is indeed based on faith.