Think of the mountain goat. His landmarks and pathways are set out before him in the landscape. He has but to notice, and to react. The salt-lick in the valley below calls to him.
He has choices of lesser or greater significance: where to put his feet; whether to rest for the night where perhaps there are some grazable greens peeking up through the Spring thaw; or to continue downward and take his chances; whether to lead or to follow the other goats.
These choices may indeed have a significant impact, just as our choice to go to college or to work may affect our lives greatly – but in either case we are responding to landmarks and moving down pathways that either nature or culture have set out before us.
We make the choices we desire, but there is a vast difference between choosing one of several inherited landmarks, or choosing to move off the beaten pathway, where there are no familiar landmarks to guide us.
In a grocery store we can choose from twenty-seven different breakfast cereals, or eighty-one varieties of beer, but we are no more free than the mountain goat. His landmarks are set out before him by nature; ours by business men.
Free will exists only when we have no familiar landmarks or pathways to lead us, and we must figure it out from scratch.
Free will comes into play when things fall apart, when we are in a crisis. One of the advantages of being human is that we can imagine a crisis before it happens.
You are reading about qualia, (hopefully before the climate crisis comes to full speed, or your marriage falls apart, or you lose your job, or your children hate you, or all spiritual hope disappeares), and you may therefore imagine a way out. The mountain goat can’t do that. He can’t imagine getting separated from the herd.