Hey thanks for the welcoming. I must say right off that you have a point with philosophers wanting truth, no question about it. The thing with will is, is that it will always, always feel free. The very definition of free would have it that since our will is working in accordance with itself, it is free. But like Schopenhauer says, this tell us nothing.
We are not free if our will is suppressed by an external force: our will wants, it desires, it wills and it will manifest itself unless it has a suffient reason not to. In such a case of suppressed will, a fight erupts in attempt to gain personal freedom for the suppressed will. We call this freedom. This has to do with actions, the carrying through of the will and not the will itself. When we can do what we want we have freedom of action, but why we want what we want is where the lack of free-will arises.
At this moment we think this, at this moment we want to do this, at this moment we have to hear a particular song, at this moment a random thought pops into our head. We are floating along and our conscious is hardly doing any of the work, it’s really just like a computer monitor in the way that it simply is shown what is happening within the body and mind. If you tell the computer to sign onto the net, a whole lot of stuff happens instantly within the CPU; in fact a whole lot of stuff is always happening within the computer’s brain. But all we see is the final product, in this case the internet will display on the monitor. The monitor however is not thinking, it is not deciding what to do, it is not directing its will, it is letting the will direct it.
Our will directs us. We decide, we want, we act in accordance to it. We are essentially our will but what is driving that will to want what it wants has nothing to do with us. It is our character you might say which determines how are will is. Our character is generally the same forever, probably gets more and more consistent as we age, but it is changable no doubt. As we are introduced and come accross new things in our enviornment, new things are brought to the attention of our character and our will is quick to decide what it thinks of it.
Think about this now. We are not robots, we are not necessarily mechanical, we are in fact the Universe itself. Alan Watts says, the Universe is inside of us, we perceive it, yet we are inside of it. We are it. So how does the Universe operate? It operates as a causal system. It is essentially a spectrum of infinite possibilities. We grew out of the Earth, out of the Universe as a part, an aspect of the Universe.
You see it only takes a moment and we can already have an opinion on something. We already know whether or not we like it initially and we can grow to like it with time. But it does not take long to form an opinion. Do you know why this is? Remember the character. Our character is in all essence a system of logic, and that logic is entirely based on the factors, and the specifics of those factors, which not only created us but give us a personality, a sense of self. The character is our nature. It is also completely determined, even though it is far to complicated for humans to predict with any certainty. It is not like an animal species that we can predict based on species type. For a human being one must treat each human being as a seperate entity and one must be very careful about the assumption one lays down before observing and understanding. Individuals are far more complex than animals but essentially no different.
When we hear a news story or we are asked for our opinion on an ethical situation, we give our opinion right? However before we give our opinion we must first hear the story. Before the story can be told, there has to be a story to tell. This is causality, and it goes all the way for as long as we can imagine. It just adds on, takes off, cause effects cause, effect effects cause, and they go on like this like electromagnetism, or dominos effect. When the story is told we process it in our brains. The we come to an opinion. But what exactly did our brains do to get that opinion?
Our brains assessed the situation and compared it, tested it, tried it up against an internal jury which would ultimatley make a decision based on it’s system of logic, right and wrong, etc etc. The opinion, if it were possible to know the system of logic within a person entirely, is absolutely, completely and utterly determinable. The story itself and what gave possibility to the story was completely and utterly predictable itself if knowledge of the circuimstances that led to the accident or whatever were known.
Our will can decide against itself but what si that really? That which decides against itself is the will itself, and we are the will. We can very well have a desire, and decide that it would be better off not doing that, hell our will can even change if the reason against the initial will is suffiecent and reasonable enough.
I’m sorry if I did not explain well. It’s tough for me to articulate the depths of will. But I understand it and I will continue to explain better and better if you have any questions. Oh and what you said about ideas or thoughts not being physical; the truth is they are no different than physicality except for they are physicality in all possibility. But nevermind that right now, tell me what you think.