The "I Will" of Free Will

[Dimmesdale]

Something that runs beneath the radar of philosophers debating the existence or non-existence of free will, is the fact that the will itself has less to do with the mind (that is, the intellect) and far more to do with the inherent self, or "I-amness" that sits within the person, and is the thought-free influencer which moves the will, causing it to act.

In other words, mind can only inform choices. It cannot make them for the self. Only the self alone can do that. The mind is like a fallow field, that only allows the seed to fructify into the plant once it is sown. The efficient cause of the plant growing is the activity of the seed, which births the whole plant in utero.

This is significant because it shows that the arguments for and against free will are misapplied. They refer to mind-stuff, which deals solely in the realm of logical, determinative chains. When it comes to the will itself, we find in it Anxiety, Uncertainty, Variability. We see nothing of mind there, for the mind in and of itself IS certain; it has the very certainty of logic on its side. Will, as opposite to mind, is the very definition of unpredictability, impetuosity, and passionate irrationality. We see that human beings act in ways we cannot gauge by our present concepts. I would wager that if we had all the information of the universe available to us, we still could not predict with certainty all the motions of Will since it is a category error to lump the two together. The will does not run on information at all.

[Dimmesdale]

[Replying to Dimmesdale in post #1]

One can look at it this way as well. Just as God, or Existence, or Reality Itself does not have any "reason" for being (at least, not as a means of some external end, but the be-all and end-all of itself for its own sake), in the same way one can say one's own Self or Will or "Heart" has no reason for being. If that is the case, there is "no reason" for acting one way or another. There is no causality involved, for causality would assume that the explanation for how "I" act must be outside of myself. And so one immediately runs into the deterministic cul-de-sac. If you just leave it as it is, alone, you discover that the sheer Act of existence can be the only explanatory mechanism for "Being" - and that in fact the two are identical. All else is strictly determinative, and therefore limiting. Into some cast or shape. Life, on the other hand, only wants itself. Its own light of being. And so, it bends back upon itself. Life, in other words, just wants, Life! Just so the Will bends back upon itself. Not necessarily in an Ego-centered way, but in terms of a Principle of Singularity where Life, or Power, or "Life-Force" is one unifying essence behind all things. Everyone, from the seeker after rational truth, to the lover, to the criminal, to the madman, all hanker for some exaltation of Life. It is only that their cognition is cast into some shape by the mind. The Will, however, remains oddly untouched. Aloof. Alone. Singular.