There's a difference between randomness and things not being determined, which is not the case of events where choice is involved: no matter how uncertain the inputs and outputs, we do know they are linked in a chain of causes and effects.Socrateaze wrote:
I simply think the randomness of choice makes it strange enough to enjoy unconventional considerations as to why it is so and what a choice is. It is a mystery, which begs more from us than for the extraordinary to be pinned down like a stick figure with mundane needles. I think none of the explanations, scientific or biological do justice to the mystery of thought and by that I do not say I don't like science - I simply think we have a lot more to learn before we can address this question. Though, I'm not asking for a scientific explanation here; I'm not asking anyone to make a new breakthrough. I cannot help, but to wonder with how many other undiscovered things a choice relates with.
Secondly, there's a difference between the open possibilites of choices and considering things mysterious and without explanation. I don't see choice having such an esoteric dimension. We often have a fair idea of what motivated a human act and what possible consequences were on the table before deciding an action. We can infer explanations from the most relevant factors. Surely we can't never know exactly all that triggered a choice, because faced with the same conditions, at least apparently, people can choose differently. But as being a complete mystery, that's a long shot.
Thought, the mind itself, not a complete mystery either. Since it was proposed not to invoke science, I'll argue from a purely philosophical perspective, which does not exclude experience. We know that our minds are embodied, that each mind belongs to each one of us, that we own our thoughts and that our consciousness carries with it the responsability of our actions. We know that our mind processes information from our senses, enables experience and define its nature. We know that we make representations of the world and that we can store them and recreate them. And we know that we can embed representations into others to structure our experience. It seems we know an awful lot about the mind, enough to locate our choices between a frame of possibilities that can be determined at some level.