Indeed. Although i feel wisdom(panna) is a conditiond phenemona. And it does seem to increase more i practice the buddhist path. But still some choices are still not apparent to me. For given a free choice i would like to be without craving but i still dont have access to that choice. 
I don’t think most working scientists have such grandiose personal aims, although certainly, for some, ideological or moral zeal about the benefits of science serves as an extra motive for their practice of science. People viewing the world from the standpoint of traditional religious doctrine, or from the standpoint of the keepers and purveyors of folk medical traditions, might react to their their felt loss of authority by attributing to scientists a conspiracy to persecute them. Maybe sometimes they are right. And maybe in some instances the scientists are right in applying zeal to the eradication of pernicious ignorance. But it is not easy to deal emotionally with the blow to one’s pride when views to which one is strongly attached are discredited by well-conducted empirical inquiry.
A deep metaphysical analysis of the nature of causation is not necessary for the everyday conduct of science. For most practical investigative purposes, it doesn’t matter whether accurate causal generalizations are grounded only in deep, underlying natural patterns or regularities that happen not to have exceptions, or if there is some extra metaphysical “oomph”, some something-we-know-not-what, connecting the states and events that are part of the regularity. If, for example, some religious cult teaches that by getting 100 people to pray in the right way one can cause the global mean surface temperature to decrease, then that is a claim that can be tested, even while philosophers wrangle about what precisely “cause” means in that statement.
I wouldn’t dare to assume otherwise. I have had trouble reading White Bones Red Rot Black Snakes, which is a long way off from the intellectual feat of writing it!
The philosophy of causation features two prominent families of views on causal connection, that is, on the difference between causally related and causally unrelated sequences.
The probabilistic family holds that causality comes down to probability. The process family views causality as a physical process. Prominent families incline to intermarriage; the two philosophical families have produced hybrid views that combine probability and process. Needless to say, the different approaches have their strengths and weaknesses.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides an introduction to the metaphysics of causation.
I agree.
Bhante, I deeply appreciate your translation of Vital Conditions. Your precise usage of vital condition in the scientific sense elicits a deeper inquiry. In that deeper inquiry, one must understand that vital condition implies two things. On the one hand a vital condition removed clearly results in cessation. Simultaneously, the use of the word condition also indicates that the presence of a vital condition (e.g., ignorance) does not imply immediate arise of the vitally conditioned (e.g., choices). In this exact way, “flammable” is a vital condition for “fire”. But “flammable” does not cause “fire”.
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'Other laws are descriptive; they merely describe what happens, like the laws of probability. In Buddhism these are called upādāya paññatti .
I think physical and natural laws, including the “laws” of Buddhism such as the four noble truths or dependent origination, are all descriptive laws.’
Laws of probability (statistical multivariate models) are predictive. A simple cause effect relationship is problematic. For example more men than women ordain so therefore are men more spiritually inclined? Is this a simple case of cause and effect? Many factors enable an individual to develop spiritually in this tradition and historically being male probably explains a large amount of the variance. However, things are changing.
I’ve heard you make this argument before, bhante, and I have long wished to bring it up with you, because I have to admit it doesn’t make sense to me. Whether the laws are descriptive or prescriptive seems to me to be beside the point. The point, I believe, is that there is no independent agent, and so choice is always determined by factors apart from the actual choosing. Free choice, even if only marginally free, requires an agent to stand apart from conditioned phenomena and that is exactly what Buddhism denies.
If I usually have toast for breakfast, but one day decide to have cornflakes instead, then there must be a condition for that change. The change cannot merely be the outcome of not being bound by descriptive laws; there must a be a reason why you make the new choice, such as a sudden positive memory connected with cornflakes. No change in choice can come about without such conditions.
So it seems to me that any choice is fully explainable in terms of the sum total of the conditioning that is working on it at the particular moment of choosing. There is nothing apart from those conditions. Because there is nothing apart from them, you cannot remove yourself and make an independent choice. This is so whether the laws of conditioning are descriptive or prescriptive. Even if the laws are merely prescriptive, you need something apart from the prescriptive conditions to take advantage of the fact that your choice is not predetermined. To me, freedom of choice is not compatible with Buddhism.
If you feel so inclined, I would be interested to hear your rebuttal of the above. 
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Sorry to interrupt, while waiting for Bhante to respond…
Just dipping a toe in the water, 
- well maybe a whole foot ! 
This issue of agency and choice making, occupied my thinking quite a bit, in my old professional capacity.
Perhaps the process of choice making involves 2 factors. 1) a choice between options and 2) the desire or motivation to engage in choosing.
Both of these factors are determined by perhaps simultaneous but somewhat discrete causes and conditions.
Like the difference between craving and volition - both necessary for the process of making a choice. In the end perhaps it is the confluence of these things (causes) which leads to the choice being made.
Perhaps, as in the case of DO/DL, it is the dismantling of the chain that allows disengagement from the process of Samsara, ie (no-one) making choices about (no-things) ??
So the reversal might be, ‘(some-one) making choices about( some-things)’.
In the case for free will in the car driving example, it would look like this (some-one Driver) making choices about (no-things, No laws or police exist)
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I understand these to describe the two main modes of conditionality in dependent origination:
( 1 ) synchronous: while one state / thing / process is present, then so is another;
( 2 ) sequential: one state / thing / process causes another.
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It was fascinating being in traffic in India. Everybody is driving as fast as they can aware of everybody else. There is an exuberant lawless chaos that somehow perfectly unfolds into rational action simply through that common shared awareness that fills the Indian street. You can see this in YouTube videos. It is quite amazing.
Visiting India for a wedding, we thought we would absolutely die crossing a street in Delhi. There are no pedestrian walk signs. People jaywalk through cows across multi-lane thoroughfares stepping over median barriers. Crossing safely in Delhi requires a firm, yet gentle declaration of needful intent as well as a relinquishing of individual presumption to the shared awareness of all moving in the street. Choice wasn’t involved. Instead, it was awareness that indicated the path and time of passage.
Ignorant of that, we initially floundered in choices about whether to stay in the hotel till traffic died down (it never did) or whether to hire a tuk-tuk (which tuk-tuk?) to cross the street. Etc. Once we understood the flow of the street, choices disappeared and simple awareness guided us to our destination. Freedom emerged. And it emerged along the lines described in SN12.23. Very peculiar, that.
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Bhante, what about moral agency, isn’t that what kamma is all about? Couldn’t it also be said that not having freedom of choice is incompatible with kamma theory and therefore incompatible with Buddhism?
What separates what you said about no free will in your post above from the theories of Makkhali Gosala and the Ājīvikas?
To me, (1) describes kamma and the cessation of (2) is the objective of the Noble Eightfold Path (the path that leads to no more kamma).
The difference is that the determinism of Makkhali Gosala and the Ājīvikas excluded intention as a conditioning phenomenon. In other words, according to their view, intention has no effect on our saṃsāric course. This is like fate. Your future is determined, and is independent of what you do.
In Buddhism intention obviously has an effect; this is what kamma is all about. The question is whether that intention is governed by a free will, by other conditions, or by a mix of the two. My argument is that although intention matters - it does affect outcomes - there is no scope for free will.
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Free will requires a person or a Self.
Intention can arise automatically. Door bell rings, and the head turns in that direction. Sound is the cause, intention to turn the head is the effect, which then becomes the cause for the action of turning the head.
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Thank you for articulating this point on free will. I’ve started to suspect that the true choices open to us along the path are really the identity vs. non-identiy choices, not the inconsequential tomatoh/tomaytoe choices. In other words, as we progress on the path, we can choose to increase our ethical awareness by letting go of rigid identity views. And that as ignorance disappears, so do choices. It’s oddly fitting that the “free will” of identity might be limited to the choice of relinquishing that very identity.
1.11.119 Four prejudices: making decisions prejudiced by favoritism, hostility, stupidity, and cowardice
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While we wait for Ayya Sujato’s response, I’ll continue treading into this philosophical quagmire.
In contemporary philosophical metaphysics, there’s apparently a distinction between fatalism and “hard” determinism: fatalism being the view that the course of events could not have been otherwise, (the same sequence of events are weaved into the fabric of time by the Fates/Moerae or “that’s just the way it is” which seems to be the Ājīvika position as far as we have any record of them); “hard determinism” on the other hand being the view that although events could have been otherwise they are deterministic (and the variables that allow for events to be otherwise being something like randomness, etc.). “Softer” forms of determinism allow for some freedom.
I guess for me, the question that arises while reading your response is if intentions are conditioned by something preceding them in a causal chain: then does your future being determined by what you do or not really matter? Either way, it’s determined.
It’s not clear here whether you are saying intention is governed by:
a) free will
b) conditions
c) some mix of (a) and (b)
I’d assume, perhaps incorrectly, that you are arguing for (b).
In as much as intention could matter, it seems to me that it would have to be of the form “could have been otherwise”. In other words, I could have been angry (making negative mental kamma) but I chose to be kind (making positive mental kamma), or vice versa, and then verbal and physical kamma flow from those intentions. It seems to me that is what we mean by choice, and in order for it to be a choice at all it must be free. It must’ve could’ve been otherwise.
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Yes, either way it’s determined. But the difference is still significant. If intention is irrelevant for certain outcomes - say whether you reach awakening or not - you are unlikely to make any effort to get there. If, however, you know that your intention and effort matter, you are likely to do more to achieve the desired result. The knowledge or belief that intention matters will be a conditioning factor that affects your progress to awakening.
Well, I would say it could have been otherwise, but only if the conditioning factors had been slightly different. Given a certain set of conditioning factors, the resultant choice can in principle be predicted.
Whether the correct word is “choice” is really a semantic question. It may be, as you suggest, that “choice” implies free will, in which case it would be an inappropriate word in Buddhist translation, or at least that’s my view.
As for the feeling of choice that most people have, this is clearly largely an illusion. In fact, I would say it’s completely an illusion.
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Except for the choice to let go of choices. Although one might well argue that even that choice is conditioned by sufficient suffering as a vital condition for faith.
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Is it? It’s not my point. By introducing this, you are front-loading a strong dependency on acceptance of the truth of not-self. I happen to share this acceptance, but it is a long hard road to get to that place.
Let me retrace my steps. I was not trying to make an argument about free will and determinism. I was trying to understand what the nature of causality is in light of DO, Nagarjuna, and Hume. It then struck me that the Humean argument is, it seems, cogent and surprisingly in agreement with that of the Buddha. A consequence of that, if it is true, is that there is no such thing as a “cause”: what we call a cause is merely a way of talking about the patterns we observe in nature.
Then I considered, what kinds of consequences might this have? And it occurred to me that if there is no such thing as cause, then the question of free will vs determinism is defunct, because all “laws of nature” are descriptive: nothing is determined and hence, nothing is free. There are only patterns that can be observed.
The concept of free will is revealed to be metaphysical bunkum, ultimately derived from godspeak. It is only in the context of a personal yet absolute god that the very idea of “free will” makes sense. God, indeed, can freely say “Let there be light!” He alone possesses the potential for free will, and only in his context does the idea make sense. However, God, sadly enough, lacks certain other qualities, notably that of existence.
Let me be clear, I don’t mean “free will” is bunkum, I mean the “concept of free will” is bunkum. I am not talking about the actual presence or absence of free will in the world, I am talking about using the word “free will” as if it had meaning.
To give an example from your discussion: if my thesis is correct, then I believe it follows that these two statements are identical in meaning:
The question is whether that intention is governed by fliggldibums, by wddyrhish, or by a mix of the two.
The only difference is that a term like “free will” has an emotional appeal, in the same way as a phrase like “the will of God”. Thus the debate is not about the facts; it’s about whether we position ourselves as emotional beings (free will!) or rational ones (determinism!). It is meaningful from a psychological point of view, but not a philosophical one.
This was, to me, a most amenable conclusion. Long ago I studied this subject at UWA under Michael Tooley, and I have always suspected that it was one of those issues where the problem was malformed. But I have never really known clearly how to formulate it. I think this is why I find the Humean thesis so compelling.
Now, if you reject my original thesis—and I don’t really expect anyone to accept it, to be honest—then of course you will reject this whole scenario. And you’re free to find other ways of discussing free will. But this way of addressing the problem of free will is, to me, powerful and satisfying, and follows quite relentlessly on from the basic thesis.
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Sheer whimsy compelled this choiceless one to confirm that “free will” and “fliggldibums” have never been used in Bhante Sujato’s translations.
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I haven’t looked at Free Will from a formal philosophical perspective, but have been more interested in the practical implication of what it means for humans.
From a psychological perspective, I’ve found it helpful to conceptualise “free will” as ‘informed choice’. ( added Importantly this removes the yes/no dichotomy and makes it a question of degree.) The aim in psychological interventions is to assist individuals to understand the choice making factors (information about options, assumptions, values, beliefs, past experience impact etc) in order to make an informed choice - not merely follow conditioning and limited knowledge 
Perhaps, from a Buddhist perspective, one could called this ‘non-deluded choice’ > as in the more awakened/enlightened is, in the comprehension of the world and causes and conditions, the closer one comes to being able to exercise free will. As such, an Arahant (for example) would be the closest to being able to operate with “free will” 
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