I think, Ed, that there is some truth in what you say, but only some, and that we are not as mechanistic as you suggest, but do have a very considerable measure of genuine free will. Sure there are influencing factors which move us in various directions and set up our probable reactions, so that's part of it. We are autonomous nevertheless...to the extent that our own nature is willing to be autonomous. Some people are far more robot-like (and thus predictable) in their behaviour than others...suggesting that they have less ability to use their own free will and think for themselves.

It's well-known that a stupider person tends just to "react", whereas a wiser person tends to think things over and often override an instinctive reaction for ethical or logical reasons that would not even occur to a merely instinctive creature.

So we're a mixture of both the reactive and the creative. We can rewrite the script at any time.