that does not mean necessarily that the 'future' has already happened and we just can't see it.
No, it doesn't. However...
No one here is going to argue that each "choice" we make is perfectly "free" - that is, everyone must acknowledge that each "choice" is to some extent influenced by our circumstances. To use a blatantly obvious example, today and every day, I will make the choice not to steal food. My choice is influenced by the fact that I am not hungry. Either my meals are provided free of charge or I can afford to pay for them. If I was starving and destitute, the choice between theft and death becomes gradually less and less free until I must choose: either I steal to avoid starvation or I die.
I think it's easy to see the lack of volition when humans are reduced to catering to our animal needs - to sleep, to eat, etc. Another example: if circumstances force me to go without a single hour of sleep for two weeks, the next time I sleep after that may not so much involve a conscious choice to sleep, as my body indulging a physical need out of pure necessity.
It's more confusing when we act in response to higher-level needs. For instance, in another thread, Ax and Prim noted that the desire for human security (Ax) and the freedom to be yourself and yet not alone (Prim) were powerful motivating instincts. Let's assume that these two needs are very, very strong in hypothetical human A. A craves the comfort of a relationship, the human give-and-take of sharing her life with another person, the security of being cared for and the growth inherent in caring for someone else. Has A made the volitional choice to feel this way? Or is it simply a function of all the experiences that A has had to that point? Put bluntly, was it inevitable that A, on June 15, 2006, would feel this way about relationships, based on all of A's experiences from birth to 6/15/2006? And, if B, a partner who is physically, emotionally, and sexually compatible with A, appears on the horizon today and expresses his or her interest in A - to what extent is A's choice to be with B free and unfettered? Put differently, A certainly can respond "Yes" or "No" to B's expression of interest in her. But is it inevitable, based on all her experiences up to 6/15/2006, everything that has gone into A's current views on relationships, that A will say "yes" to a relationship with B?
I think it's an open question. I do NOT think that A makes a truly "real choice"
solely because in theory, she could say yes or no to B without the world ending, the police arresting her, or an earthquake resulting. The choice that A is to make could well be lurking on the other side of the door all along, even if she does not yet know it is there.
I also think it's a moot point. As Ax states, "it doesn't matter, because we can't perceive the universe that way." Whether or not the choice that A will make exists, is known to others (e.g. God), and will ultimately be an inevitable consequence of A's life experiences, is irrelevant from A's standpoint at the moment she is confronted with the possibility of the relationship and has to say "Yes" or "No". SHE may not yet know the choice that her life experiences may inexorably lead her to make. Whether or not there is anything on the other side of that door the moment before A opens her mouth to answer is completely irrelevant except for one thing.
Humans are supremely egotistical. We want for there not to be anything on the other side of that door until A makes her CHOICE. Prim puts it well - we want to create the very shape of space time. It seems wrong and insulting if we are merely playing our part, puppets controlled by a supreme puppetmaster (or simply by "fate", for the secular among us.) We want to be more important than that. Masters of our fate, captains of our destiny, determiners (in part) of how time itself is to unfold. Perhaps we are - and if so, what an awesome responsibility! But I do not think we are simply by virtue of the fact that we crave that, because it makes our lives feel more real and more meaningful.
