The Subjective Meaning of Determinism

The debate on whether "free will" is a property possessed by man is ridden with a very significant absence of an explanation of what it means to be "determined" (in the mechanistic sense of the word), that I have not yet seen addressed anywhere. Doubtless, it has been addressed somewhere, but for the sake of those like me who have not come across such--this essay has been written.

Choice is Determined by Will

The problem is best exemplified by a typical response to a deterministic argument that every step of one's mental processes is determined by the step before, and therefore the idea the one has free will, or the ability to choose, is an illusion. Intuition will respond: "But that's absurd! I obviously can choose what I will do. There is nothing external nor internal keeping me from exercising my free will."

It is true there is nothing external keeping one from exercising one's own will. There is nothing internal doing so neither. The reasoning that determinism employs is about how will is a product of mechanistic forces, and choice is exercised according to, and only according to, that will, and by implication, is also determined mechanistically. But as you can see, this is not at all inconsistent with the statement "one can do what one wills". It just says that one will do what one wills. What is determining what you choose is what you are. To an outside observer, viewing the complete system of me as a whole, I am mechanistic--I have no free will. Because he see's the will being caused, and the self being determined by the will.

From an internal standpoint, none of this really matters. It just means that you can't choose your identity. Identity is what it is, and will is part of identity, and will changes mechanistically according to its identity. I can do what I want (and I will do what I want, for I cannot do otherwise), but I can not choose what I want. The want (the will) is what obeys the mechanistic laws employed in the arguments against free will. Having no free will only means that you can't change your own identity, except as your identity allows for. The self is only determined by the self.

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