Tangent but I was thinking about it last night lol

The thing that interests me right now is the isolation of the consciousness from outside causes. You could argue that there is no barrier such that outside stimuli influence the brain and the chemicals it creates and thus how we choose. But it's this idea of consideration, of thinking. A pause to consider pathways. We can be influenced but does this ever determine the outcome? Does a time of deliberation within the mind ever create a break in causality, and thus free will? Or is deliberation equally something with a direct cause?

Like have you ever thought of something and been set on a certain understanding, thought about it, and a new understanding upends your perspective? Was that determined to happen? What was the influence upon this sudden intuition? Could it be that this change is not from a causal chain but emergent from the mind?

What's been on my mind is energy. We can imagine possibility. How does the mind have this creativity if it is set in stone? Is the ability to imagine myself in a lego castle determined? Is it possible to imagine something we have not perceived? If a mind creates an alien species like in Peter Watts Blindsight, did he achieve this from causes influencing him or was it the potential of his brain to create new ideas? Even if his creature is made of things he has seen, how can this lead to him combining patterns, thoughts, and ideas into something that is not real? Is there a break from one thing to another such that free will exists and that we choose our path through consideration of possibilities that do not yet exist but are imagined?

Random idea: in the show Dark (all the spoilers) >!the loop is destroyed through a loophole where time is completely stopped, and so cause and effect is effectively stopped. A break. Does time exist within the mind, and therefore does cause and effect exist there?!<