Considering Free Will: Metaphysical Interlude

  We comprehend the will objectively as a set of decision-making parameters in an entity which seeks some optimization of its action in a given environment.  We understand that the freedom of such a will is understood to be the degree which it is allowed to act according to its optimal potential, whether individually alone or in settings of groups of its own kind. We understand that environments of any kind sustain a degree of turbulence which offers resistance to the ideal form of the entity's optimal functioning, and we allow this to be called a "natural" pressure, even though it may have decidedly artificial aspects within the ecologies of some higher life forms.  This all is truest in the cases of sentient and intelligent life.  

  That higher cognition may seek to examine and optimize its own functioning as an epitomal form of its regular optimization protocols for the general processes of the life in which it functions is understood to be a case where a process recursively adjusts, which is to say "self-governs", in the sense which is mathematically expressible, and has been studied in many forms in sciences of mathematics and cybernetics.

  All these formal patterns of function in which we see conscious will exercising its prerogatives are distinguished from the subjective features of these phenomena, and we've looked particularly at the human mind because it is the ultimate concrete example which is ready to hand, practical for our consideration, and it has a set of conditions with which we are directly familiar.  In this other axis of our examination, the more "phenomenological" one (as opposed to the mathematical model of interacting entities), we've seen that there is a very "non-trivial" distinction between aspects of what we call the phenomenon of free will.

  First, there is the question of the resolution of the consciousness in its scope, scale, precision, perseverance, and other attributes of processing information.  It must overcome cognitive dissonance as a normal part of its procedure. It needs to determine not only how much of this to conduct in conditions where time and circumstance may be a factor, but it may even need to determine if it really needs to determine such things.  It can develop a metacognitive grasp of itself as a process, and this may have varying forms of manifestation, from seeking the answer to a practical question, seeking understanding of more fundamental or otherwise more underlying features of the issues involved in such questions, and in varied iterations of form which can go up to and beyond the questions of the metaphysical logic which underpins the articulation of any psychocybernetic theory.

  All of this looks dualistic in nature, in that it may be theoretically modeled into a mathematically described form, or else it may be understood as the experience of the events as decided by the being "in real time". It would seem that there is a paradox here which is maybe more than just a little analogous to the famous "uncertainty principle" of quantum mechanics as well as to the theoretical work in metalogic which is articulated in proof theory, especially the "incompleteness theorem". Here the principle to be stated is that the conscious mind which is engaged in a process of decision-making does not simultaneously produce an objective description of its own process. The object of any theoretical work in the mind is always a step removed from the agency and process of its actions in that mind while so doing.  There is always a "third mind" which is the object of such analysis, modeling, speculation, theory, etc.  It is produced in the mind of the thinker as an analog for any processes it studies whether as examined in its own private mental experience or else as garnered from the objective data concerning that of "other minds".

  The "territory" will never identify smoothly with the "map". The mind cannot actually study itself, but only a mentally constructed simulacrum of itself.  But what it can do is examine itself at a resolution which is different than it was at a time prior to the decision to do this.  It can also examine the question of what criteria must or may exist for deciding with increased resolution whether or not resolution should or can be increased, and in what ways, etc.

  We know that this process occurs within a feedback loop that is easier to picture and understand when it has to do with concrete physical circumstances in which the mind must decide to direct the actions of its corresponding body. We can even see how within the frameworks of various paradigms that the mind is also in a similar way navigating the time and space of its collections of ideas and experiences within itself so as to direct their coherent interrelationships toward a more optimal state. All of that can be expressed as functions of some distinct and easily observable state of affairs "in the objective world" which can be mathematically described as the sequencing and arrangement of physical entities and forces in time and space.

  But what cannot be captured in this way is the peculiar feature which is boasted by subjectivity as an essential aspect of the content of consciousness, a feature which does not reduce to any description of such states of affairs "in the objective world". These are called in philosophy of mind "qualia". The "blueness of blue" for example, will never "look like" the frequency of light correlated with it, nor is it accurate to say that the frequency of light appears blue to us.  When our eyes are contacted by light which is at a certain frequency, it happens also to be the case, according to our best evidence, that we simultaneously see the color we call "blue".  What matters here is that there is a quality which blue has, its "blueness" which does not at all call to our mind some number corresponding to the frequency of light waves!

  It wouldn't matter to us at all, for the sake of our experience and its content, what actually happened "in the objective world" in order for this color blue to "appear blue as it does".  Those are independently understood features, and one does not reduce to the other.  This feature is parallel to the way that a mind cannot raise the resolution of its cognitive processes "in real time" so as to include  the fact that is has raised the resolution of its cognitive processes, so as to do so in such a way that the resolution of its cognitive process "in theory" is adequate to describe the change in its cognitive process "in fact".  It can presume its theory is adequate to describe that change, but it cannot test that change as part of a demonstration of that theory if that change is itself the process of applying that theory to the fact of its own process of being applied. If it attempts to do so, it will have to construct an intermediate step so as to acquire "objectivizing distance" from itself sufficient for that effort at enhancing the resolution of its own understanding of itself.  That process will not be the same as the mechanics of the application of the theory of its self-understanding of the event, this event which now includes that process, because that process was in this aspect part of the observer and not the observed, and also because that process is not fixed. The paradox of observer/observed is already recognized, what is special here is that this particular part of the process which applies a theory of itself to itself must be adaptable to novel information. And truly novel information cannot be predicted by any theory, nor can adjustments to it be made perfectly precisely beforehand (though such precision is statistically approachable over an objectivized distance of space and time from the phenomenal event which is the point of origin of a theoretical study). This part of the being which is the "pure observer" cannot observe itself directly.

Therefore this "third mind" principle which I say underlies all proper analysis of a mind's cognitive self-governance reflects three forms of the impossiblity of total self-observance of a mind: empirical (data is not the observer), logical (the nature of the process seeks novelty to explain), and ontological (the being is in essence not what it observes).

  Those are my precepts for grounding some of what I say which will follow, which would otherwise sound rather dogmatic without that basis.

  The processes of choice which are freely optimized will not be understood in their ideal states, even abstractly, in a way that is as precise on the scale of consciousness in which they are manifested as they can be on a scale which is "dimensionally higher" than it.  These ideal states yet do exist as true potentials, or else theories of events as occurring within norms which are constrained by extremes which parameterize them would be impossible to conceive.  But we are conceiving those potentials. So these extreme parameters exist.  But the only way they could be conceived in absolute form as concrete models of a comprehensively descriptive theory about them would be if they were understood in a mind which was qualitatively higher in scale in its capacity to evaluate other minds so that the qualia within a mind were not "subjectively private" in a way which made them unobservable to this other, higher-dimensional mind.  In this way it can be stated rather analytically that true empathic experience is enabled only by a higher-dimensional manifold which connects n-dimensional minds through an (n+q)-dimensional space, and this is evidence in and of itself of the concrete and actual existence of higher-dimensional minds.

  This also demonstrates how it is to be understood that such minds are prior in existence to lower-dimensional minds, that minds do not emerge from bodies or "objectively constructed entities" (which are constructed in minds anyway), and that the foundation of reality is a mind of a dimension of a transfinite degree raised to its own power. But on our level of existence it is clear that these "higher realities" are obscured for certain reasons which will become a more detailed part of this discussion later on.  The point is that these higher dimensions of mind are the foundation of our dimensions of mind, and are not a fantasy constructed by fat-in-a-skull substances that are "nothing more" than a bunch of atoms bonded together in a particular way. To avoid apparent ad hominem, I will not go so far as to criticize the 'alternative views' on this.  There is no space for that here in any event, and I've indicated my main objections to them in my videos on Gnostic metaphysics on my youtube channel "The Gnostic Truth".

  The nature of qualia are that they are individuated foci of the conscious experience modalities of higher dimensional minds which, if those minds were to be "compressed" into our lower-dimensional form, would seem like one mind distributed over many individuals, in different ways, at different times, with different peculiarities of vantage manifesting partly as different "bodily forms" and so on. I do not say that these forms are "merely intersections of" those higher-dimensional minds into a lower dimensional "space". In fact I say something contrary to that.  I say that this dimension of mental space is these individual minds, as issued in substance from pre-existing and higher-dimensional minds which are closer to approaching complete entelechy, closer to "being ultimate in form and content, simultaneously".  As existence in its totality just is all these minds, and as the most mature and advanced of all such minds is the substantive origin of all other minds, so this is all "the mind of God" in a very literal way.  The ultimate aspect of this, the ultimate individual, the individual non plus ultra, is really also approaching a further entelechy which is made possible only by increasing the fecundity of Its manifestation though self-reproduction. So "God", in this way, is ultimate, but in certain aspects relative to Godself is actually both "least" and the "penultimate greatest", and all in between, while also the grandest actuality which is the final cause toward which all Godself approaches toward totality while simultaneously "fecundizing" outward, so as to increase the total number of individuals within God.  This is the only way that The Being which IS Reality can increase Its own resolution of Being, create meaningful changes, "grow", etc.

  Some parts of my own work in this area of philosophy were inspired by the works of Plato and Aristotle, but it has come to my attention afterward, concerning my understanding of God's Nature, that there is some affinity of my approach to that of Hartshorne's, but I'm not acquainted with process philosophy. I'm familiar with the major thinkers in classical Greek philosophy, that of the modern European thinkers but only some of them since Descartes til now, and some smattering of other thinkers in the postmodern era.  Any uncanny resemblances in my thoughts with those I've read is due to the fact that I may have found some of their thoughts agreeable on the bases by which they demonstrated them or else on my own bases of demonstration, and so have kept them in some form although they've been assimilated and repurposed accordingly, and in no way merely lifted "in stereotype" from those whom I've respectfully read. I leave the tedious recounting of the lineage of each of such seminal ideas aside, as it is the privilege and luxury of those who are paid well for doing that, and who must always be on guard against false accusations of being plagiarizers because, among their kind, that is what most of them really are. By this I mean "academicians" who have some familiarity with the writings of real philosophers, but are not themselves philosophers in their own right.

  So how does a mind with a will, on the level of a human being, freely "entelchize"?  Surely it would be something good, easy and natural to do, and not fraught with peril and suffering, not if we understood the nature of God/Mind/Reality to be Good in nature.  I do so understand God, but I will not here account for the origin of evil, as I've done that in outline elsewhere, especially in the videos on my youtube channel which I mentioned, and the links to which can be found on this page near the top.  Here I will just talk about the specific nature of how the REAL FREEDOM of WILL has been attacked by evil forces, and how this is resisted by the Good Nature of beings who are True Progeny of God.  For only in this way can "Free Will" as a moral idea be understood properly.  Otherwise, we would devolve into talking about the moral process of mental beings as though they were merely colorful stories about what reduces to things bouncing off of and sticking onto things, which sort of discussion is the province of moral dunces, also called "demons".

Considering (what's left of) "Free Will": Towards a Moral Meaning in a Corrupt World

If willpower is intelligible at all, it is at least the capacity of an agent to make decisions in its own interest. If that is a capacity that is to be effectual in practice, then it must have traction in reality by having sufficient access to needed data which bears true, relevant, and significant evidence about the impacts of the agent's various options and their ramifications.  It must not be unduly restricted in the gathering of that data, nor in the opportunities by which it may properly consider that information so as to conceive its meaning for itself.  Then the agent must have no improper impediments upon its ability to act upon all of that empirical and logical information after it has reached a proper appraisal of the values at stake and what must best be done to ensure their pursuit.  

Here the terms "life", "liberty", and "the pursuit of happiness" all happen to have a very fitting analogy in the processes of decision-making by a human agent.  This is exactly what a person is entitled to have in a true and just society.  They are not free to trample upon anyone else's rights in this same regard, as this freedom is self-limiting in nature, and cannot extend to a point where its own actions set a precedent for its own loss of freedom.  That would be self-defeating. This is the way it "ought" to be in an ideal world.  In the world in which we exist, that is the way it tends to be barring too great of a distortion in the initial conditions of the set of all agents who are involved in this "game of co-free agency". 

It is not a mystery to anyone that it is undesirable if these conditions are absent, and it is not baffling that anyone would object if they were.  It isn't a stretch of the mind to understand that if someone conspired to deprive another of their freedom, that this prospective victim would take defensive measures as needed to preserve it. These facts are not going to be argued here.  Something a little subtler will be exposited instead.

That human cognition seeks to obtain information about its decision-making conditions is really nothing controversial, and is an extension of the sense-hunger and perceptual framing which are a built-in aspect of how nervous systems are structured to work.  They automatically need to gather information in order to function at all, and they must make some sense out of their bounty in ways which correspond to the needs and the objectives of the being which operates with that nervous system. It is a symbiosis which precedes any conscious sense of what are the principles of system-feasibility which underlie it's efficent function.  It might even be argued that this would have to be the case in order for consciousness itself to arise within the context of such a system, as the higher the modes of consciousness which are manifest in a being, the further removed it is from being immediately engrossed in the collection of data and in the consideration of its perspective of interpretation.

That is done rather automatically in its basic form.  The higher reaches of consciousness play beyond the boundaries of such forms, but do not go beyond them in a way which undercuts their own valid role in the processes in which they are a part, not if they are functional and at least benign processes of consciousness, which we would say is consciousness properly speaking. Otherwise we speak of various degrees and kinds of delusion which display, in psychological terms, a parallel to the way that dysfunction in bodily systems is a distortion of what would otherwise have been called a proper function, but is instead called "dys"function simply because it is too much, too little, or otherwise a displacement of what is self-sustaining, or at all sustainable in the system in which this function is rooted.

But excesses and deficiencies in function are not properly said to be rooted merely in the innate features of the specimen which displays them.  They are also said to be sourced in the environment of that entity, which is not necessarily conditioned so as to facilitate the specimen's optimal functioning at all in the first place. As suggested in prior essays, that is a "given" in nature, up to a point. Even the vicissitudes of human societies can be understood as "naturally" including some tolerable "turbulence" in regards to the fit of people with one another in the forms through which they seek stable association in groups.

What is not well-tolerated is when any individual or group seeks to develop a means to make these conditions more tolerable for his own psychobiological functioning when this is done at the expense of anyone else's in a way that is explicitly a deprivation of the freedom of will which is meant by having the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. At the very least, he cannot deprive another of such freedom and expect to be immune to consequences which can be abstractly stated as being a manifestation of a law of human nature in dealing with how people treat one another. If you deprive a person of his own due, how can you expect him to lack the basic sense that even a dog has? He'll strive to prevent you, and he'll retaliate if necessary.  He'll expect compensation as well, and you'll ought to feel blessed if he accepts a rational and orderly procedure for its being given to him.

No one has a right to deprive another of their freedom in this regard, and no one has a right to expect to be shielded from the repercussions of such a grievous attack upon another's sacred right. Ignorance of how sacred it is, or being indifferent or oblivious to the fact that another person consider's it such, is not an acceptable excuse for acting in such a manner, and properly is not tolerated in good societies.  Good people don't accept this being done to them, just as they do not seek to do it others.

For the hard-headed, unsouled folk out there, this is the basic reason why you don't poison others and steal their property.  It will probably not go unnoticed, and many others will take offense. You don't do it because there will be repercussions which make it not in your interest. You don't do it because you will be found out and dealt with.  Good people, you don't do it because it offends your conscience. That covers everyone involved in this situation, both the evil and the Good.

But as we can plainly see, there is something missing in the former, which is naturally present in the latter.  Why it is missing, how it came to be so, in what aspects and to what degree, is varied to an extent, but always ends up being an issue with which we have to contend when it reaches a point of manifesting as a deficit in ethical behavior, especially when it has substantive impact on the freedoms of others. That it is missing is what is beyond dispute. The problem is when such types of people discover a method by which to conduct their improper actions in a way that allows them to feed parasitically off of Good people in society so that they can consistently and with as sense that it will be worth it to them to attempt it, because they are sure that they can avoid the due consequences of such actions.  Everyone knows that this is what every criminal's fondest wish is. Let's not dispute the point.

Some people just want to take without really giving in return, and they know that in order to do this in a reliable and stable way they must find a way to convince people that this is not what they are doing!  Witness the birth of the "long con".  See its horrible form issue forth from the lacuna in the minds of those who can't wrap their poor sappy heads around the notion of exchanging energy in a way that is meaningful and beneficial for all parties involved.  Such people are the ones who show common thieves how to do it right! And they are actually in control of human societies everywhere in the world.  Everywhere.  There is no place where they are not sitting on the throne, in the office, or otherwise at the helm, "in the big chair".  

History is the story of how this happened.  Read it and weep, or whatever else comes naturally to you.  But remember, though written by such fiends, it is presented in the careful hand of the "decent scholar" who is "a gentleman".  It will not seek to expose the facts of its subject according to the hideous truth which properly lies at their basis for being, but it will try to show you a version of "what happened" which makes it seem as though this wasn't all some long range, large scale rape of human dignity which is maintained and controlled by organized criminal organizations operating through the front of pretending to be "authorities", "dignities", "pieties", "excellencies" and other such laughable pretenses.  In short, these dishonorable cretins will always be presented as the veritable "font of honor" which carries through history a heritage of virtue which is the backbone of civilization while everyone else "just" kept the roads cobbled, "just" kept growing food and preparing meals, "merely" performed the duties of defense and law enforcement, "only" built structures and "coincidentally" developed science and technology.  They're just along for the ride and are allowed, if they are lucky, to have some ray of honor from "Their Majesties" to fall upon their dirty faces.

Of course, even with this sickly absurd rendering of the course of human events, we are still struck by the open and plentiful admissions to the heinous actions taken by people who claim to be, or act on the behest of, these "Great Persons". I mean, it is really amazing to witness the frank admissions to every foulness that a person can be capable of being and doing, yet find that somehow it always ends up that criminals are really great people if they happen to be entitled to that pretense. How this came to be bestowed upon them is a subject in its own right, and is shortly encompassed under the heading of the arts of deception and coercion which are properly the arts of charlatans and highwaymen.

Leaving trickery and thuggery of the more obvious kind, however glamorized, to the side for this discussion is imperative if we are to discuss the modern monstrosity which is the culmination of their organized development as a parasitic and also predatory "Happy Hunting Grounds", by which we mean the so-called "modern, civilized world".  In doing this we will have more time to consider the various dimensions of their current methodologies for maintaining and reinforcing their already well-accomplished goal, which in however many forms can be summed up as the "art and science of mastering the minds of others".  In this context we will reconsider the notion of what freedom of will is supposed to be, and yet how it has been subverted.  We'll examine the nature of the process by which it was subverted in each case, showing how it has been made to become a systematic expansion of previous conditions of enslavement which have been extended and elaborated to include more ample and diverse forms of the same old routines of coercion and deception.

In every case we'll see that the fundamental trick is to deprive the agents who are to be enslaved, but to make it seem as though they've not been deprived.  They are deprived of data about conditions in which they are making decisions. They are miseducated about the nature of how to properly understand and evaluate the data that they have.  They are forcibly guided down the paths of the decisions which they are expected to make, and which always end up maintaining and reinforcing their state of enslaving, mind-benumbing deprivation of their capacity of free will and attendant higher function of consciousness by which it properly operates.

The Tribe of the Creator, Lost in Hell: A story illustrating what should have been obvious

Ten people want to spend their (free) time doing something.  They've gotten their necessities of life taken care of (amazingly enough) in as few as four hours, after getting a full eight hours of sleep. They have 12 hours of daylight to burn.  Meals and other actions taken throughout the day, which are included in "necessities" are already calculated as being within that scope of four hours for necessities.

So they've got 12 hours to spend doing whatever they want.  They could do all sorts of things.  They could do ANYTHING.  They could sit around and sing songs around a burning bush.  Whatever they want to do, there is no limit!  As long as it doesn't incur problems for their taking care of necessities of life, and so as long as it doesn't injure them or their resources, they can get away with it!

So imagine, these people, these agents of goal-directed activity, decide that they want to take their "organic robotoid bodies" (they're humans, let's say), their fleshy initial capital, and build a statue of their good friend Joe.  It's going to be a surprise gift for Joe, whose been out on a scouting expedition.  Joe is the warrior/explorer/scout of the tribe, and he's always looking out for them, so they want to show him a special sign of appreciation when he returns in a few days.

What a nice thought. And they decide, after further deliberation, to utilize their primitive, but excellent cutting tools to hew out a life-size shape of their friend, and fellow survivor in the wild, from a single large chunk of rock.  That's going to take some effort.  Well, they've got GOOD TECHNIQUE.  We'll not get into the details of that technique, as it is a tribal idiosyncrasy of these ten people, and even Joe isn't very hip to it as he has other specializations.  These other 10 folk are very good rock carvers, however, and that has a lot of utility in their tribal lifestyle, which Joe also very much appreciates because of the tools and other artifacts which their skill has made, some of which he finds particularly invaluable for his own work.

They're free to do this deed, or any other that they wish in their "free time", because necessities have been taken care of!  I think I've mentioned that a couple of times already, but just thought I'd throw another in. (hint, wink!).

Joe gets back and delivers his report and lays down a nice kill for them to cure and from which to make jerky which should last them a good month!  And fortunately they've got spare time for that now, since they've finished Joe's statue just earlier that morning!  They reveal it to him and he's awed, and humbled.  It was a moment of catharsis, of bonding, of collapsed illusions and barriers.  The tribe was strong, Joe was valued, and Joe felt very good.

Nice story, eh?  Now what's the first thing Joe notices?  He notices that they've done something for him, in thought of him.  That's awful nice.  It wasn't something he could eat or wear, or use as a tool. It was something that took some skill, time and attention... It took some work.  It was also of very good quality, looked just like Joe.  In fact, in a brief instant Joe thought he had been somehow snatched out of his own body and turned into stone before his very own eyes.  And in a primitive part of his mind, he thought some overpowering magic took place!  That's the power it had on him, and that power was immediately transferred into all his mind's inner workings.  If the world had wrought any wear and tear on Joe and his tribe of friends, and if it had put any strain on their relationships (which yet were already very strong), then this simply reinforced that strength, and wiped away such entropy.  Even gold, after all, oxidizes after enough time, and shines even brighter when polished!

All his thoughts about the tribe, all the concerns in his preconscious and subconscious for how they might have thought of him, what they might have felt here and there, of whether or not he was really valued, were all like a shadow perniciously feeding on the othewise gleeming and bright fellowship which he shared with his friends.  His perhaps somewhat compensatory inflation of his own importance and the importance of his deeds for the tribe, which grew like a thin moss on the otherwise firm stone of his mature and kindly kinship with these peers despite the best and highest within him (and them).  This would perhaps be Joe's "shadow side", a subconscious portal through which evil forces can attempt to pry in and wreak havoc through their ever-building assaults on people who have spiritual energy, especially groups of them, especially groups like this one.  All this ego-entropy and corrupt-physical dross were suddenly wiped away in an instant of pure revelation, which showed him the truth in plain sight, without a single thing that could be added to make it clearer.  This burst of brilliant beauty was the convergence of pleasure and piety.

Each member of the tribe had something nice to say to Joe during their gifting, something sincere and true.  Many small transgressions, buried in the sticky spines of evil-infected matter, were forgiven, many petty grievances, long patiently endured until becoming invisible callouses in the aura, were redressed, and many minor failings, barely even noted by the subconscious mind yet which technically still did exist, were repaired... I say again of course, in Joe's tribe, these sorts of things are on a different scale than in less-developed and perhaps even evil-natured tribes.  These forms of psychosocial entropy are far lighter, and far less conscious, and far less cumulative, and so on.  Yet they do have an effect like a subtle dross, and when such a dross is wiped away from such a gem as the thing this tribe has going for it... wow, the sparkle alone would blind an evil person.

Such is the power of art, such is the power of caring, such is the power of skill, of thought, of imagination, of time.  At least, that is its highest potential when manifested as a tribe of Good people.

But, Good as they are, if they didn't have enough time, this window of opportunity would have been missed, even if all other features obtained.  That time was made into a value by their choices of action.  There were many other ways they could have used their time, very many.  This fact as well is a key feature of the value of what they did.  They didn't "have to" do it.  They had no necessity to do this. 

And this is where the story begins to yield its secrets to our thinking minds.  Delineating this crucial fact.  If something is necessary, it doesn't mean it isn't important.  It is not "menial".  Eating, drinking, sheltering, etc, are all important, and so are the activities which ensure the provisions needed for continuing those imperative actions.  No one knows this better than our hardy tribe of survivors.  But they are so good at what they do that they are able to spend as little as 4 hours per day taking care of such needs.  Joe spends about 5 days of each month on his expeditions, which are very risky, yet very rewarding for him and the tribe (he needs it also for "alone time", and other rituals.  Joe's a little different, as he's also the tribe's shaman and sage). That is time well-spent because it can't be otherwise spent, or else there will be no other time TO spend.  It is necessary, though not "essential".

As for what takes care of the tribe's necessities, Joe spends an average of 4 hours per day, and always has something substantive and empirical to show for it.  That's how this tribe works.  They "take care of business", and they do it well.  They are so good at it that it takes up little of their time!  So you know what? They have a lot of time on their hands, and they spend that time well also.  They invent games, create art, make furniture, gifts, toys, and even tinker with symbols that represent quantities, qualities, and quiddities...  These are certainly some creative and well-touched people.

Notice that there is not a big issue about "jobs" as people know what they "need" to do, and just take care of it.  They do their needed tasks so well that there is not a culture of "work" but a culture of CREATION among them.  They are very unusual in the world of tribes found around them. Most other tribes don't have this knack, and in fact have some rather sour attributes. For this our tribe of creators have kept apart from these others, and in fact were brought together from disparate origins, connected by a common bond of talent and virtue.

While other tribes are fighting over scraps of food torn from rotting carcasses stumbled upon in the wild, this group is totally stocked with food and supplies, well-sheltered, sitting atop a well fortified area of hilly redoubts full of well-designed traps that both warn, and if ignored, harm interlopers. They have many sciences and arts which they've developed, and a mere 11 of these people can hold off many times their number.  Most other tribes fear their area, and think it is haunted by evil and powerful beings, and so don't venture there often.

They spend their time doing things that add more value to their lives.  They are masters at taking the values that they have and increasing them, adding them into the stock of future values which they will continue to bring forth with their cunning industry, matched by their benevolent personalities. Because of this, they never whine or spoil about "whose job it is" to do what, or "being short of time" for anything, or "needing to get something done", etc.  They lack no necessities, and they lack no time.  

We see that time is a necessity in its own right, and it is required for completing tasks which are part of fulfilling necessary goals.  Time is also necessary for the freedom to continue to augment those activities and their results, or to explore alternatives, or most importantly to enhance the quality of life for those people.  After all, while necessities must be handled, the value of life itself, found explicitly in its manifest qualities of experience which correlate with joy and happiness, is found beyond those necessities.  Those necessities are necessary for the opportunity to arise (time) for enhancing the value of the lives, which in the first place those necessary actions support. But while the completion of necessary endeavors for survival support the freedom to use remaining time in way s that engender quality of life, they are not sufficient.for that purpose.  NOR ARE THEY MEANINGFUL OR IMPORTANT BEYOND THEIR BEING TAKEN CARE OF AND GOTTEN OUT OF THE WAY.

They are sufficient only for survival, though not even with the barest assurance that such survival will be long, or much enjoyed.  All that luxury comes rather from how surplus time is spent beyond the fulfillment of mere necessity.

So, it turns out that while necessity may be the "mother of invention", freedom is the "father of fulfillment".  And given how fatherly it is to be stern about necessities, I'd say rather that necessity is the "father" of invention.  But freedom (and perhaps "care-freedom") is the mother of fulfillment.  The course, outer, yang side of life is the realm of necessity and "getting jobs done".  The more nebulous contours of an inner life of finding more within the already apparent and manifest, the "depth" of life's meaning and value, is the yin side of life.  Of course no one knows this better than Joe, who is always floored by such living examples of what is for him sometimes a dry and abstract knowledge.  The value he obtains from just seeing living examples of what are by contrast almost invisible notions, this for him is transformative within all of his chakras.

Joe doesn't first wonder to himself, when enraptured in ecstasy at what his tribe of friends have done, at how long it took them to do it (remember, time is not the big issue with them...).  He notices not how difficult it must have been.  He doesn't begin to judge their handiwork in terms of an index of what they had to "give up" to get this done (they have what they need, the rest is gravy), or what they may be seeking to "gain" (they are different from the other tribes... this is key).  They don't seek what they don't already have, rather they seek more of what they have.  Therefore, in experiencing the value of this event, he notice something else which most materialistic and slovenly minds in other tribes never would.

He notices the depth of meaning conveyed in the expressive qualities of this authentic gesture of creativity which has been presented to him freely.  It was not promised, it was not planned, it was not expected, it was not required, was not demanded, and it was not "earned".  It is simply what they had to say to Joe that day, in that form. And it meant a lot to all of them. They didn't have to hurry off and figure out "what to do" with it, or about it.  They lived in that space of time, they had time to dwell in that space. Quality, not quantity, was what mattered.  They were consciousnesses in a pluralized unity, they were a unified plurality of unities.  They dwelled in the meaning of their experience, they didn't try to convert their experiences into clues about how to exploit each other better.

Now, take our current "civilization".  Look at the technology we explicitly use now, to say nothing of all that has been put under wraps or kept in secret for the use for crypto-tyrannical cults of selfish twits, and against everyone else who didn't inherit their ill-gotten treasure.  With this we could easily create an analogous scenario.  Once you've removed all the child-raping, child-sacrificing, evil demon-worshiping scum from society, and taken them out of all offices of "authority", and actually enforced the laws of human dignity and wisdom, then what is left are the tools and techniques, the technology which enables the efficient satisfaction of needs, which enables the creation of more meaningful time.  With necessities taken care of, why couldn't people figure out how to spend their time expressing the highest values within themselves and allowing others to do the same?  Why can't they allow others to be different in the ways that are uniquely meaningful to each, and share in commonalities without force or pretense?  Why can't they form bonds and union of action and cooperation without threats of force, without lying,

without using psychotronic weapons, covert and overt poisoning and chemical conditioning, pseudo-medical maiming, scalar interferometric instigation of disasters, cowardly and cultish operations of deceit and manipulation through media and common spies and saboteurs, directed-energy psychological and physical assault, scapegoating and false accusations and false labeling of people?

And all this WHILE PRETENDING TO BE FELLOWS, OR EVEN BETTERS!!!

Such technology, properly used by decent and GOOD people, would be the same as decent and Good people being FREE OF PARASITES AND PREDATORS, to engage their best potential freely and wisely.  The freedom of such people leads to the inevitable creation of means to increase time to increase quality of life in an upward spiral of beneficence.

As to "robots taking our jobs" (please...) I don't think that finding ways to use machines to do menial forms of industrial labor, freeing up time for people to spend their time doing what they'd prefer to be doing, with whom they'd prefer to be doing it, is an "economic threat" at all.  And even if it were in some ways precarious, that is mainly because of the conditions of deception and coercion which have been built up around these conditions of labor in the first place, the entire system of fraudulent political economics and culture of violence and lies and all manner of perversions and secrets, all painted over with a sickly veneer of being something more sophisticated than people can understand, all with a gangland aura of thuggish invincibility, reinforced with an immunity to reason and decency, honesty and transparency!

I think these "multi-faceted" hypocrites who have invented a modern dungeon out of an old horror house, who have found ways to mis-define "civilization" as the means by which they will steal your time and energy and use it as they see fit, I think they are the real "threat".  And I think they are realizing that their LIVESTOCK are beginning to figure this out, however dimly.

The poisons of suppression, the methodologies of torture, the tactics of intimidation are apparently beginning to wear off to the point that the entire psychotronic control grid threatens to come crashing down.  Apparently the secret evil societies behind all this sick and hideous hell-beloved debacle are panicking, because they are concerned that you might want to keep having food and shelter and other necessities even though robots can make all that everyone needs, even making more robots to do this, and that programs can be made to run them very efficiently, and that only a smallish group of people are needed to maintain such a system, and they'd be able to do so with very little effort... as the expertises needed to keep such a system together would have an upward-spiraling efficiency of technological embeddedness in ergonomically advanced devices and procedures which would ensure this, and this has been kept from the public, whose lives have been wasted on "social engineering" experiments (torture) and wars (torture), "natural" disasters and "economic crises" (torture, fraud added), and all manner of mockery and manipulation which has made this "civilization", in fact this entire earthly world, a gigantic, morbid, and utterly depraved "Truman Show" scenario.

And they have blanketed the masses with poisons of chemical, electromagnetic, radioactive, and psychomnemonic modes of delivery, which all dull and defeat mainly a specific target in the consciousness of anyone: NAMELY, the Sovereign capacity to properly cognize and evaluate information of the nature which I've just laid out, even if somehow that information were all scrounged up and dumped right in front of them! Their scientific minions talk of "AI" as something which is peculiarly difficult to design with benign results, as if most AI would tend toward some sort of pernicious developments which would be the machine-mind equivalent of immoral, soul-less human psychopathy. WHERE DO YOU THINK WE CAN FIND REAL LIFE EXAMPLES OF SUCH "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCES"?  Look at the bandits at the top of the pyramid scheme which they dare call "civilization". Look at THAT FILTH which wears all the wealth it steals, which has more "bling" than all the worlds tackiest rap artists put together, which uses its massive arsenal of controlled slaves to create relatively infinite and even trans-infinite forms of time for itself!  And for what?  TO ENSURE THE CONTINUATION OF THEIR DISGUSTING ACTIVITIES AND PRETENTIOUS, OUTLANDISH, ABSURDLY RIDICULOUS CLAIMS TO DIVINE AUTHORITY AND STRANGELY ARIBITRARY "BETTERNESS" THAN YOU.

Because of these wicked regimes, the result is that YOU HAVE NO FREE WILL AS YOU UNDERSTAND IT, because this has been either made impossible for you, or it has been made a mockery of because if you utilize it you'll just be fed through their system of abuse and scapegoating and blacklisting and other techniques of ostracism and burying-under which have worked for thousands of years anyway.  Even your death as a martyr would mean nothing by the time they rewrote history, which they can do now in real time, so as to paint you any way they want, and to paint your falsified imagery over the minds of veritable "zombies" who will just give a grumbling notice and move on to their next distraction!

They actually think that they can just put up these pathetic stories, decades, even centuries old, about machines taking over the lives of people and pushing them into obsolescence!  They think THAT LOWLY of the minds which they inundate with their swill which they pass for "news" and "facts" and "truth" and "sage observation on the events of the day!"


They have been, are, and if permitted always will be enslaving people with technology, not freeing them with it. Foolish members of the Tribe of the Creator have given them a wealth of methods to do this with, naively, even stupidly and arrogantly thinking it was their duty to do so, and so now they've just made this hell-hole Earth even worse than it has ever been!!  Where's the progress!? WHERE?  Is it in poverty for the many, so the very few can live astronomically free lives?  Is it so the middle class professions can be perverted and filled with turnkey yes-men to this covert and evil status quo of techno-enslavement mockery?  Is it so that the supposedly "good" people (hard working cowards and slaves) can act as ubiquitous stage props helping to support this massive lie?

I must have missed the sign above the gates into which so many have regrettably entered, the one which read "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here".

Considering "Free Will" (and bacon): Towards a Moral Meaning in a Physical Context

Freedom of will is the lack of any restraints upon a human being's highest potential to understand and operate upon himself, his body, and his environment, including other people, as long as this exercise of his will does not inhibit anyone else's whose exercise does not inhibit his, and who are of the same moral essence.

I think I've removed all obstacles to understanding except for the last part of this working definition of "free will".  It is clear that in a social context we must understand our freedom of will as being jointly operative with the freedom of the wills of others who are, presumably, human beings like ourselves.  We also do not assume, out of hand, that any person we see is evil without proper evidence, just as we do not assume that others are criminals, or even outright foes of ourselves.

We don't assume, therefore, that other humans in society are: 

not human

not good

not civil

not friendly

We assume, at the very least, that they may be:

human

good

civil

friendly

That's easy enough to understand.  We don't assume they are incapable of being enemies, of being criminals, of being evil, or even of being something that only appears human but in fact is not.  We don't, if we are honest and logical, assume anything other than that they may be either one, but as long as there is not evidence to the contrary, we'll give others the benefit of the doubt.

We do that because according to appearances they don't seem to be otherwise than the positive terms listed. At least as far as appearance are supposed  to be (barring accidents of appearance and failure to maintain proper appearances) and as far as our faculties are supposed to be when at their optimal potential (barring autonomous failures to keep these up, and barring interference or sabotage by others). In this ideal case we would be, in most lights, considered "sane" in our attribution of beneficence, or at least of benign neutrality, toward others.

And let's be frank for a second here: there isn't enough benign neutrality in the world, is there? But let me not get off on a rant...

If people turn out to appear in a bad light, we can better inspect, without any undue suspicion, and without any impropriety in our doing so, in most cases. If it turns out that often such things are cleared up as "pure accidents", that there is some "error" in their conduct, in our perception (or other mental process), or in the "chance" combination of these factors, then we have just reinforced our trust, and verified empirically the value of our society and our good faith in one another, in not only this case, but in a way that may be generalized.

This may go on and on, in an upward spiral, according to the mathematical laws of human interactions in time and space.  This would, over time, generate a set of customs and mores, cultural artifacts, which would interact with the members of society who are their living avatars. That's sociology and anthropology 101. Institutions are simply the organized, official embodiments of these social values, so as to better ensure and manifest their continued existence and refinement.

None of that is controversial in the bare bones, abstract survey undertaken here.  So when things only appear to go wrong, in essence, they go wrong only in appearance.  We would like that not to happen, but it may be that we lose more than we gain in trying to make such things impossible. After all, they are opportunities to be reassured and strengthened in our social values, not things to feared. They would even be the stuff of joy and humor.  Then, in the world where good faith is rewarded, they'd be a resource.  Society at its very worst would then be a source of joy and humor for its members, and stock in Mentos would go through the roof.  And Mentos would be healthy for you, as well.  They'd be multivitamins which fortified the body and amplified the highest faculties of the human mind like some sort of super-nootropics.

A society like that barely exists in commercials and artistic fancies, and we can plainly see the irony in that fact, since such presentations paint a picture of how our society is not (and how people are not) in the course of supposedly doing us a favor by offering us something we should like to include in our lives, whether as a good, a service, or an idea or aesthetic experience.

There are in fact many pointers of irony, which all show that there is a great gulf between the substance of things as they are, and they way in which they are presented.  Whether presented directly or by way of reference, things are made to appear a lot more like many would say they "should" be, and real life experiences give us ample evidence of every kind that they are, in substance, not nearly that at all. Worse, empirical evidence suggests that there is a very sinister reason for this, and for the fact that this has been sustained so very long. 

Imagine any horror movie involving a family, just take The Adam's Family and remove all the humor and make all the violence and cruelty unflinchingly real.  Then paint over this the imagery of Leave It to Beaver.  Make the technique and style of painting clumsy and tacky. That is the sort of gulf which I say exists between what society now is, and how it goes on pretending it is.  What is almost inexplicable, almost, is how this charade continues without anyone just standing up and calling it what it is!

But that is evidence in and of itself of what all this is.  A charade so compelling, played upon an audience of participants who are so debilitated and/or motivated in their involvement, that it will continue generation after generation until "something breaks".  And when it breaks there will be disasters, and these will be swiftly found to advantage by the system of delusion which has already shaped society and the consciousness of those within it so that they will adapt to these disasters, as will the institutions which are carefully warped so as to support this process.

So, looking at this picture, we are far from a "freedom of will" for most people, unless we redefine most people as being moral troglodytes with low cognitive ability! Perhaps I should leave room here for ironic reflection...

But if most people were stupid and wretched knaves who carried on with indifference to their own stupidity, wretchedness and knavery, that would sort of understandable, given the circumstances.  If they were this by nature, then yes, platitudes and ideals could be plastered over everything, they could be told and showed anything, and no matter what the contradictions and implications, they'd be happy being wage slaves in a world of absolutely wicked exploitation and relentless domination.  As I said before, it's not a delimitation of their faculties, and hence not a limitation coerced upon their freedom of will, if their faculties are already low in nature and not being exercised regardless!

And in some sense, the theory of the "consent of the enslaved and exploited" rings true here.  These are "pigs that want to be eaten"! I wouldn't want to be a PETA commando trying rescue or even document the abuses in a bacon factory if the pigs themselves demanded the right to be processed into bacon there, and if they'd attack me at the behest of the staff of that facility.  And as to the strange peasants of this world in which I exist rather unmetaphorically (unfortunately), I am not doing that here, either. Hal Herzog was making a point about the duplicity of human attitudes about suffering (or their indifference about it), in the context of how we treat animals. I'm making a point about humans as being in some form these very animals, and the irony of the fact that they can also treat other animals they way they treat each other (and are systematically treated by institutions and covert agents and groups), and yet not get this point at all.

But nevertheless, it is a VERY STRANGE PICTURE, indeed.  Humans that want to be enslaved?! Who yet also want to blather on out of their mouths meaningless prattle about "being free"? They want everyone to "be good" and "do right", but haven't the first clue what real Goodness is, or how to verify that something is Right, is as it should be. These aren't arbitrary claims, these are the summary indications of a massive array of brute facts!  People want to act friendly, but the totality of their mindsets and actions, to include impactful inactions and unminding, makes one understand that "with friends like these, who needs enemies?"

Well, if in fact their nature is just this way, then that makes for an even stranger situation.  They really are the proverbial pigs, and they not only want to be eaten, but they yell "eat me", both as an insult and as a joke on top of that! Whew!! It is beyond surreal. But if that really is their nature... then at least it explains their behavior and the system of brutality which has been very pragmatically foisted over them.

What of the "pigs" that don't want to be eaten?  They'd be the exception to the rule, the anomaly. There's no "proper name" for them, for they only appear to be "normal pigs" (who want to be eaten) but they are actually different entities that have only a pseudo-pig status.  They don't have the properly pig nature... They'd be accused of being oddities, perhaps even deformed, given to some dysfunctionality to be classified as a "disorder" or "disease".  They've got don't-want-to-be-eaten disease!  It is a genetically caused proclivity to be unreceptive to normal pig conditions of existence, and to suddenly see being eaten as bad.  Perhaps it is something which is triggered by some traumatic experience which activates the DNA improperly, DNA which would normally elicit any range of positive, or at least neutral responses to the prospect of becoming bacon or pork chops.  But perhaps it is because they are mutants.

Either way, there is no denying that these creatures look stranger than their fellows for looking strange at all, because if one looks at the overlying array of cultural artifacts in the culture of the so-called "normal" pigs, you'd think they all didn't want to be eaten at all!  The point of all their laws, all their art, all their inventions, all their endeavors and hobbies, suggest that being eaten wasn't at all what they had in mind or wanted.  But then when it comes time to get butchered, it is like a spell comes over them and they are just fine with it.  Or perhaps they aren't, but they're just fine with going along with, even helping with the creation of the conveyor belts, the hooks, the saws, the packaging equipment, etc.  They get along fine with the staff, or even ignore them entirely.  They may even worship them or at least show them varying degrees of deference.  They happily take "jobs" cleaning up their own filth and blood, and are proud to keep their bodies as healthy and strong as possible. Then when it all comes together into the result which was intended by all these preparations (by their butchers), they may react as if they had a problem with this.  But then it is far too late and it doesn't really matter.  After all, they can be shown contracts and documents with their little pig foot stamps of approval basically declaring themselves duty-bound to reach this result. They praised this as their highest goal by accepting all manner of programming through culture which basically said as much, on the pretext that its was "only entertainment".

“Good evening,” it lowed and sat back heavily on its haunches, “I am the main Dish of the Day. May I interest you in parts of my body?” (Quote from From Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Why at the last minute are they not entertained?  "Just a normal response at this point," they'd venture.  But it's not as if the pigs offered any structured or meaningful resistance up to that point! They basically paved the way to it! Now if anything else in the universe were busy digging its own grave, later to willingly lay in it, and then find nothing wrong with heaps of dirt being thrown upon it until it started to run out of air, we'd have to suspect that it was an accidental feature of its behavior, one which was overruled by the processes which overwhelmingly brought it this point, which were the processes that its preponderant and hence "normal" behavior all supported.



But pigs are one thing.  We are supposed to be able to understand what we are doing and understand the implications even when, especially when higher cognitive functions are employed in systematic and goal-directed accomplishments, and pigs are not supposed to be able to actively and thoughtfully collude in their own slaughter.  Neither type of entity is supposed to be indifferent to its being slaughtered, or of its fellow beings being slaughtered, nor toward those who slaughter them.  But humans are supposed to be able to see what their actions, and inactions, are creating for themselves. They are at least supposed to be able to understand such things when they are laid out for them clearly. They generally do not.  And even when they do, they are, mostly, unconcerned.  And even when concerned, they don't want to get too much, if anything, done about it. But I would argue that if the slaughterers would claim it is "normal" for a pig in their facility to struggle at the last minute, even though they laid the groundwork for that situation with all their effort before, then it is different for human beings.  But human beings make this argument difficult for me by their own example!

If a human being can talk and think all day long about "free will", but not see that they have been involved in an undertaking that results in their exploitation, then they must either admit that they can't see such things, or that they don't care.  If they don't care, then they are truly humans that want to be exploited, and they freely choose this upon being properly informed.  But if this is the case, then it is not important to hide such facts or other evidence from them which would let them know this.  We live in a society where such facts are, in key ways, hidden from the populace.

It is clear that humans do talk about matters that, if made cogent and then focused properly, delineate the fact that they are being crudely exploited, but it is clear that they either cannot make these matters cogent and properly focused (alone or with help), or that in fact they don't care to do so and de facto "cannot". Given what they are usually up to instead, it is also clear that they probably will not, barring having no other of their current options which they prefer already (or similar alternatives to them). Out of stubborn habit, out of learned inability and demotivation, or out of simple incapacity, they do not and will not consider the implications of any facts and truths which indicate that they are being exploited in many ways.  Unless you are starving them (and they can feel it), or hurting them directly (and it has pain directly associated with it), they can't seem to see past their noses, neither cognitively nor ethically.

That's a grim enough situation right there.  Pull out the classics in every field of knowledge, prepare a course based upon them which teaches students that they are being exploited and in what ways. Show modern evidence from all sources (including their own experience), and even if you managed to drag 2% through the whole course, maybe 2% of those will take something meaningful away from their education and use it properly in their lives and the world.  But is it all merely owing "to their inherent nature"?  The facts in the course would literally tell them that the conditions of exploitation include a process which ensures that their primary nature would be suppressed even if their primary nature would not allow this exploitation willingly.  They'd be shown that this would be instituted and reinforced by their own participation by gross force at first, but with covert elements concerning the larger agenda and especially as to the science of nullifying their primary nature.  Over time and intergenerationally, it would be made more and more perfect and by some point in time these people would become thoroughly ingrained with a secondary nature which is such a total perversion of the primary nature that they'd not be able to function otherwise. 

So, per individual, it might even be said, by that point, that no direct and explicit action had been taken against their individual nature, especially not by any agent who acted without their informed consent. At least this would be arguable to them in court, and they'd not have a proper defense. It could be argued to them by anyone and they'd be unable to defend themselves rationally and with proper conviction. How can they accuse anyone of exploiting them?  But what if they stuck to the class and learned that under misleading terms they have been genetically modified over several generations for changing some proclivities, for warping them. And many generations for other proclivities.  That their cultures and even their languages had been similarly and conjointly altered, in tandem with the genetic modifications.  And that institutionalized trauma and miseducation, as well as outright poisoning and chemical conditioning occurred throughout their lives to assist in the process of their being subdued and controlled according to the exploitative agenda about which they are not directly informed, but concerning which they'd heeded no evidence nor properly voiced any objection, even if they bothered to suspect?

Did they not have the opportunity to "attend class"?  Did they heed the "information presented"? Did they put their knowledge "into practice"? If not, then by all indications, they "want" to be eaten, or at least exploited in a way that basically eats their life force and personhood away!

I'm not going to argue the specifics of this case here, as that would make this essay overlong. But there are many implications to make explicit, and which need to be drawn out in more detail. That will be done in the essays to follow.

Considering "Free Will" (more properly): Towards a Moral Meaning in a Physical Context

Because it was established in the previous essays that the terms "freedom", "will", and the compound of these, "free will" have varied meanings, we had to spend quite a bit of time looking into the versatile modes of interpreting these terms in different contexts of their use.  

"Freedom" was shown to have a mundane, almost insipid sense of being the various possible states of a given entity, being, or system, and nothing more than the sum of those possible states.  As long as none of those states were being inhibited by any further states of that system in itself, or in relation to a context of environmental pressures which could augment or diminish those parameters of possibility, then the entity, being or system could be considered "maximally free".  But in an extended sense of freedom, some aspects of an entity, being or sysem may have processes which are organically related to another aspect of the same, and which function as facilitators of the maximal freedom of the primary aspect so that, in relation to any superveiling forces in the environment, some "sub-maximal, but situationally optimal" degree of freedom could be potentially obtained.  THIS form of systemic self-restriction is actually considered a true form of freedom for the being insofar as no further possibilities are explored beyond these three factors as given, and as long as they relate in this simplistic, but potentially complex way (this "simplex" way).  Later in this essay, as suggested in the prior essays, it will be explored how this condtion has an exceptional form wherein this process may be falsified yet presented as real.

Given that "will" is a term more relevant, in our discussion, to biological entities with complex nervous systems, mammals on up to humans let us say, an interpretation of this term was made which reflected the conditions of psychology pertinent to this range of life, especially to the upper bounds of human consciousness and its peculiar qualities.  The idea that the will of a human being reflected issues of its motivation toward pleasure-experiences and away from pain-experiences and all their complex forms of manifestation was established as one which was inescapable for the common sense foundations of our understanding of what a decision-making will might mean, although it clearly didn't dictate the ultimate and most comprehensive understanding of that phenomenon when the issue is raised of values which were transcendental to basic bodily concerns.

Therefore, whatever is meant by "free will", it must be something we understand to have some analogous meaning to a human being's fundamental capacity to make decisions which seem to it, in its operative context of consciousness, to offer the most efficient plan of action to take in settling concerns about its motivations to act, which may range from issues pertaining to its bodily condition, to its thinking parameters per se, to its inner states taken more broadly (intuition, sensation, perception, various other proprioceptive, kinesthetic, and other bodily feelings), and to its conditions of aesthetic and ethical, even moral experience and cognition.

It seems clear that the decisions we make with our freedom to act in domains of body, mind and spirit must certainly be minimally free in the sense of having various potentials available for actualization if decided, but the question is larger than just this minimal framework.  Further we understand that there are information-networks which often form complex feedback loops which engage complex cognitive heuristics that cannot likely maximized in their inherent "entelechic potential" in the context of conventional human social norms and mores!  However then that we understand man's basic causal expression on a material level, there are dimensions of his potential which are not clearly found in merely reducing our understanding of his decision-making process into a sum of his bodily components interacting with an environment that is composed of other, similarly structured beings!

Describe the underlying material and also describe the generally "objectively physical" features of events in which a person makes decisions, and do this all that you want, but it will not encompass or describe or capture the sense and description of the qualia which are properly inherent to the subjective and first-order ontology to which those physicalist descriptions are correlated.  These first-order "ontics" do not reduce to their second-order cartographical reference as "bodies in motion" no matter how strong a correlation can be drawn between "some mental state" called A and "some brain state" called A'.  It wouldn't matter how nuanced, how perfectly correlated was every mental state A with every brain state A', it wouldn't be adequate to the task of describing, understanding, and evaluating subjective phenomena in mental state A by listing the phenomena in brain state A'.

So we return to the inner wealth of our mental phenomena as we ourselves do experience them (unless you are a "philosophical zombie" in the specialized meaning of the term, and you don't actually "experience" anything...), and from this domain of our experiential lexicography we shall get the best possible fund of reference points for getting a grasp on "just what" this "free will" amounts to.

It is clear that there are "inner" experiences to which other embodied minds do not have direct access, insofar as we can directly tell (those of us who aren't already hive-minded beyond our own private subjectivities...).  It is not that we have no good reasons to understand that we each have similar experiences, for the common conduct and interpretations of that conduct in our public and private settings, through the use of human languages of bodily gesture, verbal speech, and other modes of expression, all of which give contextual indications of one another's inner states, for these all tell us that we have no good reason to start off with the assumption that we are in a solipsistic condition. We can conceive such a possibility abstractly, but at the very least our exposure to other humans through our developmental years and adult life have given us strong conditioning against fully experiencing the world "as if" solipsism were true.  

Either way, this essay is directed to those for whom solipsism might be true, as far as they themselves can tell, and it is not directed to phi-zombs (philosophical zombies, henceforth, "phizombs"), who can at best index previous assimilations of philosophical writings on these topics and hash out some iteration of a response or position already given by some other users of English, who themselves could not formulate any original positions on this or similar subjects unless they themselves were not phizombs.

These considerations having been laid out, we can proceed with a constructive thought experiment.

If you find yourself faced with a world where the highest possible expression of your faculties of decision-making is impaired by social constraints which do suggest rational and fair sharing of the spaces of experience in which we find ourselves attempting to concentrate, focus, think, feel, contemplate, meditate, etc, then we have a situation were we are at a crossroads of decision-making which is rather complex, but still understandable according to previously described conditions for interpeting the words "freedom" and "will" and "free will".

We could, as with our tasty peach, ask ourselves whether or not we are able to change the conditions in which we currently attempt our highest possible decision-making processes (entelechic deliberation, let us call it), and we can go through all the sort of reflections and thought experiments and other juicy subjective processes which comprise the process of attempting the maximum entelechic outcome for this specific concern.  We may find we must retreat, in the end, to some better environments in which to do this, or else perhaps in some manner facilitate other changes in our sensory input, or in our physiological states, or perhaps all these and more, in order to make truly worthy attempts at this deliberation.  Descartes was of a mind to do just this when he finally got around to writing his Meditations on First Philosophy. 

So we understand, reflectively and "in our gut", as it were, that we perhaps are not in some given set of circumstance operating at the fullest potential of our deliberative powers about the subject of whether and how we might be disposed so as best to operate at the fullest potential of our deliberative powers.  Blame it on whatever, we are after some optimal condition and, barring some gross actions of self-defeating brutishness, we seek to find the means which are justified by those ends, which is to say reaching entelechic deliberation about entelechic deliberation.  We want to reach the fullest sense that we are able to bring all of our mental resources to bear on, at the very least this subject, which is whether we are doing this at all and in any case how this can be best achieved given all of our known resources!!  People have left everything behind and moved into distant and secluded mountain shacks in order to do something of this sort, or up into remote caves, or into monastery cells, etc!

But since this is a thought experiment and not a research project in specifically how to do this thing, let us just say that we've laid out that we wish to do this, and that we know why it is so important for us.  The reason why we wish to do this, we have found after long research so as to be absolutely certain it is the best reason, is because we have encountered sufficient data which suggests that there is a broad spectrum of evidence that indicates that society at large, as controlled through conventional and unconventional methodologies, as steered by and through overt and covert processes of manipulation and coercion, is being strategically (in general) and tactically (for certain individuals) deliberately robbed of this entelechic deliberative capacity, especially as it pertains to a consideration of those elements involved in this robbery.

In other words, it has been found beyond the shadow of any doubt that man in general, and certain men and women in particular, are being targeted by methodologies both conventional and unconventional, "legal" and illegal, overt and covert which, collectively, and with regards to certain issues of worthy consideration (such as this issue itself and all connected issues), has been and is being ROBBED OF HIS FREE WILL.  This and, moreover, with regard to the data available for consciousness to process, the process of consciousness involved in that process, and in the possibility for compensation and redress of these situations in any way within a scope of time and space that would make such efforts reasonably possible (especially within these constraints), HE HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A REAL LIFE PHILOSOPHICAL ZOMBIE. 

Well, if these are our concerns which motivate our research, we are certainly not surprised if by and large such a plot were mainly taken "seriously" only within the vale of fiction and entertainment as a sort of horror story that is meant to "tease" us in our "merely human" tendencies to overreact to the vicissitudes of our complex world with sometimes inordinate levels of paranoid frustration.  But if that's the best rhetorical jab we will encounter against our concrete, voluminous, empirical and logical evidence, drawn from multiple sources both in kind and quantity, then we are unmoved by such a trifling discounting of something we, at least, have the wherewithal to take more seriously, in keeping with the significance of the items involved, and in proportion to our own estimation of its importance within the scope of our own intelligence and dignity.  If others are satisfied with facile dismissals of such things, and are willing to pay others time and money to be fed stories which assuage their subconscious concerns with anecdotal suggestions of "come now, that's just fit to be the plot of a night's entertainment at the cinema", then I simply say to them "to each his own."  You go your way for your entertainment, and I'll go my way for mine, would be my reply.

Except while I find this process of getting at the truth through a cob-webbed, trap-ridden maze of lies to be sometimes entertaining, and at the very least a challenge for my wits, I consider it to be in fact a challenge to my very soul.  It is a challenge thrown at the dignity of my Spirit, and with an added accusation that I should know my place and not bother to accept such a challenge, and slink into the depressing, numbing, insulting and disgusting mob of spiritual failure, and settle for that instead of my own best potential.  I've already established I'm not about to do that.  I will explain more about the process by which I've taken that "challenge" and how much progress I've made in so doing when my answer to the question "what is free will" is further articulated in the next essay.