>"Choice is nothing" has been my standpoint all along. It has the illusion of being something, but in reality, it is nothing.
How can 'nothing' even have the illusion of being something? Nothing doesn't have anything.
Or are you referring to the concept of choice... and saying that it's an invalid one? Well, my concept might be slightly different to most people's. But it makes sense in the same contexts as the usual use of the word. And it's useful, I think, to be able to distinguish chosen action from unchosen action.
>My point, as I outlined in the example with the pool table, is that consciousness or goals as we perceive them are irrelevant.
My point is that they are extremely relevant! They are a part of our identity, and entities perform actions in accordance with their identity - law of causality.
>Consciousness is matter (made up of it at least,)
I'd say it's more accurate to say consiousness depends on matter, as much as inertia or temperature.
>and to say that the particles of your mind can behave any differently than the balls on a pool table and somehow choose to affect a certain outcome is as ridiculous as saying the balls can choose how they move and strike each other on the table.
The particles do not do the choosing. The thinking human being, as a whole unit, does. The pool table, being non-conscious, becomes a disanalogy at this point.
>But because the balls have been set in motion in a particular way, the collision has to occur
Yes, the balls do what they do because they are the particular way that they are (they have their specific velocity, mass, etc). If their identity was different, their (re)actions would be different. Regardless of the fact that, at that time and place, they had to be that way.
>(not counting the quantum ball for the moment,)
Thank God :)
>therefore nothing is truly being "altered."
The velocity of the ball is being altered.
>Please explain to me what this dichotomy is.
You seem to think these points:
A) The universe as a whole behaves in some deterministic way
B) Entities causally interact with each other
are mutually exclusive. I see no reason to accept this. Both are true.