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He speaks to the separate aspects of the intellect from a much less than a hard materialist frame. I’ve haven’t read any of his books , but I’ve seen him speak about his ideas around the division and interactions between the hemispheres of the brain and the interplay between the characteristics of each. I believe his first most talked about book was “The Master and His Emissary “

Are you familiar with Rand's answer to such a question?

Never heard of him, actually.

I ran across the following question in a discussion I was having somewhere else: Why is life a value in an atheist universe? I don't have an answer. Do any of you?

Not really. One thing to note is that free will could be attributed to a whole mind, even if various parts of a mind participate in that free will by setting in motion a choice prior to other parts experiencing that choice has been made. The intention to make a choice precedes both the perceived initiation of the exercise of choosing and the introspection of the time of having made it.. plus the exercise of choice although overseen by consciousness is often self experienced as spontaneously arising. This is consistent with an initiation of choosing, followed by actual choice somehow... some gestalt of factors... followed by a slightly delayed experience of having decided. It's fun to think about.

Do you follow Iain Mcgilchrist at all ?

Do Libet's experiments undermine your confidence in the concept of free-will?

I think neurology has the answer, but I don't like to depend on scientific materialism to explain these mysteries.

I'm not quite done with my own questions. What does reflective introspection reveal exactly? That question is for anybody. Your rational actions do not require your conscious attention or ego. This split-brain experiment shows rational action without conscious intent. Or perhaps there is a consciousness and a will that you can't reflect on through introspection because you're not aware of it at any time.

Question: Is your question answerable (provable?) within the realm of the application of sound (proven?) philosophical principles alone (not mere speculation), or does an answer to the particular problem of free will require evidence, observation, empirical experiment, etc.... i.e. does it fall within the realm of philosophy or the special sciences?

This idea isn't limited to Objectivism. I asked a Mormon guy if free-will exists, and he raised an arm to prove it ("a sort of action"). He could've chosen not to raise an arm as proof. That is one of the most common "proofs" of free-will. Ayn Rand isn't different from the run-of-the-mill. The "I could have chosen otherwise" proof isn't as common. But it's still a version of the subjective/intuitive/introspective/reflective first-person perspective proof. Let's not call it a feeling, but an intuition: direct evidence of free-will although it is not an entity that we can perceive directly, but only indirectly through reflecting back on an action. Schopenhauer claimed our sense of free choice comes (or may come) from only being conscious of the final motives behind our actions, not the prior chain of unconscious drivers leading to those motives (which was my first counter-argument).

Right, but they are asking you to deny the certainty and primacy of existence "out there", i.e. independent reality, as opposed to some kind of consciousness thing whether an individual, collective, or spiritual/godlike consciousness being primary or the only type or existence. My point only was that the conclusions we reach from a mountain of evidence is not to be thrown aside in face of a claim which amounts to little more than a groundless maybe.

I not think the unconscious generates a feeling of free will. I do not believe humans experience free will as a feeling. I believe humans experience the performance of free will as a sort of action, one upon reflection which is such that "I could have chosen otherwise".

How does experience got wiped out by calling existence an illusion? The claim of illusion is describing the apprehension of the state of being as incomplete ( implying to human cognition ) , not a claim of a void, the 'illusion' is experienced. You are saying those philosophers are claiming existence does not exist, they are not saying it. They are not denying your perceptions , feelings and experiences by a call to ignore them, they are just qualifying them as to alignment with the 'really real' , as opposed to the 'real' of human cognition.

This is sliding into solipsism. I would avoid going down the evolutionary rabbit hole. I'm just asking, if the unconscious mind generates a feeling of free will, does that mean free will exists? Or even better, leave the unconscious mind out of it and ask if feeling that free will exists serves as a good introspection (intuitive) proof.

The totality of self-experience, all of it, from your earliest moment to your experience of being and choosing in the very moment, all of it amounts to an understanding of your subjective experience and your free will. Some philosophers have said do not trust that existence exists, perhaps it is all illusion, but they fail to see they are asking you to ignore everything you have ever perceived, experienced, felt, indeed everything you know. The answer is to reject such a call to complete and utter ignorance with no evidence forming the basis for such abandonment, as groundlessly silly. Just as denying existence runs contrary to everything you know, so too attempting to deny the introspective truth of free will is an attempt to persuade you to choose not to believe in free will. Such is asking you to evade everything about your life... morality, choice, meaning, without providing any real reason or evidence to do so, simply put we do not understand nearly enough about the universe to come anywhere near proving free will does not exist, and in the absence of said evidence, entertaining such a notion is tantamount to a groundless, baseless abdication of life... all of it. Knowing this full well, how could anyone take such musings, such an invitation to self abdication, self immolation... seriously? As for the unconscious, it seems odd that an unconscious would evolve to create a feeling of free will. Such a mechanism would imply something like an attempt (by the unconscious) to cause the self or consciousness to act or refrain from acting a certain way, but if the self or consciousness was already determined wholly, such an additional urge by feeling... to feel choosy... would be wholly superfluous, and in the end ineffectual. In a predetermined universe the unconscious would not ever need to create a feeling of free will.

That's true; it would not be a proof of the existence of free will. But it is still an argument: the argument from introspection. It is a libertarian argument toward a personal belief in the existence of free will, at least in oneself. You are arguing for the idea that one does not prove free-will ('In essence one does not "prove" free will exists'), and that one has to believe in it if one wants to maximise their potential for meaning, happiness, and attaining values in life. It's a pragmatic argument stating that nothing would be gained from disbelieving in free will. It has no "cash-value," as James would say. '"Free will" defined properly, exists.' That is called the method of the 'persuasive definition.' But I find that such statements as is almost like an attempt to persuade, rather than to define terms. All in all, I find that moving from '"Free will" defined properly, exists' to 'In essence one does not "prove" free will exists' utilizes the strategy of the 'persuasive definition.' I'm not for arguing against free-will. But my counter-argument is that, if free will is an introspective truth, then it is only true for oneself. Question: how does one engage in the search for introspective truth, specifically, free will? And how can one trust the introspective process when there is much unconscious activity going on in the mind that may, perhaps, create only the feeling one has free will?

Man's Craving for Nothingness According to Schopenhauer, pleasure does not come to us originally and of itself; instead, pleasure is only able to exist as a removal of a pre-existing pain or want, while pain (which signals a threat to survival) directly and immediately proclaims itself to our perception. This is mirrored in Objectivist theory: "Pleasure—using the term for a moment to designate any form of enjoyment—is an effect. Its cause is the gaining of a value, whether it be a meal when one is hungry, an invitation to a party, a diamond necklace, or a long-sought promotion at work. The root of values, in turn, is the requirements of survival. Self-preservation, in other words, entails goal-directed action, success at which leads (in conscious organisms) to pleasure." (OPAR, Happiness as the Normal Condition of Man) We could also state this idea as follows: the constant entropic pull, which wants to disintegrate our bodies, is the root of all pleasure. And we certainly like pleasure, so it's no surprise that the most desirable life for us is the one least troubled by debilitating sickness, distracting pain, mental over-strain, hunger, social conflict and the like. Thus, man's deepest desire, his most sought-after jewel, is Invincibility; he wants the ability to act purely for acquiring pleasure (motivation from love), without worrying that, in his pursuit of joy, he might mess something up and bring Nature's wrath upon his head (motivation from pain). To be invincible then, is to be worry-less, like a child that has not yet been acquainted with the realities of life. Like sleeping infants the gods breathe without plan or purpose; the spirit flowers continually within them, chastely cherished, as in a small bud, and their holy eyes look out in still eternal clearness. (Friedrich Hölderlin - Hyperion's Song of Fate) Yet this kind of Invincibility is impossible to man: But to us no resting place is given. As suffering humans we decline and blindly fall from one hour to the next, like water thrown from cliff to cliff, year after year, down into the Unknown. Before he decided that philosophy can't compete with poetry, the celebrated German poet Friedrich Hölderlin studied philosophy at the Tübinger Stift, where he was friends and roommates with two giants of philosophy, Hegel and Schelling. In his philosophical thought, Hölderlin was primarily reacting to the then-trending philosophy of Fichte. According to Fichte, "I act" literally means "I am disrupting the current state", and that current state is obviously inert matter. Regardless of whether Nature truly exists or not, human cognition needs it in order to make possible the consciousness of free agency. Apart from that, Nature has no other value, thought Fichte. Hölderlin was not a fan of this. After all, things like scientific and poetic talent are generously offered by Nature, and are not generated by us ex nihilo. Fichte's theory also worsens the rift between free beings and mechanistic "nature", by turning Nature into a mere instrument for human projects. Furthermore, since: no external inhibition = no possibility of freedom Fichte declared that "freedom from limitations" is an infinite goal of morality, an imaginary ideal we can only approach step by step, with no end in sight. This did not go well with the younger generation, which was just recovering from the failure of the French Revolution to deliver its promised utopia. Riffing on the same theme, Hölderlin held that the human condition is characterized by two opposing drives: 1) the desire to be Myself, as against "That"; 2) the desire to attain "That", precisely because it is separate from Myself, therefore threatening my autonomy and Invincibility As Hölderlin's preference for poetry over philosophy suggests, he locates the resolution of this conflict in the feeling of Beauty. In Aesthetic contemplation, we (spiritually) attain the end-goal of all moral striving, i.e. we feel both infinite and determinate (limited) at the same time. It is different for the real world. Here, "survival" and "life" are synonymous. The day this impossible Indestructibility is achieved is the day where "survival/life" is no longer a thing. Thus, the striving for our most sought-after jewel, for Invincibility, is paradoxically an open striving for destruction. ___ (My source for Hölderlin's metaphysics was Edward Kanterian's excellent recorded lecture delivered at the University of Kent, 23 November 2012.)

Caring for human life includes caring for rationality in human selves, indeed caring of the entire human psyche supporting its rationality. What good would be a person having all she desires but her rational mind? Distinctively moral caring is caring for human selves, notably in the great psyche-constituent and power of rationality—caring in the sense of concern and caring in the sense of tending. The power of human rationality is discovery and utilization of nature, and it is also our fundamental human love, which is an originative, out-springing love for the natural world and, as well, for we humans in nature, for human selves and our attainments. It is the love of creation and production, the love of intelligent conversation and commerce. That rationality is the fundamental human virtue. One failing to have it is in human failure, including moral failure. Fight for human rationality, knowing yours is the battle “for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.”

"arguing that free will has to exist or there will be consequences" That is not the "argument", and even if it were, it would NOT be any kind of proof of the existence of free will.

Okay, one does not prove that free will exists. However, arguing that free will has to exist or there will be consequences, sounds like a proof. A bad proof, but definitely a proof.

You ask: "Does free will exist, or are our choices predetermined by prior causes?" "Free will" defined properly, exists. Our choices are influenced by prior causes, primarily and importantly the chooser's identity/nature. Rand's philosophy of "being" is wholly predicated upon identity, and as such no action or cause in nature proceeds in contradiction with identity. No thing is supernatural, everything is natural, including people, brains, and yes minds. As a property of mind, one of the things a brain "does", any proper definition of free will must take that (identity, non-contradiction) into account. You are who you are at a time of choice, all your memories and tendencies, your mood, your body, everything is part of your nature/identity of what you exactly are at the time of choice, and one cannot evade these important facts when thinking about free will. Free will and the choice made by it of course depend upon and are influenced by one's identity/nature. If one defines free will as simply (and properly) "one could have chosen otherwise" then that freedom becomes bounded ... the different possible outcomes are specific (otherwise you would not be you... you would be able to be anyone), and moreover, in order to not be deterministic the actual outcome cannot be pre-determinable or even theoretically knowable with certainty. Without fully understanding why or how, identity plus "freedom" to choose, is functionally describable in probabilistic terms... a probability function of all possible choices (which probabilities all add up to 1) describes the outcome of the system. Proof is not necessary to embrace free will. It is an introspective truth. Moreover, it would be pointless to assume free will does not exist... i.e. nothing is gained from it. There are two possibilities, either free will does not exist or it does. (Assuming you choose to ignore introspection) you NOW have a choice to reject or embrace free will. IF free will does not exist, in a very fundamental way whether you "choose" to reject it or not is meaningless, not only is it not up to you in that your choice was not free and was predetermined anyway, in such a universe all choices are morally and existentially inconsequential, we and all things being tinkertoys of mechanistic certainty. IF free will DOES exist, choosing to reject it risks abdication of (or negligence in the use of) your ability to choose in very important and meaningful or otherwise morally and existentially important moments in your life and the lives of those around you, potentially causing suffering when you could have chosen otherwise creating happiness/peace, or pursuing your values etc. and of course IF free will DOES exist and you choose to embrace it, really exercise your ability and responsibility to guide your actions and affect your life and the lives of those around you, then you maximise your potential for meaning, happiness, and attaining your values in life. In essence one does not "prove" free will exists. One understands, accepts, and "proves" it would be utterly pointless (in academic philosophy and in life) to choose to believe and act as though free will does not exist.

For non dual vedanta they are the same.

Occasionally, I run into advice I wish I'd encountered years before, and a Forbes piece titled "5 Ways To Work Effectively With Someone You Really Don't Like" would certainly fit that description. Interestingly for this one, wishing I'd encountered the advice and whether I would have profited much from it at the time are two different matters. For example, as the first person from my lower middle class family to attend college, there was a lot I didn't know about regarding professional norms because, on top of being very introverted, I simply hadn't been exposed very much to those norms: And so it was that when I skipped out on an office appointment with my statistics professor, I had no idea at the moment what he meant when he later sternly told me That's unprofessional! The piece reminds me in several ways of how frustrated I became because of a difficult person way back in my first real job after college. In retrospect, the guy was something of a jerk, but I can also see that I was quite difficult for him to work with, too. So, while I'm not quite ready to forgive that guy, I think it's fair that some of my difficulty with him arose from his own poor handling of his difficulty with me. In any event, the following passage from Item 3, seek learning, provoked that bit of reflection:Image by TheStandingDesk, via SOURCE, license.Another effective way to work with someone you find difficult is to seek to learn from the interactions. Each time you're challenged, reflect on how you could have done better and explore how you might grow your own skills -- in listening, empathy or tolerance. Also reflect on why the person triggers you. Sometimes there is a similarity to your own areas for development -- and what annoys you about them can help highlight ways you can grow. For example, their lack of follow through may drive you crazy, but you realize that you can work on your own responsiveness as well. In addition, consider how you might learn from the way the other person is showing up. If they interrupt you or devalue you, use these behaviors to reinforce the importance of how you positively interact as an alternative. If they take credit for your work, remind yourself of how you want to consistently value other's contributions. Sometimes, learning what not to do is as powerful as seeing what works better.Good stuff, and I'm glad I found it at a time I am better able to take advantage of it. The other four sections are demonstrate respect, maintain perspective, be empathetic, and let go. Life is too short to allow difficult people to ruin your day. Tracy Bower shows how you can greatly reduce this hazard and and turn it into a source of ideas for making yourself stronger all at once. -- CAVLink to Original