>Therefore, choice is nothing more than an illusion.
???
Please show us your reasoning. It would be quite impressive if you could logically go from "choice is something" to "choice is nothing"!
>Not really.
Yes, really D:<
> If the alternatives were never truly available in the first place, how can you say that you made a choice?
Because I consciously assessed a set of apparently potential actions and decided on the one that, according to my knowledge, would most effectively move me toward my goals. That is what choice is, nothing more, nothing less. If you disagree with my definition then I'd be interested in hearing your alternative.
>An analogy would be imagining yourself on a railroad car. There's a fork in the tracks, but the switcher has been shifted so that the railroad car will only be able to go down one path once it reaches the fork, and nothing can make it go down the other path. There is the appearance of there being multiple possible outcomes, but really, there's only one path the railroad car can take.
Okay, there's no choice for the car. But what's this got to do with human action? There's no consciousness here, no goal, no internal weighing-up-of-facts.