No, those are not the only two possibilities. That’s a bizarre dichotomy.
You haven’t probed anything.
If not our capacity, then who’s capacity? If not our volition, then who’s volition?
Why use the word “our” if it is not our?
Sure. Positive nouns will always be better than pejorative ones, by definition.
Take any story from the Bible. It either occurred as the Bible [the word of God] described it or it did not. And mere mortals have either interpreted it in sync with the will of God or they have not. Now, until a God, the God makes the decision to manifest Himself and settle it once and for all, mere mortals inhabiting very, very different historical and cultural contexts, and having lived very, very different individual lives, are going to interpret the Bible in any number of conflicting ways.
That’s just the way it is, right? Not counting the objectivists who insist that only their own interpretations actually count.
But…
No, what I’ve suggested is that any probe that I have ever come across falls far short of demonstrating definitively either what the Bible stories mean or whether conflicting arguments regarding them are within the reach of autonomous human beings.
Let’s try this: Why don’t you demonstrate to me what a real probe would encompass in that regard. Yours for example.
Huh?
Until the human species here on Earth knows definitively whether its capacity to use any words at all comes attached to the capacity to have freely chosen other words instead, all any of us can do is to take that intellectual/philosophical leap to one set of assumptions or the other.
Right?
Or, if not, where is the link to the argument linked to the demonstration that does settle it once and for all.
There are interpretations of various qualities. It’s not a case of a definitive interpretation versus all other interpretations of equal merit. It’s not Word of God versus infinite blather.
But you insist on making it black and white.
This sums up the extent of your probing - repeating this mantra no matter what anyone says.
Again, the same sort of dichotomy - one definitive answer or everyone is leaping to assumptions.
You have thrown away all the “tools of philosophy”, so now you can’t evaluate anything and therefore nobody can demonstrate anything to you.
Therefore a return to the proper use of language is not about sounding ‘positive’ or implying great rewards,. nor is it arbitrary.
Proper use of words means returning them to their original utility: mediating connectors between mind and the body, physical tangible, reality; returning words, as much as possible, to their original role as connectors between noumena (abstractions) and phenomena (apparent).
Corrupting, misusing and abusing language can only hide a secret motive - this is the only occult - which is not to reveal but to selectively or completely conceal; not to clarify but to obscure.
You can eliminate the gap you speak of (the gap between what one thinks is true and what is really true) purely by coincidence. No thinking required. Just throw a dice and if you’re lucky enough you may discover what is true. That’s why Plato said that knowledge is justified true belief not merely true belief.
The idea that there has always been a gap between what we think and what is and that it will always be there is simply unbelievable; in the general sense, of course.
This just mimics our discussion of Communism. There are interpretations of various quality regarding that too. And the manner in which objectivists of you ilk differentiate meritorious assessments from mere blather, is to insist that there are two kinds of people in the world:
1] one of us [who grasp what Communism really is]
2] one of them [who don’t]
No, that is what the objectivists do. I’m the one suggesting that interpretations in the is/ought world are derived existentially such that a definitive interpretation does not appear able to be pinned down.
You know, assuming any of us at all have any capacity at all to do anything at all of our own free will.
That encompasses your rendition of a sophisticated probe?!
In other words, bitching about me again.
I don’t throw away the tools of philosophy. I suggest only that, in a universe in which we do have some measure of free will, they are of limited use value and exchange value in regard to assessing particular human behaviors as [morally] either necessarily good or bad.
The stereotype of "objectivist. Again.
It remains black and white so long as you don’t bring out the shades of grey. And you don’t. You don’t go into any detail.
To explain why discussions with you don’t go anywhere, one has to say what it is that you are doing.
Then you are not using them.
They have value to other people.
Again, someone either believes that their own assessment of Communism or stories from the Bible reflects the most rational frame of mind, or they don’t. That’s just a fact.
Instead…
If noting one’s assessment of Communism as the embodiment of “I” being an existential contraption rooted in the manner in which I construe dasein in my signature threads isn’t bursting at the seams with the potential for ambiguity, confusion and uncertainty…what argument is?
And, in my view, one will never go into enough detail with objectivists of you ilk until they share your own details.
In other words, if I really were using them, I would think like you do. I get that part, but: when are you going to get it too?
Then we are back to the components of my own moral philosophy in assessing those values.
So it’s a “universal truth”. Good to know.
Words and sentences have the potential for ambiguity, confusion and uncertainty.
You’re just stating a trivial observation.
Where is the meat?
You don’t go into any detail. 
I don’t see you using them at all. And I’m not the only one who has noticed that.
You assessed it and they have no or limited value to you. Others have assessed it and they do have value to them.
It can end there. There is no reason for you to be here insisting that they have no or limited value to anyone.
Two things.
1] Around and around we go. I suggest that, until either one of us comes upon something new in the other’s argument, we just move on. Bottom line: If I appear to you as obtuse as you appear to me, we are entirely wasting each other’s time.
2] this is a thread devoted to grappling with determinism. Of which our own exchange of late [compelled or not] barely touches on.
Practically everyone has stopped talking to you and now you are relegated to posting quotes from books and articles and reacting to them.
If that’s what you want, then add me to the list.
Nope, nothing new here.
I’m glad that’s over. 
The idea that life’s determined is, at least at the highest levels of mind power, a choice of God. If God needs to create a certain, envisioned future, he can pour out all of his power to make the future that way. But, if all of his goals are achieved, then God may go for unnatural, warped futures, ones that bend the laws, or make miracles in random forms possible. And then, with many folks of a lesser soul radiance, the devil may completely take over, and make most events in the world bad.
There are philosophical systems aimed however at the liberation of the will that, if followed to their ultimate destiny, can shatter the crystal glass, and give us free will potions and elixirs at every corner.
Well, it could be if you’d let it. Over and again you reach that point with me when you swear off ever responding again. I’m just not worth it. But now, on another thread, you back off again. As long as I commit to bullshit in my posts, you are going to call me on it.
Of course what makes it bullshit is that doesn’t overlap precisely with your own.
I lose more and more respect for your intelligence with each passing post. And I can only now assume that you are but one more objectivist I have managed to reduce down to the level of the retort. To huffing and puffing about me.
Look, I’m sorry, but I grow weary of shooting fish in a barrel. And since the days of yahoo groups and ephilosopher and ponderer’s guild are long gone on the internet, I can only move on to those I at least feel challenged by.
And, of late, you ain’t one of them. 
Not that this isn’t but one more existential contraption in turn.
And how do we know this? Because you believe it. And how do you go about demonstrating to us that this God does in fact exists? Well, you don’t.
Let alone offer us a substantive argument regarding how God and determinism function for all practical purposes in the lives that we live.
You take your spiritual leap of faith to a frame of mind that comforts and consoles you. This thread merely speculates on whether or not nature compelled you to do so. Thus bringing into focus the relationship between God, determinism, nature, the human brain, the human mind and “I”.
Still, there’s what you believe about this relationship “in your head”. And, if we do have some measure of autonomy, the sophistication of your argument in regard to that which is of most interest to me: human interactions given the existential interaction of identity, value judgments and political power.
Care to go there? If so, and we do have some measure of free will, you choose the context.
Free Will Is An Illusion, But Freedom Isn’t
Ching-Hung Woo says freedom is compatible with choices being determined.
Right, another so-called example of arguing that a drug addict has no free will, but is still the embodiment of freedom. Even though in viewing his addiction as a part of himself, this reflects the fact that in a wholly determined universe he lacked the free will not to.
Then we’re back to the aliens in that part of the universe where free will prevails, observing a drug addict compelled by nature to tell the court his addiction is not a part of the “real me” and the jury in turn being compelled by the laws of matter to either believe that this is true or not. Finally, the judge being compelled by her brain matter to pronounce the only sentence she is able to if the man is found as he was ever able to be found. In this case guilty.
And if his addiction was caused by a prescribed medication from his doctor, what here is not destined to unfold given the assumptions that the hard-determinist are themselves compelled to believe?
We have to envision a system where choices can be selected that were invisible to us immediately but, with penetration, can explode into view. If we go by the physical and experimental, the testable, then we are in bondage to laws, like gravity, or brains over souls, and so forth. True liberation can only be found in the elusive, in the unknown regions. We can’t be afraid of the darkness, even if that’s where our leap of faith leads. Because 1 thing is clear if we don;t conquer the darkness - we will fail.