Free will

Let's start from the very beginning....

You are born..
Your mind has been built a specific way from your genes and you are now just about ready to start acting.

Your senses receive input..you learn to communicate...you communicate.

Is is not true that everything you do is a roundabout effect of some cause the outside world has had on you, originally or recently. Is your life, and much as you'd like to think not, completely out of your control, and just a lived out reaction after reaction. Think about the way the mind works. Putting in input and observing the computation to the fullest extent, the brain will respond in a certain way. If we cannot control our input, original and most other, do we really control nothing?


Which leads to the further question, what really are "we"?

What you've written reminds me of the Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. He's a determinist, but believes in Freedom.
He writes that we are all made of one substance, that being god or nature, and we are determined in a causal sense. We're determined by the actions of those before us and those around us. We can, however, become self-determined in a sense by reflecting on our emotions and becoming more aware of the causes that determine us; we can act, not react. That, however, is also determined.

It's a very interesting topic. I'm not completely sure of the question, though. Could you phrase it differently?

If you mean the last question I posted then allow me to rephrase:

What exactly our "we" on a personal basis as we consider ourselves? What am "I" looking at this computer right now, and what are "you" doing the same?

This consciousness, this awareness is beyond my personal comprehension and I do not expect an answer here from anyone (please no one tell me about souls, I firmly do not believe in them.)

I've heard it once said that our consciousness is the communication between the two hemispheres which may or may not be true but that leads to an interesting point related to my original questions, could our consciousness just be an information transfer in some special form that is in the illusion of control of that transfer?