My connection between randomness and free will is that I think free will wouldn't be possible in a deterministic system since everything happens as a consequence of previous events rather than as a consequence decision making.
I think that in the two branch universes above it is still random on which side the heads or tails would fall therefore it still seems random together or forked.
I don't understand the distinction between "consequence of previous events" and "consequence of decision making". If your decisions aren't a consequence of previous events, then they are just meaningless randomness.
Your decisions should ideally be as correlated as possible with your values and with the information you have. The more random your actions, the less likely they are to result in anything desirable.
And randomness is very distinct from the old concept of free will. Randomness is not your will. You have no control over it. Rather it controls you.
I was trying to reconcile the fact that in a deterministic universe there could be life with free will, but I am going full circle now and am starting to think that everything is really random, if not I don't see how there could be free will in a deterministic universe.
If mathematicians measure randomness with probability, then there must be some things that have a 100% occurrence probability (in the current universe above atomic levels I presume), which now I see as special cases of randomness rather than opposites to randomness, and these lead us to think that there is determinism.
I think we may have this cognitive bias (deterministic views of reality) because it is extremely helpful to use these 100% probability occurrence things to model the universe rationally, learn, and to predict the future, but it is not the whole story or at least a complete description of reality.
What do you think?
EDIT 1: Thank you all for the comments below. I recognize I am naive in this topic.
Although I am not convinced yet, I think my possible argumentative error is:
P1: I observe free will in the behavior of living things.
P2: Deterministic physical mechanical processes don't permit free will.
C: Therefore physics must include random processes.
I think I only see a solution of free will in randomness, but maybe there are other solutions ( I will read the Free Will Sequence here on LW!)
EDIT 2: After reading some articles of the Free Will Sequence I realize the problem of investing energy around free will questions if free will is just a mistake in our thinking process.
It is something like why ask about time travel if time doesn't exist? or, why explore the mechanics of randomness vs determinism if randomness doesn't exist and thus the dichotomy "randomness vs determinism" doesn't exist in the first place?