A big part of the problem is that we tend not to even question the obvious issues. Maybe some of it is having to keep repeating the lessons until we actually learn them.

For one thing, "free will" is an oxymoron.

The premise of will is to affect and without cause there is no effect. Are we cause, or effect, or both?

Coins tend to have two sides, even if we only look at one of them.

Consider time; As mobile organisms, this sentient interface our body has with its situation functions as a sequence of perceptions, on order to navigate, so our experience of time is the present going past to future. It is the basis of culture and civilization, as narrative and history.

Yet the evident fact is that activity and the resulting change turns future to past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns.

There is no dimension of time, because the past is consumed by the present, to inform and drive it Causality and conservation of energy. Cause becomes effect.

Which gets to another idea "free will" is confused with, pre-determination.

It would seem, given the above point, that the act of determination can only occur as the present, as there is only the present.

Now one might argue that given all potential input into any event pre-exists that event, then its occurrence would be inevitable.

Yet that also assumes there is some larger frame within which these factors exist, but that breaks down over infinities.

Also the speed of light is a limiting factor to that omniscient omniscience, as light can be coming from opposing directions to any event.

Yet that still places us as the center point of all the factors affecting our lives. How can we be sure our responses are not automatic?

Consider the point about time. Energy is conserved, because it manifests this presence, creating time, temperate, pressure, color, sound, as frequencies and amplitudes, rates and degrees.

So the energy goes past to future, because the patterns generated come and go, future to past. Energy drives the wave, the fluctuations rise and fall.

Consciousness also goes past to future, while the perceptions, emotions and thoughts giving it form and structure go future to past.

Suggesting consciousness manifests as energy.

Though it is the digestive system processing the energy and feeding the flame, while the nervous system sorts the patterns, signals from the noise.

Given energy is logically causal, it would seem our most elemental sense of being is a cause.

Yet we still get caught up in these dynamics. The motor of emotion overwhelms the steering of logic. How might we understand them?

The signals our minds pick up from the noise are what resonates and synchronizes with our prior knowledge. While this builds our structure of information, it is biased by those earlier beliefs, going back to childhood. This not only applies to people, but cultures as well. Religions amount to the chosen childhood memories and lessons of society.

Given this synchronization is a centripetal dynamic, we do need to break the patterns occasionally, or we do spiral into those rabbit holes and echo chambers. The feedback loops need circuit breakers.

Considering that galaxies have that black hole at the center, as all structure coalesces inward, it is a very foundational and powerful mechanism.

Yet galaxies also have the light radiating out, that does harmonize across the larger universe.

Remember the light we see is what reflects off the surfaces of the world around us, not the light being absorbed by them.

So the signals we extract from the world around us, is like the light we absorb, but much of what we project out into the world is what reflects off of us.

Now we often try to tailor it to fit our concept of ourselves, but that also becomes a feedback loop and we go overboard on it as well.

The point being, no, the future is not determined, but be careful your grooves don't become ruts.

Keep more than one tool in the tool box.

Generals run armies. Specialist is about one rank above private.