science

You didn't pick your desire to be contrarian and you couldn't choose not to be.

Rewinding a video is a bad example in two ways: it does not rewind the universe to the exact same state it was before and secondly, the video still plays out exactly the same every single time - just like I said.

My argument was that you could not have done otherwise. I never claimed that choices aren't being made. They are - based on things that are outside of your control. You don't author them. In fact the whole concept of "I" is just another side of the same coin. There is no "self" sitting somewhere there behind one's face, looking out into the world and authoring decisions. It's all brain chemistry, brain is made of matter and matter obeys the laws of physics. There isn't anything separate that's standing outside of that, free from the influences of cause and effect.

It feels like freedom because the action aligns with your desires. You do X because you want to do X or you do Y because you don't want what follows if you don't do Y. To claim you could do something you don't want to or don't have to is an impossible claim. You can punch a wall and hurt your hand to try and make a point but that's still an action motivated by wanting.