Dear Rog,
I found your 24/8 7:42 -0400 definition of 'free will' helpful:
'free will is the experience of action that is in alignment with one's
definition of one's self'.
I would slightly rephrase it into:
'free will is the experience of correspondence between one's behavior and
one's self-image'.
I reserve the term 'action' for 'motivated behavior'. Motivation is -I
think- not essential to experience free will, but I am not sure about that.
What do you think?
I am not sure either if one can 'define' one's self, either in the sense of
'describing' its limits or in the sense of 'prescribing/creating' it.
What I wrote 21/8 23:09 +0200 about the practical value of the 'idea of free
will' at the social level, the intellectual level and beyond can than be
rephrased as statements about the practical value of the idea that something
called 'self' is inherently 'free' from influences from 'others'/'other
things'. That idea is indeed the real platypus.
The experience of correspondence between behavior and self is not a platypus
any more. Under the MoQ it can be part of social patterns of values (in the
case of unmotivated behavior) and of intellectual patterns of values (in the
case of motivated behavior, i.e. action) however. In the context of social
patterns of values a 'self-image' is experienced as roles and habits. The
correspondence between behavior and that 'self-image' is experienced as
striving for status (by doing the socially 'moral' thing, the thing that
fits one's role and habits). In the context of social patterns of values a
'self-image' is experienced as a representation of the how and why of one's
behavior. The correspondence between behavior and that 'self-image' is
experienced as 'being true to one's essence, to that what one identifies
with'.
You also wrote:
'free will ... is applied when we sense control/influence of an action'.
'Control' and 'influence' seem to me a bit risky terms however. They seem to
suppose 'causation' instead of its MoQ substitute 'valuing'.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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