Brain can initiate, control, and stop behavior independently of environmental influences {will, cognition}|, using internal states and processes. Will is ability to use voluntary muscles. Will reveals tendencies to actions.
requirements
Will does not require sensation, perception, or awareness.
consciousness
People are conscious of will but have no consciousness about how they performs behavior. Consciousness can control will.
animals
All animals make choices and act to reach goals. Perhaps, all mammals have will.
The feeling of willing has the idea of agent {authorship}. The feeling of willing comes from judging that thought caused event. Minds plan action, organize motor signals, and send motor signals. Such mental events later cause thought about action [Wegner, 2002].
Subjects can plan movements {preplanning}. When subjects experience no preplanning feeling, consciousness of intention to flex muscle is 350 milliseconds after readiness-potential beginning and 200 milliseconds before muscle movement. When subjects experience a preplanning feeling, several seconds before muscle flexion, they can distinguish preplanning stage from immediately following urge to flex.
Mind forms plans {intention, will} to act or decides not to act. Intention is not desire or belief but mental state. Many human movements do not involve intention, are just effects, or are accidents.
People can do something intentionally {action, will} {omission, will}, using reasoning, values, goals, and choices. Actions and omissions have different reasoning and responsibilities. Beliefs and desires cause change will.
People can intentionally fail to act {omission, responsibility} in situations in which action is typical or expected. Omissions rarely cause responsibility, because choosing to act can result in harm.
If related thought precedes action {priority principle}, with no other causes, mind judges situation to have intention as cause of effect [Wegner, 2002].
Will can be free {free will}| in different ways.
contingency
Though they believe in physical determinism, people can feel that they have free will {contingency, will}. People do not know determining motions and matter, only thoughts and feelings, and thoughts seem to be free. Future events depend on what people do now, and people know that there is a future, so what people do has effect, meaning, and importance. If predetermination, why do anything {fatalism, will}? Doing nothing still has effects.
dependency
Healthy, typical, unforced individuals in societal settings are free to use their functional modules to do possible things without uncontrollable outside or inside constraints. Functional modules depend on environment, society, mind, development, and biology. Influences and alternatives are many, and flexibility and unpredictability are high. Free will depends completely on knowing what first-person situation is.
knowledge
Freedom depends on ability to be self-conscious, and knowledge causes more consciousness of thinking.
number of choices
With too many choices, reason cannot choose the best one. With no choices, people cannot exercise free will.
choosing
Many situations have two possible rational acts. People feel that they can choose freely between two motives or actions. People deliberate over actions. People have purposes and goals. People try to persuade others. People feel personal responsibility and duty. People feel regret and tragedy. People can be spontaneous or choose to demonstrate their freedom. People can create.
Free action has no constraints from external forces {reconciliationism}.
Universe is deterministic, and people are neither free nor responsible {incompatibilism}, because people are not free to make choices (origination) or differences (indifference), with no causes. Only processes inside brains cause action. Rigid natural laws cause mental states that decide choices. Will only appears to be free, because brains are actually deterministic, and evolution and natural selection determine nerve signals.
People are not free to make differences {indifference, will}, with no causes.
People are not free to make real choices {origination, will}, with no causes.
Though universe and human actions have causes and are deterministic, people are free and responsible {compatibilism}, because world and other people typically do not compel them to perform actions, so they actually make real choices.
Though universe and human actions have causes and are deterministic, world and other people typically do not compel people to perform actions, so they actually make real choices {voluntariness} {spontaneity, will}.
Outline of Knowledge Database Home Page
Description of Outline of Knowledge Database
Date Modified: 2022.0225