Free Will vs. Determinism

If everything is predetermined, then all the meaning which exists is as meaningful as it was predetermined to be. If we happen to think something is meaningful, then it is - at least sociologically speaking.
If we try to look at the situation from a perspective 'outside' all seemingly predetermined events (in a deterministic context), we're engaging in a hypothetical endeavour, which, by virtue of being hypothetical, isn't really based on reality, and is more or less pointless to pursue.

...free will is a matter of subjective context. On the one hand, if a person knew EVERYTHING that there is to know, they would have no free will, as they would be constrained to behaving in the perfect way in every instance. On the other hand, if a person had any degree of ignorance, their will would be constrained by that ignorance - which is to say that they would not be free to choose all of the available options. So, at best, in that situation one might have a limited 'degree' of free will, but not truly free in the purest sense.

In order to be TRULY free, a will would have to be entirely spontaneous - not acting according to any conditioning or programming.
Interestingly enough, if one maintains a deterministic view and traces everything back to its source, whatever instigated all of the deterministic chain of events that we call reality would have had to have arisen spontaneously!

It seems possible to conclude that EVERYthing arises spontaneously of itself since all causality is inferred, not observed directly.
...and we lack the ability to predict our immediately arisisng thoughts - in fact it is only after they occur to us at all that we are able to claim authorship of them. Upon silent reflection, even thoughts appear to arise spontaneously of themselves.

So, for most practical purposes, neither determinism nor free will satisfies any observable qualities of reality. Either they are the same thing, only with two different explanations, or they are nothing but concepts without any concordant reality to speak of. In any case, the debate between them is not one which would have any serious implications should we ever arrive at its conclusion.

-Rob