The upshot, I would suggest, is that we consider ourselves rational beings. That's because we forget that Great Library in the Sky, wherein is catalogued all those things a guy does to win and keep a woman. I introduce this hypothetical guy, this rational being, to that library, occupying a full city block, comparable to Powell's Book Store in Portland, OR, and wait patiently on the curb, smoking my cigarette, while he has a quick look. Meanwhile he is all the while wondering "How can a library be 10 stories tall?". When he comes out wide-eyed I say "Now, tell me about the Universe, Mr. Rational."
Living things turn this on its head.
Yes, they do.
But [the future] is not entirely unpredictable ... If you think about your personal life and what it means to have free will, I believe you will say you have the ability to make choices. But what does this mean? For me it means analyzing the current situation in terms of things that are possible to do and the anticipated consequences.
I'm suggesting that more than rational analysis goes into the process. Many "life decisions" (if you will) are based upon anything but perfect information. I have discovered, though, that there is a still, small voice within that sometimes says to me "It would probably be better if you did not do this." When I was younger, sometimes I would and sometimes I wouldn't. If I ignored this small voice (a "gut feeling" really), I would often or always regret having taken the warned against action. I don't understand it, to say the least, but I'm clear that it has nothing to do with rationality.
... [T]he list of anticipated consequences is also infinite and unknowable. When you feel yourself engaging in free will you are feeling yourself solving an unsolvable problem, predicting the future.
It's possible that you may instead be creating the future.
Of course you are, but you don't have anything approaching perfect knowledge of what you are creating. It is the attempt to know that constitutes free will.
As per other posts, some of them mine, I agree that rationality is at best, and editing function rather than a generative function of the mind. I like the resonance metaphore. I wish I knew how to express it better, but it seems to me that the unconscious processes that roil around while we consider a difficult problem are seeking a stable point of resonance. Sometimes talking about a problem, if only to ourselves, allows something to gel. Other times, sleeping on a problem helps. Only occasionally are deep problems solved by writing down all the possibilities and subjecting them to a logical analysis. (Oddly enough, that's the process that Darwin used in deciding to get married. People are full of contradictions.)