Sorry for the length of this question, but could anyone suggest reading material for me that might help me learn about the type of 'freedom' I'm wondering about in the following example:
If a friend asks me to pick any color, I am free to choose whichever color I would like. It seems as free as a choice can possibly be. And yet, the process of choosing the color seems to take place without conscious involvement on my part. Well, I'm clearly involved but the name/image of a color simply emerges into my consciousness. I don't actually choose which color will come to mind, since any deliberation between colors on my part is only possible after the colors have simply popped into my head. So, if orange comes to mind, I might tell my friend "I pick orange". But then I might decide that, since orange is my favorite color, I was probably biased towards picking it, so I decide to choose a different color to express my 'freedom to choose'. But again, whichever color comes to mind as a replacement for orange just...
I'd flag the word "ultimately" in your sentence "But this does seem to give weight to the notion that even conscious deliberation is not ultimately free." The search for "ultimate freedom," like the search for " ultimate purpose ," is doomed to fail, but only because the search itself is incoherent and hence ill-conceived. As you point out, ultimate freedom would require completing an infinite regress there's no reason to think we could complete. In that case, there's good reason to doubt that "ultimacy" is essential to the concept of freedom we ordinarily use and view as important especially in moral contexts. You summed it up nicely: "So you're free, but you don't have the impossibly infinite consciousnesses necessary to be ultimately free, right?" Right. Or at least the impossibility of ultimate freedom doesn't cast doubt on the possibility of freedom, just as the impossibility of an ultimate prime number doesn't cast doubt on the possibility of prime numbers. Let me recommend (again) ...
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