It would seem in a strictly logical sense, free will is an oxymoron, given the expression of will is to affect and without cause, there is no effect.

So the question to ask, is consciousness causal?

I point I keep raising in a fair number of contexts, because it has a large number of implications, is that we look at time backwards.

As mobile organisms, this sentient interface our bodies have with their situation functions as a sequence of perceptions, in order to navigate, so our experience of time is as the present moving past to future.

Yet the evident reality 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.

Energy is conserved, because it manifests this presence. There is physical past for it to be lost to, nor future from which it arrives. In an infinite reality, energy lost from one area is replaced by energy radiating in from surrounding areas.

So this energy creates time, temperature, pressure, color and sound. Frequencies and amplitudes, rates and degrees.

As presence, 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. No tiny strings necessary.

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

Suggesting that consciousness manifests as energy, which is definitely causal.

Though it is our digestive systems processing the energy, feeding the flame, while the nervous system sorts the patterns, signals from the noise, with the circulation system as feedback in the middle.

Which means this essence of sentience, consciousness, is elemental. A raw upwelling of impulse, desire, curiosity, want, need.

Logic then, the mind, the brain, isn't so much the source of this consciousness. as it is referee of all the competing desires, wants, interests, needs, impulses. The point of decision, the focus and locus of our multitudes of attractions and repulsions.

One of those desires is for status and acceptance in our circle of similar beings, at least now that simple survival is not the all compelling concern, at least for those actively engaged in such discussions.

So there is this natural tendency to be one with the group and recite and respect those who have gained status within the group. Yet they generally did so by their own acquiescence to those coming before them. Thus this tendency to spiral around those ideas central to the culture, even if one diverges measurably from it.

Yet if one does step back pretty far, many of the underlaying assumptions on which these discussions are based, are basically flawed, like our view of time.

While I don't personally have any stutus to be taken seriously on the issue, it is worth noting that Western and Eastern temporal assumptions are quite different.

The Western paradigm views objects as foundational, from atoms to individuals, with context as secondary. So our sense of time is the future is in front of the observer and the past behind, because we see ourselves as distinct entities moving through our world. Those aforementioned mobile organisms.

While the Eastern and Native American view is of the past in front and the future behind, as what is in front is seen and what is past is known, while what is behind is unseen and what is in the future is unknown.

Which accords with the fact we do see events after they happen, then the energy transitions to other events and observers. Which is a more contextual, process oriented view.

Consequently the future is not predetermined, as the act of determination can only occur as the present. The future is simply not fully computed. There is no dimension of time on which these events exist, like different places in the spatial dimensions.

The objects exist in relation to their context and the processes generating them.

One is the node. A finite entity.

Oneness is the network, the connectivity.

"Entangled particles."