"...there are no answers, only choices." -some philosopher

How (or why) is it we perceive ourselves as able to choose (as all lifeforms are), to expend effort, or conserve it instead?
To direct effort (energy) to some goal or plan? What's a man hunting some animal, tracking it and wearing it down, doing? Is there a method being used, or applied to his science of hunting prey? Sure, he's a scientist. Just like we all are.

P.S. This is a copy (more or less) of an OP from another forum, where it went up a tree.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

Looks like there might be a rabbit about to go down a hole.
(hint: take the blue one, keep the red one for later--but hey, it's your choice)

P.S. If you have to play any croquet, cheat (as much as possible). Seriously.

We choose to believe or accept both that any observation is something available, and that we are actually only using (a) previous, remembered change, to do this (to discern difference, or comparison--relativity); so in a sense our measurement is only mental and has no dimensionality, except as some arrangement, or order, of information (a pattern), in our head somewhere...?

Every living thing observes itself and its environment (a key part of staying alive). All animals can conserve their energy (some become sessile, like plants, with no discernible neural network), all plants are able to do this too.
And lifeforms can choose when to expend it, say to find food, or escape from danger.

Is choice, and the agency, or will it seems to imply, just an advantage that evolution gives lifeforms so they can do the above, because they have to? It's an illusory aspect of life and evolution, but it's also fundamental -to competition, selection, etc?

How (or why) is it we perceive ourselves as able to choose (as all lifeforms are), to expend effort, or conserve it instead

Not all lifeforms choose what they will do or where they will go. They are instinctive in nature not free willed.

According to one theory, humans also react on instinct, but then they make up a justification to persuade themselves that it was a good choice.

According to one theory, humans also react on instinct, but then they make up a justification to persuade themselves that it was a good choice.

They react on certain instincts but more often than not they use their knowledge and understanding to figure out what needs to be done.

How (or why) is it we perceive ourselves as able to choose (as all lifeforms are), to expend effort, or conserve it instead?

I would say this is because we
(1) have experience with pleasure and pain,
(2) distinguish between pleasure and pain, and
(3) seek pleasure and avoid pain.

Not all lifeforms choose what they will do or where they will go.You mean things like bacteria (with no motility): they just "hang around" somewhere, or get carried by some other lifeform, or by water, say? They are instinctive in nature not free willed.You might have to explain this. What do you mean with: "not free-willed"? All lifeforms are a translation of DNA. Instinct is "programmed" behaviour, which every living thing follows, it doesn't appear (or disappear) at some level of complexity: even a non-motile bacterium "behaves". It must behave "instinctively", no?

How (or why) is it we perceive ourselves as able to choose (as all lifeforms are), to expend effort, or conserve it instead?

I would say this is because we
(1) have experience with pleasure and pain,
(2) distinguish between pleasure and pain, and
(3) seek pleasure and avoid pain...."seeking pleasure", this presumably includes the pleasure of sating hunger and thirst?
So can we choose: when to look for these things because we experience pain (hunger and thirst)? Or there is no choice, because our pain or discomfort is inevitable?

More thoughts:
Without group knowledge there would be only individual transient (unstable) knowledge.
This extends to organisms that share any sort of resource, say bacteria that swap bits of genetic material -the group observes the (external) ´knowledge´ and selects some of it -this becomes group knowledge because it persists.

This models what humans do (or bees, or ants, or possibly every organism that "requires" knowledge --of itself and its orientation to the world and other organisms, and what that necessarily means).

..."seeking pleasure", this presumably includes the pleasure of sating hunger and thirst?
So can we choose: when to look for these things because we experience pain (hunger and thirst)? Or there is no choice, because our pain or discomfort is inevitable?

The notion of choice arises because there are usually many pleasures and pains present, and we then go about dealing with them in some order or other (and having gone about them in some order or other, this leads to new pleasures and pains).

When hear the word "choice" I automatically get a picture in my head of a forked road.

Choices are made in various ways some by process of elimination comparing the pros and cons of each possibility in any action we do or do not do. Some put more effort into their choices than others.

If I had to define the word "choice" I would say it is any decision that is made consciously.

"A decision made consciously". Does this imply that a conscious decision "appears" due to choice? Or a chooser sees alternate "possible" outcomes, and chooses the "best"? A lion might abandon a pursuit because it's only got so much stamina to chase after something, and can determine that what it's chasing has more ability to escape, than its requirement to catch the prey?
So it's to do with requirements and discrimination, or expectation (about the ability to pursue, or catch some prey), and choice is just an evolutionary thing that life "gets" as part of the package?

Why is everyone so sure that we have free will. How about some evidence ?

Why is everyone so sure that we have free will. How about some evidence ?

I just chose to quote your message.

I just chose to quote your message.

Can you prove it ?

Thermodynamically speaking, choice is deciding how much energy we will consume when we act upon the universe.

Example, I can walk up the stairs to an office on the tenth floor, or I can take an elevator.

Also I can choose to eat an apple or I can grab a cheeseburger at McDonald's. Same energy (calories), different chemical content. The Apple is easier to digest, its sugars more readily form ATP. The McDonald's in turn makes my ass fat...

Thermodynamically speaking, choice is deciding how much energy we will consume when we act upon the universe.

Example, I can walk up the stairs to an office on the tenth floor, or I can take an elevator.

Also I can choose to eat an apple or I can grab a cheeseburger at McDonald's. Same energy (calories), different chemical content. The Apple is easier to digest, its sugars more readily form ATP. The McDonald's in turn makes my ass fat...

You realize you are arguing in a circle ?

Can you prove it ?

No. But I did choose to write this reply.

So, what's evolving? Life "chooses" and evolution follows, because the survivors (who made the right choices) get to reproduce?

What's evolving in this thread, as different "agents", or agencies, choose to cut and paste from ideas that "occur" to them?

Choice is illusory and a big con. The fact is few are presented with choice as most are a product of their surroundings and also limited as to what they can due due to the limitations of their physical body or DNA. I choose to blend in with my surroundings by changing the colour of my skin alas i cannot!

My opinion is that real and not illusory choice can only be excersised when one consists of pure energy and is not constricted by a physical body. When the mind and energy become one then therein lies true choice. I rest my case!

Choice is illusory and a big con. The fact is few are presented with choice as most are a product of their surroundings and also limited as to what they can due due to the limitations of their physical body or DNA. I choose to blend in with my surroundings by changing the colour of my skin alas i cannot!

My opinion is that real and not illusory choice can only be excersised when one consists of pure energy and is not constricted by a physical body. When the mind and energy become one then therein lies true choice. I rest my case!

This is a good philosophical answer, and it is a philosophical question.
Why is it in human science?

Note added later.
I've just noticed that many of the human science topics are questions that would traditionally have been discussed under philosophy. Is it that a sub-species of philosophy has emerged. Or is it that the word philosophy and the prospect of discussing something with someone who will ride roughshod over your opinions, means that philosophy has to be disguised so that ordinary people can discuss it.
I think I've answered my own question. Other comments welcome.

Choice could be defined as an organisms ability to manage probability in an adaptive fashion. Or mabye not.

ok why did the rabbit beat and kill the bear ???

cause he was smarter than the bear and wore him out and they have multiple and tricked the bear and when the bear went for the rabbit the bear fell on a very large pointy stick

cause hes simply smarter than the other
people use their technique for survival or hunting

or sumtimes cause they can

I guess the rabbit was "smarter than the average bear"...?
...philosophy and the prospect of discussing something with someone who will ride roughshod over your opinions, means that philosophy has to be disguised...
Scientists sometimes like to believe that they are above or beyond philosophical problems, and employ only objective and empirical methods.

This is sophistry, no-one can consider anything at all, without philosophical concepts appearing on the horizon. Science is not devoid of meaning.

P.S. Science, the word, comes to English directly (i.e. not commuted in meaning), from a predecessor language (you may know which one). It means knowledge, or understanding. Philosophy, the word, from the same source, means "love of sophism". We all know what sophism is.

P.P.S. My version of the "debate" betwixt the two "fields" of human thought:

Scientists think philosophers think about things that aren't interesting. Philosophers think about why scientists think their science is "interesting"...

Perhaps it's the same field, or paddock, or swamp, or whatever.

Choice could be defined as an organism[']s ability to manage probability in an adaptive fashion. Or [maybe] not.OK, adaptive is easy enough to get a handle on: it's behaviour, that gives a possible advantage.
Manage, that's something that also implies agency and purpose. Been in a few mud-slingers about the topics of "agency" and (apparent) "purpose", before now.
Probability comes into it, no doubt (heh). Note: I made a choice about correcting a typo or two in someones post (heh heh).

(heh heh heh, 'cackle')

I thought choice was every beings right to decide.
If choice be the menu , Decision is the chilli roast ham.
Or choice is the options you have to make a decision.
Frud had a choice whether or not to correct a typo in someones post ,the choices were there but the decision was his.