Thoughts on Free Will
So what exactly is free-will? At first, it seems like it can be quickly associated with the ability to freely reason and conclude choices. However theres alot more going on in the picture. Deeper introspection reveals a host of factors which would influence what you would call the ‘choice’ made by the agent. The fact is, when our actual choices are examined, it seems that the vast majority are made without appeal to conscious reasoning. Driven by untold forces. If the will is essentially that aspect of being which provides causation of motility then therein lies a host of complex phenomenon. The will it then seems is this facet of our being which is marked by an unknowable amount of diverse forces, not to mention, if we are a created being then there must be a cause of motility which is beyond ourselves by its very nature… ha.
Anyway, it seems to me that even in the face of all these complex factors there still arises a singularity of self. Even though we may be very complex beings with untolds levels and facets in the end, the self projected to the eye of consciousness is inherently a unitive self. Thus it is right to classify a single phenomenon as the ‘will’ even when it is seemingly quite diverse. Thus the will is not something separateable from the self in essence, Freud was not right so to speak. The actions of the person cannot rightfully be separated from their causal origins within the person. There is only one self involved, for now.
What is meant by ‘free’ will is found more clearly when the singular ‘will’ is viewed in this light. The will can only be free if it is a multifaceted phenomenon. If the will were soley the product of consious reasoning then it would not be free, it would be under the tyranny of reason. However given the untold host of factors in play whenever the agent makes a choice, it is right to call the will free insofar as it is impossible to pin down what some of the factors may be. Infact if the person is truly the creation of a transcendent being, then this level of motility causation would infact introduce the necessary element of total freedom from any given phenomenon of the self.
Anyway.. just some thoughts