This argument has been made before without any appeals to mysticism or religious belief. Newton's universe was simply a machine which could be described as a series of equations. That is, the entire universe from beginning to end is just an equation that is working itself out. No free will, just cause and inevitable effect.
In order to examine the notion of choice and free will we must, I think, find a definition of consciousness that pushes the subject one way or the other. If by being conscious we can observe and make a real decision, then we have free will. If consciousness is merely a phenomenon that rides atop all of these chains of cause and effect (or synchronicities), then there is no choice but certainly an illusion of one. I think here of people unknowingly following post-hypnotic suggestions but coming up consciously with their own, irrelevant, reasons for their actions.
I believe that there is a play between order and chaos in this universe, and that in order to have choice one must be sufficiently infused with chaos. Consciousness must transcend both pattern and non-pattern in order to make a choice ... be on a level higher than that from which it chooses.
Is consciousness ever really on that level? Or are we just interesting freaks of nature (consciousnesses riding atop meat machines) that think we are in control of a scripted show?
Does it really matter anyway, though? Everything is still the same as it always was, regardless.
