Free will revisited . . it's not a unique issue . .

When "they" say that the will is free, it simply means that human action is not constrained by, say, physical laws. Another way to look at this is to see action as an interaction between mind and universe. So let's say you decide you wanna throw a ball. The conscious part of the action is the decision to throw it. The physical part is the "resultant" motion of the ball. Now, these motions are (ostensibly) determined by physical laws that are either causally closed or at least not amenable to influence by a "volitional agent." If this is so, then the will cannot be free. Conversely, if it is not so, then the will is free, because it can act independently of physical laws.

This is all a roundabout way of saying that the free-will problem hinges on the relationship between the conscious part of an action (the will to act) and the physical part (the resultant motions). Are these two "parts" of an action distinct (in which case the will may be free, owing to its ability to act independently of the physical laws), or are they really one and the same (in which case the will is not free, being immutably determined by the same physical laws that govern the ball's motion).

So far, so good. To anyone who's got any background with this type of problem, this may seem trivial so far -- and it is. Now here's the twist. This problem of separating subject and object does not apply only to human action, producing the free-will problem. It also applies to perception. Are the conscious and physical portions of a perception distinct? This is the old and familiar problem of whether the world is external to mind. If the object of perception is separate from mind, then the world is external to mind. If it's not separate (i.e., it's really part of the conscious image in the mind), then the world is really inside the mind.

So this problem really amounts to a question of whether the conscious and physical portions of an action are distinct or are really one and the same. Alternatively, are subject and object one, or are they two? But this is precisely the question we asked about action, yielding the problem of free will. So what this all leads up to is that these two classic problems of Western metaphysics are really two forms of the same problem: are subject and object really distinct.

Now, perception and action are known to be closely related as metaphysical ideas. Both perception and action involve interactions between mind and universe. The primary difference is direction. Perception is "incoming" (universe-to-mind) while action is "outgoing" (mind-to-universe). This relationship between perception and action is not generally given explicitly -- probably because it is too obvious to bother. In spite of this, the same exact relationship exists between the problems of the external world and of free will. This relationship should be obvious, too, but for some reason, it hasn't been noticed in the centuries these two problems have been pondered. Veritably reams have been written by Western philosophers and scientists on both of these classic problems -- without any mention that they are two forms of the same problem --

If I get a little carried away with the historical context, that's because this is an exciting discovery -- and one that seems to be strangely resistant to acknowledgment by "peer-reviewed" journals -- since after all, the peers are not getting paid, and who has time to learn a whole new take on metaphysics, when it's easier by far just to say no? I'm sure I'd do the same, in their position.

Fortunately, I'm not in their position, I'm in this position, typing my blog online, and as soon as I click the button -- it's live. Yeah, for the internet age!







BTW -- this is a unification of two problems -- it's not a solution to either one. It's kind of like when Newton showed that the motions of planets and the motions of terrestrial objects are attributable to the same set of laws. This was a unification, although it happens that he also provided the laws themselves involved in the unification. However, he could have unified these two phenomena without an explanation -- i.e., by showing that one and the same set of laws apply to both types of motion. This is what I've tried to do here -- to show that these two classic problems are both ways of asking whether subject and object are distinct -- without ever attempting to answer either question.

It's not unusual, when questions are posed that resist a clear answer over a long time, something else is going on -- perhaps a problem with the premises behind the questions. This is something I would like to address in this space some time.

Oh, BTW -- you can see me talk about this same topic on facebook and youtube.