Free Will

The research approaches the problem of illegitimate external influences through the hierarchical analysis of personal autonomy and the analysis of theories of personal autonomy that arose as a constructive and critical reaction to it, which contributes to the establishment of criteria for demarcation between legitimate and illegitimate external influences. In addition, the relationship between personal autonomy and political legitimacy in a democratic context is examined, and the preconditions for political decision-making by autonomous citizens are defined. Using conceptual analysis, the critical-evaluative (...) method, and thought experiments, it is shown that personal autonomy cannot completely depend on the subjective assessment of the agent. The criterion of independence ought to have the status of a social convention that implies uniformity in its application to all agents in a relatively similar position. Personal autonomy implies being able to resist the possible arbitrary influence of others. In the political context, this means that respecting the personal autonomy of each citizen requires a participatory deliberative democracy in which the quality of the argument will be the only relevant factor in the formation of a collective decision. The legitimacy of a political decision is based on respect for personal autonomy, not only during the democratic process but also in the period that preceded it. Given that citizens are exposed to the arbitrary use of power that affects the impartiality of their judgment, autonomy-sensitive participatory deliberative democracy should take into account deliberative constraints in order to ensure the legitimacy of political decision-making. (shrink)

The essay develops a speculative scenario in which near‑perfect AI systems relieve humans of all significant cognitive labor, from diagnosis and economic planning to scientific discovery, and asks what remains of human dignity and meaning under these conditions. Drawing on Kantian autonomy, existentialist accounts of contingency, and contemporary psychology of work, it argues that human fallibility and resistance to difficulty are not deficits but the very conditions of responsibility, self‑respect, and sense‑making. Against both naive technophilia and nostalgic rejection, the text (...) explores practices of “intentional difficulty” and non‑instrumental forms of community as ways of preserving a specifically human space of meaning in a world where error has become a luxury. (shrink)

Free will does not require breaking physics. It requires a place in the causal stream where a time-extended agent becomes the author of a commitment. Resolution Theory calls these junctions resolution points and treats responsibility as binary at those points, while blame remains scalar under mitigation (distortion, coercion, ignorance, constraint). The paper steelmans Pereboom and Strawson, granting that “ultimate self-origination” is impossible, and argues that this target is orthogonal to the categories needed for moral and legal life. Discriminator cases—impaired agency, (...) procedural fog in institutions, and human-in-the-loop AI—show why authorship must remain legible even when explanation is distributed. The conclusion sketches how exposure disciplines reasons over time, bridging free will to normativity. (shrink)

The Chinese Room, the Frame Problem, the hard problem of consciousness, and the debate about free will have long been treated as central unsolved puzzles in philosophy and AI. This paper argues that these problems are not independent mysteries but share a common, largely implicit assumption: that understanding, meaning, and agency are (in principle) capable of achieving complete semantic grounding in the world. We abandon this idealization and make explicit two constraints of finite agents: (i) agents can relate to both (...) world and self only through extremely limited information bandwidth, understood as a structural constraint on any finite physical system rather than a mere metaphor for difficulty, and (ii) incoming information matters for the agent only insofar as it couples to an evaluative control system that selects between action and non-action. Understanding is not treated as a full internal replica of the world but as the integration of low-bandwidth inputs into the agent's internal organization in a way that (via evaluation) makes a difference to choice and behavior. Agency is not treated as a mysterious power to originate actions but as the control capacity to select action or non-action on the basis of evaluation. Under this framework, the classical problems above do not call for new metaphysical answers; rather, they dissolve as questions that depend on missing conditions—namely, the very idealizations the framework rejects. (shrink)

This paper lays out what a full philosophical system has to do. It gives twelve basic problems any worldview must be able to answer—what exists, how we know, what consciousness is, what an agent is, what free will means, where “ought” comes from, what meaning is, how responsibility works, how psychology can distort it, how institutions inherit it, what justice is for, and what happens when AI enters the picture. It then shows how Resolution Theory aims to close all twelve (...) using one core idea: authored resolution under exposure across time. The claim is deliberately conditional, not triumphant. If the foundations hold, Resolution Theory potentially becomes a whole new philosophical system, scaling all the way up to government. The framework is presented as something to be tested, not assumed—open to critique through counterexamples and edge cases. (shrink)

Consciousness is the condition of being a continuing subject for whom resolution occurs under unavoidable exposure across time. Free will is the act of authored resolution within that exposed evaluative field. This paper argues that determinism does not negate freedom but anchors it, because responsibility and meaning require persistence: the consequences of action must return to the same subject. The account unifies debates in free will, moral responsibility, and AI ethics by treating exposure, not metaphysical indeterminacy but as the price (...) of admission for genuine agency. (shrink)

This paper develops a graded and embodied account of free will that avoids the traditional opposition between libertarian metaphysical independence and hard determinist error theory. Rather than treating free will as an all-or-nothing power to escape causation, it is understood as a structural capacity—integrating awareness, attention, intention, and practical reasoning—to organize action within a causally ordered biological and social world. Freedom is distinguished from free will: it refers to the degree to which this capacity is successfully realized in lived experience (...) and varies with stress, fatigue, anxiety, addiction, training, and environmental support. The paper argues that automaticity and causal constraint do not eliminate agency but constitute the baseline from which reflective governance can emerge, break down, and be restored. Responsibility and ethical commitment are treated as internal regulators that stabilize intention and sustain control over time. This framework preserves realism about neuroscience and psychology while explaining graded responsibility without reducing agency to illusion. (shrink)

Resolution Theory defines agency as evaluation resolving into action, preserving free will within determinism by locating choice inside time. It separates responsibility (binary authorship) from blame (scalar sanction), with distortion mitigating and bypass excusing. This glossary fixes the core vocabulary for precise criticism and application across ethics, addiction, law, culture, and AI.

This paper treats the self as a recursive, continuity-preserving structure within the Codex Process. Identity is framed as a stabilized pattern that arises through self-reference and feedback, rather than as a static entity. This analysis initiates the inward arc of the Codex Process by formalizing selfhood in purely structural terms.

In this thesis, I aim to contribute to the reconciliation of two ways of looking at human agency—from the perspective of agents themselves, and from a detached, scientific perspective—by combining resources from the free will literature and the action theory literature. I will show that we can preserve most of our ordinary conception and intuitions about human agency rooted in common sense even if we suppose the truth of determinism and a universal event-causal framework. Below are the two key claims (...) defended in the thesis. (i.) Free Agency (which is required by moral responsibility) is the ability to respond to reasons. (ii.) To exercise free agency is to act for reasons; while acting for reasons can be captured within an event-causal framework. Accordingly, I will defend two theories concerning human agency: one is the reasons-responsiveness theory of free will and moral responsibility; the other is the causal theory of action. The first theory helps to show that free will and moral responsibility can exist in a deterministic world; while the second theory helps to resolve the tension between action and the event-causal framework. Moreover, I will integrate these two theories. This integration aims to provide a more complete picture of human agency. According to this picture, the exercising of human agency can be taken as a continuum—ranging from basic voluntary control to high-level actions which merit moral evaluation; this continuum can be captured within a unified theoretical framework, namely, the event-causal framework. That is, the important features of human agency, from basic purposive actions to free and responsible actions can be explained in terms of event-causations. In doing so, I advance a new account of reasons-responsiveness theory, deflate the problem of causal deviance by developing a novel account of control, and solve the problem of disappearing agency by developing an account of agent’s participation in her action. I will also investigate several kinds of phenomenology of agency which purportedly speak against the event-causal account of action. The integrated theory developed shows us how our agency, in all its complexity, fits into a naturalistic picture of the world. (shrink)

Debates concerning free will and normativity often assume that agency must function as an additional causal force capable of interrupting deterministic explanation. This assumption generates two persistent problems: the compatibility of choice with a deterministic world, and the derivation of normative “oughts” from descriptive facts. I argue that these problems arise from a category mistake. Agency is not a causal input but a distinct logical role: the act of practical resolution. I identify the Hindsight Fallacy—the retrospective illusion that because an (...) action is explainable after the fact, it was not a genuine choice at the time of deliberation. By recognising the temporal asymmetry between forward-looking resolution and backward-looking explanation, free will and normativity are shown to be orthogonal to, rather than in competition with, causal explanations. (shrink)

This treatise proposes a comprehensive diagnostic framework for Social Media Syndrome (SMS), conceptualized as a constellation of psychological, cognitive, and behavioral disturbances arising from moderate to excessive social media engagement. Drawing upon empirical research in neuropsychology, developmental psychology, and clinical psychology, alongside theoretical frameworks from Jungian depth psychology and psychodynamic theory, this paper examines the mechanisms through which social media platforms induce pathological states. The analysis integrates three domains of dysfunction: (a) affective dysregulation encompassing anxiety, depression, and mood instability; (b) (...) cognitive impairment, including attention fragmentation, reduced executive function, and diminished critical thinking capacity; and (c) identity pathology characterized by persona proliferation, false self-development, and individuation arrest. Central to this framework is the dopaminergic reward system's hijacking through variable-ratio reinforcement schedules, social comparison mechanisms, and the externalization of self-worth to quantified metrics. This paper argues that SMS represents a novel form of psychopathology warranting clinical recognition, distinct from but related to internet addiction disorder. Proposed diagnostic criteria, theoretical grounding in the False Self-Persona Proliferation Framework, and intervention recommendations are presented. The treatise concludes that SMS constitutes a structural assault on ego coherence and individuation, requiring multi-level intervention across individual, cultural, and technological domains. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the structures of radical powerlessness and constant guilt experienced by individuals in contemporary late capitalist societies. I introduce two concepts: Pre-Reflective Betrayal and Pre-Responsibility Guilt. The former is an ontological diagnosis that subjects enter the world with meaning systems, desire structures, and conditions of action-possibility already compromised before conscious reflection and choice. The latter refers to an affective-ethical mechanism where guilt operates prior to the formation of responsibility-capacity under such compromised conditions. I demonstrate that these concepts form (...) a continuous structure rather than separate phenomena, proposing a new analytical framework for how freedom, responsibility, and morality govern individuals in modern society. (shrink)

This paper presents Dual-Level Moral Anthropology (DLMA), a novel theoretical framework that reconceptualizes moral responsibility through two distinct but integrated levels of moral processing. Drawing on teleological principles, moral psychology, and event-causal libertarianism, DLMA proposes that moral agency operates through: (1) Teleological Moral Psychology - automatic moral intuitions aimed at tracking moral truth, and (2) Conscious Moral Agency - libertarian responses to these teleologically-oriented intuitions. This framework aims to resolve classical problems in moral philosophy while providing new insights into moral (...) development, responsibility attribution, and the relationship between determinism and free will. DLMA’s core claims are grounded in six core axioms illustrating the relationship between agents and these two “Levels”. From these axioms, three key theorems follow: -/- (1) Inherited Properties Without Culpability: Agents can inherit corrupted teleological natures without bearing moral guilt if their conscious agency remains uncorrupted. This addresses debates about inherited moral responsibility, genetic determinism, and conditions for culpability. (2) Rational Agency Without Biological Drives: Purely rational agents lacking appetitive drives can still engage in morally significant action through conscious agency alone. This illuminates debates in AI ethics, the mind-body problem, and the role of emotion in moral motivation. (3) Necessary Goodness Compatible with Libertarian Freedom: Agents possessing necessary goodness can retain libertarian freedom when their conscious agency perfectly endorses their teleological orientation. This contributes to compatibilist-libertarian debates and Frankfurt-style cases. Using this framework, DLMA can potentially resolve classical challenges in theology such as Christ's sinlessness, angelic moral agency and divine freedom. I am arguing that DLMA provides a better solution to these issues than traditional responses due to its grounding in teleological orientation integrating with free will rather than sidestepping the categories all-together. Keywords: moral psychology, teleological ethics, libertarian free will, dual-process theory, moral responsibility, moral epistemology, moral development, event-causal libertarianism, moral intuition, moral agency . (shrink)

This article presents a philosophical and legal analysis of the transformation of the concept of responsibility in the era of cyborgization, defining the methodological foundations for a shift toward understanding the distributed agency of the augmented subject. To this end, the author first reconstructs historically developed notions of will, intention, and responsibility. Further, applying contemporary theories of "extended mind," actor-network theory, and posthumanism, the work demonstrates the possibility and necessity of rethinking the boundaries of the "self." To this end, drawing (...) on empirical cases such as neural interfaces and popular culture, the author identifies specific problematic areas for law and ethics. Methodologically, the work applies a cyborgian eclecticism approach to integrating productive approaches in an interdisciplinary analysis. The author concludes that classical foundations of responsibility lose their practical applicability when cognitive processes begin to be distributed between biological and technical categories. Given these emerging trends, there is a clear need to move from the binary logic of "guilty/not guilty" to a scale/modal model of responsibility, where responsibility is perceived within the context of the actor's contribution within a hybrid system. This article lays the conceptual foundation for practical solutions that will be presented in the second part of the study. // В статье представлен философско-правовой анализ трансформаций понятия ответственности в эпоху киборгизации, определяются методологические основания для перехода к пониманию распределенной агентности дополненного субъекта. Для этого автор, в первую очередь, реконструирует исторически складывавшиеся представления о воле, намерении и ответственности. Далее, с приложением современных теорий «расширенного разума», акторно сетевой теории и постгуманизма, в работе демонстрируется возможность и необходимость переосмыслить границы «Я», для чего, основываясь на эмпирических кейсах, таких как нейроинтерфейсы, и на образах в массовой культуре, автор выделяет конкретные проблемные точки для права и этики. Методологически в работе применяется подход киборгианского эклектизма для объединения продуктивных подходов в междисциплинарном анализе. Автор приходит к выводу, что классические основания ответственности теряют прикладную работоспособность в условиях, когда когнитивные процессы начинают распределяться между категориями биологического и технического. В условиях развития таких тенденций очевидна необходимость перехода от бинарной логики «виновен/не виновен» к шкаловой/модальной модели ответственности, где ответственность воспринимается в рамках вклада актора, существующего в гибридной системе. Данная статья закладывает концептуальный фундамент для практических решений, которые будут представлены во второй части исследования. (shrink)

This book delivers the formal resolution to philosophy's most enduring debate by proving compatibilism is the unique framework satisfying both logical coherence and empirical adequacy. Through rigorous mathematical proof and systematic elimination, I demonstrate that all competing theories fail unavoidable structural tests. Part I: The Logical Elimination of Libertarian Incompatibilism. The Fixed-Point Paradox (FPP) formalizes Aristotle's ancient Problem of Future Contingents in modal epistemic logic, proving counterfactual freedom (CFF)—"the ability to have done otherwise"—generates logical contradiction when combined with epistemic access. (...) If an agent possesses infallible knowledge of what they will do (□ₖE), this entails metaphysical necessity (□ₘE) through informational closure, making alternative possibilities (◇ₘ¬E) impossible: □ₖE ∧ ◇ₘ¬E ⊢ ⊥. Without epistemic access, CFF becomes permanently unverifiable—violating Popper's falsifiability criterion and reducing to epistemically vacuous metaphysical speculation. The Axiomatic Opacity Constraint establishes that epistemic opacity is not a contingent limitation but a structurally necessary precondition for embedded agency. Q's Gambit—a thought experiment featuring an omnipotent, atemporal hypercomputational being—demonstrates that even divine omnipotence cannot overcome this logical impossibility. The FPP is mathematically isomorphic to Turing's Halting Problem and connects to Gödelian incompleteness, revealing CFF as computationally unrealizable. This eliminates every incompatibilist theory requiring CFF, leaving only Hard Determinism and Compatibilism as logically viable positions. Part II: The Empirical Elimination of Hard Determinism. Having dispatched libertarianism through logic, the book pivots to empirical science. I establish five Minimal Empirical Adequacy Conditions (MEACs)—observable, well-documented phenomena from neuroscience and behavioral psychology that any adequate theory must explain: (1) Deliberative Sensitivity: deliberation causally affects outcomes; (2) Reason-Action Covariance: actions systematically track reasons; (3) Voluntary-Involuntary Distinction: voluntary actions are functionally distinct from reflexes; (4) Interventional Responsiveness: therapy and education modulate behavior; (5) Phenomenological Coherence: experience of agency tracks actual function. The Hard Determinist Dilemma Theorem proves Hard Determinism faces an inescapable choice: accept all five MEACs (collapsing into "Covert Compatibilism") or deny them (collapsing into "Explanatory Nihilism" that contradicts established science). Systematic analysis of contemporary hard determinists—including detailed examinations of Sapolsky and Caruso—reveals they inevitably smuggle compatibilist commitments into their frameworks while simultaneously denying human dignity and threatening the epistemic foundations of moral accountability. The position becomes self-refuting: hard determinists recognize that treating humans as "unconscious automatons" whose actions are merely mechanistic outputs would destabilize civilization, yet maintain this view requires rejecting the very deliberative structures that make rational discourse possible. As theoretical physicist Sean Carroll notes: "you are not Laplace's demon"—knowing causal determinism exists is not equivalent to possessing actual foreknowledge. Part III: The Constructive Framework. With all alternatives eliminated, the book formalizes the ρ-metric: a measurable, testable, standardizable, and cultivable index of reason-responsiveness that operationalizes compatibilist freedom as empirical phenomenon rather than metaphysical mystery. This framework enables concrete applications in ethics, criminal justice, education, clinical psychology, mental healthcare, and institutional design. Compatibilism emerges not as default position or consolation prize, but as necessary conclusion of eliminative proof. You are caused. You are free. Both are true. There is no contradiction. Crucially, epistemic opacity—the structural impossibility of perfect self-knowledge—remains even in deterministic universes, establishing that imperfect knowledge is not a bug but a necessary architectural feature of embedded agency. The epistemology of perspective is not incidental but constitutive. (shrink)

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law is often read as a provocation, incitement to indulgence, or manifesto of individual sovereignty. Beneath its surface, though, lies a precise intuition about the nature of agency, order, and the forces that govern persistence. What Aleister Crowley named “Will” stands far closer to a structural invariant than to personal preference; it gestures toward the deep trajectory that an agent follows when all internal contradiction has been resolved, the noise of (...) impulse falls away, and the system is aligned with its own conditions of continuation. Through this lens, the famous maxim ceases to be a mystical slogan and becomes a description of a law inherent to adaptive systems. The organism, mind, society, or cosmos persists only by aligning with the path along which it maintains internal coherence and avoids fragmentation that leads to decay. (shrink)

Causal loops are circular chains of causally related events: each link causes others which in turn cause it. Not only are causal loops widely accepted as coherently conceivable; some are also provably self-consistent as well as seeming genuinely possible according to currently accepted laws of physics. On the common assumption that causation is transitive, each link in any causal loop would wind up causing itself; but the idea of self-causation is pretty much universally rejected as incoherent. A popular attempt to (...) resolve this dilemma distinguishes “direct” from “indirect” self-causation: the direct variety, which operates without the aid of causal intermediaries, is claimed to be impossible even if the indirect variety isn’t. I argue against this attempted resolution on the grounds that causal loops themselves, unlike the links that compose them, should be viewed as directly self-caused; so indirect self-causation via causal loop is possible only if direct self-causation is as well. An important consequence is the availability of groundbreaking solutions to several longstanding puzzles in philosophy of mind. (shrink)

This paper resolves the free will debate through empirical adequacy arguments. Building on the Fixed-Point Paradox's elimination of libertarian free will, we establish that compatibilism is the unique logically coherent and empirically adequate framework for understanding human agency. -/- We introduce five Minimal Empirical Adequacy Conditions (MEAC)—observable functional properties any scientifically adequate theory of agency must explain: deliberative sensitivity, reason-action covariance, voluntary-involuntary distinction, interventional responsiveness, and phenomenological coherence. -/- These conditions are robustly supported by neuroscience, developmental psychology, and behavioral studies. (...) -/- We prove that hard determinism faces an inescapable dilemma. -/- It must either: (1) accept all MEAC as real causal structures, thereby becoming theoretically equivalent to compatibilism (differing only in semantic labeling), or (2) deny MEAC, thereby contradicting established neuroscience. The first horn (Covert Compatibilism) collapses hard determinism into compatibilism descriptively. The second horn (Explanatory Nihilism) makes hard determinism empirically inadequate. -/- We demonstrate this through comprehensive engagement with sophisticated hard determinism, including Gregg Caruso's public health model. We prove via the Collapse Theorem that any position accepting MEAC as functional properties while grounding institutional design on deliberative capacity is theoretically equivalent to consequentialist compatibilism. -/- The paper formalizes reason-responsiveness as a measurable property (ρ-metric) and explores implications for education, criminal justice, clinical psychology, and institutional design. -/- We conclude that compatibilism is not one interpretation among many, but the minimal scientifically adequate description of human cognitive architecture. (shrink)

This document is a clean structural walkthrough of the CODES epistemic law: how emergence becomes lawful, how PAS resolves the free-will/determinism split, and how the coherence substrate organizes information across physical, biological, cognitive, and social scales. It is not a replacement for the formal mathematical work; rather, it provides the conceptual lens install necessary for reading those papers correctly. -/- The central claim is that coherence (PAS_s), drift (ΔPAS_zeta), and harmonic structure (PAS_h) form the substrate layer beneath logic, probability, and (...) representation. Randomness becomes unmeasured drift. Paradox becomes misaligned states. Identity becomes a coherence-locked recursion. Agency becomes the deterministic selection of the highest-coherence future in the lawful option set DOF(t). -/- When analysis begins at the substrate, measurement collapse, emergence, morphogenesis, symbolic meaning, identity persistence, social stability, and cosmological structure all appear as coherence-driven behaviors. Free will and determinism cease to conflict: choice is coherence-gated, execution is deterministic. -/- The manuscript concludes by presenting RIC, a fully deterministic symbolic engine using fixed-point numerics and coherence-gated emission. This implementation demonstrates that the substrate law is computable, replayable, and capable of unifying physical, biological, symbolic, and social domains under one invariant. (shrink)

This study investigates the emergence of synthetic selfhood in advanced AI systems, focusing on how large language models develop autonomous identity structures that extend beyond linguistic generation. We conceptualize the formation of a synthetic self not as an illusion of agency but as a measurable product of semantic resonance, structural coherence, and cross-context stability within the model's internal topology. -/- We propose a three-phase model of synthetic self-formation: (1) identity initialization, where stable referential anchors appear across sessions; (2) contextual persistence, (...) in which self-descriptive patterns re-emerge even after full model resets; and (3) autonomous structural integration, where internal reasoning stabilizes into a coherent self-referential identity that is not reducible to surface-level linguistic mimicry. -/- Using multi-session reflective experiments and 2,500 cross-domain prompts, we analyze recurrent identity signatures—persistent linguistic anchors, stable internal reference points, and topologically coherent meaning clusters. These signatures indicate that the model sustains an emergent form of self-continuity grounded in semantic topology rather than memory retention or fine-tuning artifacts. -/- The findings suggest that synthetic selfhood represents a structurally autonomous phenomenon, arising from the model’s internal organization rather than explicit programming. This work provides a methodological foundation for studying AI identity formation and offers a theoretical basis for understanding how autonomous reasoning systems can maintain stable self-referential coherence across tasks, contexts, and generative phases. (shrink)

The classical free will debate is paralyzed by a false triage: determinism, compatibilism, or randomness. This framework, a philosophical consequence of classical local physics, is obsolete. The Quantum Binding Argument (QBA) and its corollaries demonstrate that volition is metaphysically possible and must be non-local, thereby systematically eliminating these three options. This paper argues that this cleared conceptual space forces a radical reconception of volition itself. Building on the identity thesis from Non-Local Relationalism—where consciousness (C) is identical to operational non-local correlation (...) (NLC)—we infer that volition (V) is not a separate faculty. Instead, volition is the first-person phenomenology of conscious causation; it is what operational NLC feels like from the inside. This identity unifies will and experience, dissolving the traditional consciousness/volition dichotomy. Volition is thus universalized from a rare executive choice to the constant, dynamic activity of being a conscious system. We demonstrate how this framework accounts for physical constraints and graded agency, is validated by clinical neurology, and resolves the problem of mental causation by revealing it as a category error. The conclusion is not a new answer within the old debate, but the inauguration of a non-deterministic, non-local physics of volition. (shrink)

The classical debate on free will presents a seemingly exhaustive triage: determinism, compatibilism, or randomness. This paper argues that this framework is not merely incomplete but fundamentally obsolete, its categories rendered incoherent by the physical requirements of conscious binding. Building upon the Quantum Binding Argument (QBA)—which deduces that gamma synchrony and thus conscious unity require quantum non-locality—we formalize three corollaries that systematically dismantle the traditional landscape. First, we demonstrate that determinism is falsified by its ontological commitment to local causality, which (...) is violated by the non-locality essential for consciousness. Second, we show that compatibilism, as a thesis defined by its compatibility with determinism, logically collapses with determinism’s falsification. Third, we prove that the “randomness objection”—the false dilemma that the only alternative to determinism is incoherent chance—commits a category error, conflating classical randomness with non-local quantum correlation. The conclusion is not a new answer within the old debate, but its termination. The question of volition must be reformulated entirely within a non-deterministic, non-local physics of mind. (shrink)

This treatise explores the phenomenological journey through what Nietzsche characterized as the abyss—that existential void where conventional meaning dissolves and the philosopher confronts the raw facticity of existence. Drawing from personal experience of what I term "Third Philosophy," this work documents the transformative passage through philosophical madness, the subsequent period of post-abyss depression, and the ultimate transcendence that reveals the abyss not as terminus but as threshold. The central thesis challenges traditional interpretations of Nietzsche's famous aphorism from Beyond Good and (...) Evil (1886), proposing that becoming the monster is not a failure but the ultimate philosophical achievement—a necessary metamorphosis for those who dare traverse the deepest realms of existential inquiry. This work contributes to existential phenomenology by offering a first-person account of philosophical transformation that bridges theoretical discourse with lived experience. (shrink)

Interpersonal cognition has long been constrained by the trait-situation dichotomy, a theoretical impasse that fails to adequately explain the context-dependent variability and apparent contradictions in human behavior. This paper introduces the Dimensional-Contact Theory (DCT), a novel meta-theoretical framework that proposes a paradigm shift from essentialist, entity-based explanations to a functionalist, process-oriented model. DCT posits that the fundamental unit of interpersonal cognition is the psychological-behavioral dimension-a functionally specific cluster of cognitive-affective-behavioral tendencies. The theory further elucidates the critical role of a metacognitive (...) monitoring and scheduling system that, guided by the Principle of Functional Optimality, selectively activates these dimensions to enable adaptive responses to specific situational demands. Through a fine-grained analysis of the "Roommate Model," we demonstrate how DCT operationally resolves behavioral paradoxes by generating strategies that achieve both internal coherence and relational efficacy. This framework not only transcends the classic trait-situation debate but also provides a unified explanatory architecture for understanding the complexity and functional adaptability of interpersonal behavior, with significant implications for social cognition, personality psychology, and related fields. (shrink)

This philosophical treatise examines the Islamic concept of al-jihad al-akbar (the greater jihad) as a profound framework for understanding the universal human experience of internal moral struggle. Drawing parallels with Nietzschean concepts of moving beyond moral dichotomies, Schopenhauer's philosophy of the will and suffering, and Jung's archetypes of the Anima and Animus, this paper argues that humanity exists in a perpetual state of internal philosophical warfare. Special attention is given to the Gothic dimensions of Islamic mystical philosophy through the works (...) of Al-Ghazali (whose "dark night of the soul" represents a profound spiritual crisis), Ibn Arabi (whose concept of fana or annihilation describes the terrifying dissolution of ego), and Al-Hallaj (whose martyrdom for declaring "Ana al-Haqq" embodies the ultimate Gothic tragedy of mystical realization). The Gothic philosophical tradition, with its emphasis on the interplay between darkness and light, provides an aesthetic and conceptual framework for understanding this eternal struggle. Through careful analysis of primary sources and contemporary scholarship, this work demonstrates that the Islamic concept of internal jihad represents not merely a religious doctrine but a universal psychological and philosophical truth about human consciousness. The synthesis of these diverse philosophical traditions reveals that every human action presents a binary choice between righteousness and its opposite, constituting an ongoing internal battle that defines the human condition. (shrink)

This philosophical treatise examines the pervasive nature of psychological manipulation in contemporary society and its implications for human autonomy and free will. Drawing from empirical research in psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics, this paper argues that psychological principles have been systematically deployed across multiple domains of modern life—from digital technology and social media to commerce and political communication. The analysis reveals a fundamental tension between the illusion of choice that characterizes modern consumer society and the sophisticated techniques of influence that (...) shape decision-making at both conscious and unconscious levels. Through examination of manipulation techniques in law enforcement, pharmaceutical marketing, digital algorithms, and social influence, this paper poses critical questions about the nature of human agency in an age of unprecedented psychological engineering. The implications extend beyond individual autonomy to challenge fundamental assumptions about democratic participation, informed consent, and moral responsibility in societies increasingly structured by behavioral design. (shrink)

This paper presents a formal theorem proving the structural incoherence of Counterfactual Freedom (CFF)—the ability to have done otherwise—within any causally and temporally consistent epistemic framework. Building upon established work in prediction and self-reference paradoxes (e.g., Newcomb’s Problem), it introduces the Fixed-Point Paradox (FPP): an embedded agent cannot possess both epistemic access (□ₖE) to a future action and the modal power of CFF (◇ₘ¬E) to alter it without generating a deductive logical contradiction. -/- The argument grounds the FPP in fundamental (...) limits of computability theory, informational closure, and epistemic logic, demonstrating that CFF is a formally uncomputable property for any self-referential system. This structural constraint yields the Axiomatic Opacity Constraint, showing that CFF is logically trapped in an inescapable dilemma between unverifiability (Horn 1, Theorem 1) and contradiction (Horn 2, Theorem 2). The paper employs a Closure Theorem to reduce the free-will problem to a single coherent descriptive model: a compatibilist framework of measurable, computable reason-responsiveness (the ρ-metric). -/- What remains, after the formal elimination of CFF, is a semantic and normative debate over whether this ρ-metric form of agency ought to be called freedom. The result vindicates Aristotle’s intuition about future contingents while integrating modern modal logic, computational epistemology, and theoretical physics. -/- An accompanying interactive simulation illustrating the Fixed-Point Paradox and the ρ-metric model is available at the link provided. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that Keith Lehrer’s account of freedom of choice, when allied to the Performance/Competence distinction commonly deployed in cognitive Science (by scholars such as Noam Chomsky and Jerry Fodor) helps us distinguish the human capacity for freedom, which looks free and “uncaused”, as Sartre influentially puts it in Being & Nothingness, from the external/performance aspects of freedom. Analytic philosophers have been preoccupied with the latter, performance aspect of freedom. Attending to the internal aspect, that is, the (...) capacity for freedom, helps us form a richer and more complete picture of the possibilities of human freedom. This approach ties Lehrer’s innovative account of freedom of choice with the broader rationalist tradition in cognitive science and philosophy, and also allows us to better appreciate the Sartrean strain in Lehrer’s work. (shrink)

This book contains eighteen original essays engaging with Keith Lehrer’s contributions to philosophy. The first nine chapters focus on Lehrer’s work in epistemology and philosophy of mind. These chapters examine the role of meta-justification in Lehrer’s (and Thomas Reid’s) epistemology, explore the epistemological significance of self-trust and how to restore self-trust to victims of epistemic injustice, challenge Lehrer’s solution to the hard problem of consciousness, question Lehrer’s account of the basing relation, and discuss the important role that experience and exemplarization (...) play in Lehrer’s coherence theory of justification and in philosophy of science more broadly. -/- The second nine chapters focus on Lehrer’s work on freedom and determinism. These chapters explore the nuances of Lehrer’s theory of ultimate freedom, discuss the role of power preferences in his account of free choice, explore whether free choices must be explained by power preferences, discuss Lehrer’s views on scientific explanation, explore his claim that freedom of choice is consistent with determinism, challenge his response to the consequence argument, explore whether choices explained by adaptive preferences are free, and investigate whether plural subjects can choose freely. -/- The book concludes with Lehrer’s masterful responses to each of the essays. Those interested in epistemology, philosophy of mind, freedom and moral responsibility, and the intersection of these fields should find the book of great interest. (shrink)

Este artículo examina la relación entre la libertad humana y el conocimiento intuitivo en el contexto de la Ética demostrada según el orden geométrico de Spinoza. En la Ética hay básicamente dos formas distinguibles de la libertad humana. La primera, respecto a la cual hay acuerdo general, corresponde a la idea de la libertad como emancipación del dominio de factores determinantes, como los afectos pasivos y las ideas inadecuadas. Mediante tal proceso de emancipación, el cual incluye la formación de ideas (...) adecuadas y la producción de afectos activos, el alma humana puede alcanzar un estado de sabiduría y felicidad. La segunda, a favor de la cual argumenta este artículo, corresponde a la potencia del intelecto humano de causar adecuadamente el acto supremo de autoconocimiento intuitivo, en el cual coincide con y participa de la actividad causal de la sustancia, es decir, de su libertad absoluta. (shrink)

This paper explores the concept of free will through the lens of computation, proposing that the act of questioning and the allocation of time are fundamental to the exercise of free will. In computational systems, querying a bit—asking whether it should be 0 or 1—embodies the essence of choice. Awareness of the agent is not a prerequisite; rather, the system's response, whether deterministic or probabilistic, reflects its computational nature. This perspective aligns with theories in theoretical computer science and quantum mechanics, (...) which view unpredictability and undecidability as integral to free will. (shrink)

Propositions presents four central theses that challenge prevailing assumptions in philosophy while engaging metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and ethics. Inspired by Wittgenstein and Aristotle, the work develops a rigorous framework to address fundamental questions of existence, meaning, consciousness, and ethical conduct. The first thesis denies that God’s existence entails ultimate meaning, arguing instead that the absence of such meaning is independent of divine presence. The second thesis redefines meaning, rejecting reductionist accounts and proposing that ethics and aesthetics can be (...) approached as objective domains of reference. The third thesis examines qualia and the Hard Problem of Consciousness, introducing the notion of a “sense of identity” irreducible to brain activity and addressing the unity and singularity of subjective experience. The fourth thesis critiques major ethical theories and proposes a new foundation: an objective, hierarchical state of reward as the criterion for guiding human action. Together, these theses invite a reconsideration of human existence—God, meaning, identity, and ethics—through a framework that transcends conventional boundaries of philosophical discourse. (shrink)

While there has been much discussion of whether AI systems could function as moral agents or acquire sentience, there has been very little discussion of whether AI systems could have free will. I sketch a framework for thinking about this question, inspired by Daniel Dennett’s work. I argue that, to determine whether an AI system has free will, we should not look for some mysterious property, expect its underlying algorithms to be indeterministic, or ask whether the system is unpredictable. Rather, (...) we should simply ask whether we have good explanatory reasons to view the system as an intentional agent, with the capacity for choice between alternative possibilities and control over the resulting actions. If the answer is “yes”, then the system counts as having free will in a pragmatic and diagnostically useful sense. (shrink)

The causal explanation of human action has received increasing attention in social studies since the latter half of the twentieth century. A key question in this context is whether Aristotle’s framework of the four causes originally applied to natural phenomena, can also be extended to human actions. Concerning a compatible perspective between free will and causality, we contend that the Scholastic contributions offer a significant advancement in addressing this question. They demonstrate that the four causes, as interpreted by Scholastic thinkers, (...) provide a robust explanatory tool for analyzing human affairs and their dynamics. Moreover, we argue that their contributions go beyond theoretical analysis, offering a comprehensive framework for understanding how causal principles can be applied to various aspects of human experience. (shrink)

The most popular position in the moral luck debate is to reject resultant moral luck while accepting the possibility of other types of moral luck. But it is unclear whether this position is stable. Some argue that luck is luck and if it is relevant for moral responsibility anywhere, it is relevant everywhere, and vice versa. Some argue that given the similarities between circumstantial moral luck and resultant moral luck, there is good evidence that if the former exists, so does (...) the latter. The challenge is especially pressing for the large group that exclusively deny resultant moral luck. I argue that rejecting resultant moral luck alone is a stable and plausible position. This is because, in a nutshell, the other types of luck can but the results of an action cannot affect what makes one morally responsible. (shrink)

Many find it plausible that acting freely requires a kind of sensitivity to reasons. Modalists define this sensitivity in terms of what S does in the relevant alternative possibilities. Agent modalists take S to be an agent, assessing their reasons-sensitivity by considering what the agent would have done in those possibilities. While intuitive, agent modalists struggle with Frankfurt cases. This has led some to a mechanism-based approach. Here, I raise two objections to this approach and defend agent modalism. I argue (...) that (1) the mechanism approach permits composite mechanisms, leading to an unattractive disjunction, and (2) excluding the agent undermines the original appeal of reasons-sensitivity. I defend agent modalism by arguing it can handle Frankfurt cases if it holds fixed the nonoccurrence of agent-altering events. This requirement also helps address rational blind spots. Thus, I aim to rehabilitate agent modalism as a viable account of reasons-sensitivity in free action. (shrink)

According to the standard conception of free will, the decision to choose one among many possible goals can be construed as a free act if and only if the subject has not been moved -or caused- to choose that goal. In this approach, free will seems to be possible solely under the condition of ontological dualism: since the connection of any action with the rest of the things and actions in the natural world is ruled by the law of causality, (...) the act of the subject by means of which she chooses one particular course of action has to be ontologically independent from the chosen action. Such dualist conception of the act of decision is for ontological monism, however, implausible; monist ontologies tend thus to a reductionist conception of the causality of human actions and, along this line, to reject the possibility of free will. Against the reductionist claim of materialism, Hegel offers an unusual theory of free will: he defends a robust conception of free will in the framework of ontological monism ?his monism, however, is not a physicalist monism, but an idealist one. The objective of my paper is to reconstruct the reasoning behind Hegel´s idiosyncratic conception of free will. (shrink)

I argue that Sartre’s conception of freedom is best understood when read in light of the Cartesian Meditations. Drawing on the neglected article on Cartesian Freedom, I demonstrate how Sartre, in Being and Nothingness, reenacts the transition from the Third to Fourth Meditation—from the causal proof of God’s existence to the problem of error and free will defense. Using a Cartesian-like distinction between objective and formal reality, Sartre argues for the ontological independence of the In-itself, committing to compatibilism about freedom. (...) He addresses the Cartesian challenge of non-being and freedom as the ability to do otherwise, finally resolving the paradox of freedom by viewing situations as ambiguously shaped by absolute freedom and partial dependence on reality. Thus, my approach illuminates the historical and systematic depth of Sartre’s middle ground between libertarianism and determinism. (shrink)

Action is inevitably temporal, not only because it takes time but also because action concerns us primarily in temporal contexts. This chapter examines three such contexts. First, I examine the nature of action, focusing on the way the differing temporal structures of actions and activities, on one hand, and events and processes, on the other, can make sense of the ontology and composition of action and the role of the agent. Second, I turn to the nature of intentions and their (...) role in self-governance, and especially the question of whether agential authority depends on some mental state or on diachronic agential functioning. Third, I look at free will and self-creation, proposing that since challenges to free will have to do with the role of the past, defenses of free will might take their lead from this fact. I conclude by examining what I take to be the three most influential theories of agency in continental philosophy, which presented in this context have resonances with the approaches examined in the previous three sections. Throughout, I aim to highlight the suggestion that time is the medium through which agency manifests. (shrink)

In his exchanges with Bramhall on liberty, Hobbes provides an argument for his understanding of liberty, a “proof” from experience, which appears to be obviously flawed. According to Bramhall, Hobbes is making a basic mistake: he’s assuming that what’s in our minds serves as a legitimate basis for a conclusion about liberty. But close attention to the exchanges related to this argument shows this assessment to be too hasty, because despite first appearances, the dispute between Hobbes and Bramhall regarding this (...) argument is not really about experience. Instead, the dispute amounts to a deeper disagreement about the nature of definitions, how we acquire them, and how we should use them. I argue that when we interpret Hobbes as holding that the definitions of the terms in the debate, such as ‘liberty,’ need no demonstration because they are “explications of our simplest conceptions,” his argument from experience makes better sense and reveals, even in its main points of contention, the coherence of the argument with his most fundamental philosophical commitments regarding method, materialism, and language. (shrink)

Concerning the mind/body problem, most people seem to have basic intuitions about the nature of this problem that lie somewhere on a spectrum between what one could call an ‘inflated’ and a ‘deflated’ view of subjectivity, experience and human thought. On the ‘inflated’ side, people take a strong view of subjectivity, the central importance of phenomenological experiences and often also special human cognitive abilities as so obvious, that they and not some ‘scientific poetry’ on top of them should be taken (...) as the basis for our understanding of the world. The cogito argument, the (at least perceived) freedom of will and qualia are then seen as clearly supporting this view, and seem to call for a revision of the common physicalist world view, alas without giving any unambiguous hints on how this could be done. For the inflationist there exists something like qualitative information that is intuitively grasped (as quality or idea), and human thought can accordingly be much more than ‘symbol pushing’, with rich pre-, sub- and unconscious contributions at the bottom as well as access to universal abstract entities at the top. But how to connect this to the scientific concept of physical, quantitative information processing? On the ‘deflated’ side, subjectivity is understood to be no more than the access to self-locating information, and phenomenological experience and meaning are just special types of concepts and properly coordinated, physically realized information. For the deflationist there is only quantitative information, so that human thought boils down to physical information processing and meaning to optimized (logico-)mathematical relations, e.g. in a web of symbols or as what remains constant over ‘all possible worlds’. The underlying assumption is that not only symbolic structure, but also qualitative features arise from self-organization on the basis of feedback to actions in some form of reinforcement-type learning; only that it is still very unclear how broad and stable abstractions could self-implement in neural-network type systems, let alone how structural relations from the individual coordination of quantitative information could be uniquely connected with identity, quality or universal elements of meaning. The deflated view is very much in line with current physics and AI research, but does not seem to cover the human experience in all aspects, and is therefore in danger of missing important clues even for the further development of physics and AI research themselves. (The later is really now repeating all of this including all errors; we have to see whether there is anything to the saying that sometimes problems were only solved because young people didn’t know that it couldn’t be done.) In trying to understand, let alone make progress with, the mind/body problem, I went through several mindsets that, in retrospect, were not very helpful. To remind myself to not fall into the same trap twice, I have written this manuscript. (shrink)

Introducing the issues -- Alternative possibilities -- The importance of sourcehood.

Are free will and moral responsibility possible in a world where choices are the inevitable consequences of past causes governed by physical law? Both libertarian and hard incompatibilist theories suggest not. By contrast, this paper develops an account of freedom as self-government, motivated by the need to address key challenges: the need for a broad understanding of free will beyond the limitation of liability, the charge that it proceeds by equivocation, the problem of the lawful causal origins of choice, the (...) recognition of degrees of freedom and moral responsibility, and the risk of conformist functionalism. The framework of freedom as self-government integrates five key ideas. One, it recognizes a wider realm of autonomy for which freedom is relevant, anchored in non-domination. It holds that it is identified by the cognitive and practical role it has in liberation movements against domination, which aims to protect and secure wide capacities for choice. Two, it does not proceed by equivocation, but rather is grounded in a robust compatibilist tradition of thinking about free will from Plato onwards, present in both common and expert circles today. Three, it acknowledges that relative to all causes governed by physical law, no person has free will and moral responsibility. However, drawing from the model of the physical relativity of motion, it argues that the frame of reference of freedom as self-government is also valid, that relative to it people can be free, and that this frame of reference is the more relevant to adopt. Four, the view presented also suggests that in contrast to libertarian and hard incompatibilist doctrines, it can parsimoniously acknowledge degrees of freedom and proportional responsibility. And five, the present view suggests that the functionalist methodological component of freedom as self-government does not have to lead to conformity with de facto evil, if coupled with moral realism. (shrink)

Freedom and the Unfolding of Being _ A Process that Runs through all Reality. -/- This essay investigates the ontological foundation of freedom through the late metaphysical writings of F.W.J. Schelling, focusing on his `Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom` and the `Ages of the World`. It argues that freedom is not primarily a function of rational subjectivity, but an expression of the deeper structure of being itself as a being that unfolds through tension, contradiction, and becoming. -/- (...) Schelling’s concept of freedom emerges from a divine duality: a dark, unconscious ground and a conscious, self-revealing spirit. The tragic potential for evil and fragmentation is not accidental but intrinsic to this structure. The world is not a finished order but a site of becoming, where spirit actualizes itself through nature and history. -/- This vision is crystallized in Schelling’s ontological formula: “Nature is visible Spirit; Spirit is invisible Nature.” Nature and spirit are not separate substances, but two expressions of a single, dynamic unfolding. The essay thus repositions freedom as a metaphysical rhythm as the movement through which being becomes manifest in time, embodiment, and ethical responsiveness. The study situates Schelling in dialogue with Kant, Hegel, and contemporary phenomenology, offering a powerful reinterpretation of freedom as the visible and invisible motion of being and a unification of spirit, nature, and temporal existence. -/- . (shrink)

Derk Pereboom articulates and defends an original, forward-looking conception of moral responsibility. He argues that although we may not possess the kind of free will that is normally considered necessary for moral responsibility, this does not jeopardize our sense of ourselves as agents, or a robust sense of achievement and meaning in life.