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The following is from a presentation of the Rand/Branden model of free will, by Onkar Ghate in the Blackwell A Companion to Ayn Rand. “Rand rejects any theory of volition that roots free will in a choice between particular items of mental content: whether to walk or ride the bus to work (selection between envisioned physical actions); whether to order the vanilla cheesecake because one is hungry or the bowl of mixed berries because one is on a diet (selection between desires or motives that will govern one’s physical actions); whether to admire Mother Teresa or Bill Gates (selection of values); whether to accept the psychological theories of Freud or of cognitive psychologists (selection of ideas). For Rand, all such matters are secondary and derivative: at root, free will is the power to activate one’s conceptual faculty and direct its processing or not. ‘All life entails and exhibits self-regulated action’, writes Branden in presenting Rand’s theory.” “An individual becomes both capable and aware of his power of conscious self-regulation as his mind develops. ‘It must be stressed’, Branden writes, ‘that volition pertains, specifically, to the conceptual level of awareness. A child encounters the need of cognitive self-regulation when and as he begins to think, . . . to reason explicitly. . . .” (“The Objectivist Theory of Volition” TO 5(1), 23) Rand and Aristotle remarked that higher animals are able to perceive more in sensory perception and to remember more than are lower animals. In modern psychology, the development of perceptual and memorial competencies in childhood has been greatly illuminated. I’d add to the Rand/Branden idea that the human conscious self-regulation emergences with the onset of conceptual abilities in children, add that: self-regulation of memory is also critical for the distinctly human abilities. “Remember this” we say to ourselves. Since the invention of sticky pads, I riddle my books with little strips of them. “The choice to ‘think or not’ is not man’s only choice, according to Rand: it is his primary choice. This choice sets a mind’s regulating goal. Sub-choices then arise to the extent that there is such a goal, and are the means of implementing it.”

Volition is associated with free will, rather than mere "purposefulness". Free will is a crucial concept not because it deals with "will", but because it posits that that will is "free". What does "free" mean? Free from what? Certainly not entirely "free" from "reality". That is impossible. Certainly not entirely "free" from the "identity" of the entity exhibiting it. Impossible. Certainly not entirely "free" from the context surrounding the entity exhibiting it. A non interacting thing unaware of its surroundings is "oblivious", not "free" in the intended sense. "Free" includes "at least" being free from absolute determinism, in this sense: the entity could have done otherwise ... hypothetically speaking. Given the exact same entity and reality ... the same entire universe... same IDENTITY, the entity could do X or could do Y and does do X or does Y. If we could turn back time, it would do different things... because we define it as being free from absolute determinism. If we characterize or concretize the doing as choosing, we locate the freedom with "will", and therefore we define free will as requiring (at least) hypothetically, an entity which could have chosen otherwise, even keeping IDENTITY of all of reality the same, as the control... of course we cannot actually set the universe back to the same moment in time to test this. In fact, some might say wording the hypothetical in this way is incoherent. But it is literally all we have which makes sense.

Are you wondering how you can tell that something else is volitional? My best suggestion for now is to read De Anima by Aristotle, or part of it, or watch/read something about what he says.

http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Jetton/Scope_of_Volition.shtml

I'm not going to speculate on the motivations of the jury members. I do know, however, that if I had been on the jury, I would have feared for my life, and I would have been deeply concerned by my vote's potential impact on the mob. Still, I like to think that I would have voted not guilty, because that's what I believe after closely watching the entire trial. If Chauvin didn't cause Floyd's death, then he's not guilty, plain and simple. And I don't think Chauvin caused the death. At least, I don't think the state proved that he did. I'm not a pathologist, so to a large degree I must rely on the opinions of the experts. I found Dr. Baker and Dr. Fowler to be the most reliable and trustworthy in terms of the cause of death. Baker, who actually did the autopsy, said that "the law enforcement subdual, restraint and the neck compression was just more than Mr. Floyd could take by virtue of those heart conditions." The prosecution attempted to downplay the role of the heart conditions, but Baker made it clear that when he placed other significant conditions on the death certificate he was saying that he thought they contributed to Floyd's death. "You don't list trivial stuff that didn't play a role." I was most impressed by Dr. Fowler, who said that "Mr. Floyd had a sudden cardiac arrhythmia due to his arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease ... during his restraint and subdual by police." I recommend listening to Fowler's testimony if you want to understand what happened. I think the defense should have stressed how Floyd irrationally resisted the police and over-exerted himself by refusing to get in the police car. Floyd then continued his irrational behavior on the ground, kicking and struggling, while saying he couldn't breathe when clearly he was breathing for several minutes on the ground. What made Floyd act so irrationally and communicate his problem so poorly? I think that's where the drugs and criminality enter the picture. First, he was not sober, and therefore wasn't thinking clearly. Rather than remain calm and think and communicate precisely, he panicked and repeated nonsense. Second, he stupidly concealed his drug use when asked what he was on. If Floyd had been sober he might have survived by simply sitting in the police car like a rational person would do. And if he had been honest about his drug use, perhaps the police could have known to give him Narcan or some other treatment. A sober Floyd might have also said something about his hypertension and heart issues. But then a sober Floyd probably wouldn't have panicked and resisted in the first place, knowing that he would risk his life by pushing his heart to the extreme. I think Floyd was responsible for over-exerting his own body and causing his heart to fail. It's very possible that he did not realize what he was doing due to the cocktail of drugs in his system at the time. According to his friends in the car, he had been falling asleep moments before the police arrived, after being quite active and shuffling around in the food store. This suggests that the fentanyl had taken effect and his breathing was being chemically depressed. So when he resisted and struggled with the officers, his half-awake body was in no condition to sustain such a physical effort. To maintain such action would require more oxygen, which would mean faster, effective breathing. But from the experts we know that Floyd was breathing at a normal rate of 22 breaths per minute. He should have been breathing at 30 or more. I submit that 22 was all Floyd could achieve under the depressive influence of fentanyl. He should have been asleep but was compelled into wakefulness by the police interaction. Many blame Floyd's breathing problem on the police restraint. The prosecution and the jury certainly do. And perhaps being held in the prone position exacerbated the problem, but I think the most reasonable and primary cause was the fentanyl, because Floyd was saying he couldn't breathe even before going to the ground. Ultimately the police were in a bind of Floyd's own making. Floyd was a criminal who got the police called on him at Cup Foods. He wasn't taking his prescribed medication for hypertension. Instead he was taking illicit fentanyl and passing out in his car when he had just offered to drive his ex-girlfriend home. The police walked into a lose-lose nightmare. They didn't know about Floyd's health and drug problems. Reasonable officers would see a large, muscular man who appeared to be physically healthy apart from probably being on some unknown drug causing him to act strangely. Thinking excited delirium, reasonable officers would attempt to immobilize Floyd for everyone's safety. Obviously they wouldn't want to be kicked or bitten or exhausted themselves. But also there would be the risk of Floyd giving himself a heart attack, which is exactly what the police and one onlooker warned Floyd about while he was resisting. It looks bad that the police maintained their restraint positions even after Floyd lost consciousness. Obviously the knee placement looks particularly bad from the viral video. But no evidence or testimony has convinced me that Floyd was asphyxiated due to the pressure applied by the police. I believe Dr. Fowler, who said, "Positional asphyxia is an interesting hypothesis unsupported by any experimental data." And I believe Dr. Baker who also didn't see pressure to the back of the neck that would explain asphyxiation. Given Floyd's heart disease, hypertension, fentanyl intoxication and physical exertion, there is plenty of reasonable doubt to support a conclusion of not guilty. I think the defense blundered by not explaining the physical exertion issue better, but I'm not sure whether it would have mattered to the jury, and I'm not going to speculate.

One can't lose sight of the climate of intimidation outside the trial. The jurors are only human and as much as they likely wanted the verdict be truthful to the evidence could not have not known that their personal lives, families and associates were under very possible threat, and violent acts, egged on or covertly encouraged by pols and the rest would spread through the country at large. At very least they would suffer social and work ostracization from that point on. One has to feel sorry for them being placed in an invidious position, damned if they do .... The facts presented them didn't change what was already a fait accompli. They would have to find him guilty on all charges. Chauvin is guilty of manslaughter with aggravating circumstances. Murderous intent wasn't there, or wasn't obvious - nor was proven. A 10 to 15 sentence fits the crime, probably. This was trial by camera: everyone saw the clip, and the rest was details. Every armchair 'expert' has been swayed by his facial expression and "body language", which was all it needed. That he is a brutal person and a bad policeman has been turned into - and confirms - white men are racist, all police are rotten and racism is entrenched in the system. The verdict is an implicit admission of guilt of these contemptible allegations. There's how street justice gradually gains control over rule of law. Also how policemen will become afraid to act promptly and forcibly in defense of citizens or themselves.

I, too, am disappointed in the guilty verdict. Providing the epistemic justification requires being able identify and guide others through judicial landscape presented. Thanks for providing the summation. It was nice having it in one place, unfolding as you presented it.

It's not the most egregious loaded question I have ever seen, and they can even serve a purpose for the person asking besides trickery. But the prosecution didn't need to worry much about it because it was successfully addressed and didn't continue as an issue. Driving him to jail still wouldn't be the only possibility, another would be that he would die of a drug overdose anyway. Better to answer in a neutral way to avoid a bias of any sort: "well, I do know that if this didn't happen, he wouldn't have died in this way". There are hidden premises in the question as phrased. If you ask me, at best, Nelson asked a poorly phrased question where he failed to extract an argument. It looks like perhaps he recognized that the answer was fair and moved on. But it was a potential way to find a new path for an argument so I don't fault for asking.