I prefer to frame in terms of (Levin-esque) cognition. The
bio/noo/techno-sphere is busy cogitating on solving the
problems/opportunities of being a somewhat isolated gravity-well
centered dynamic matter-energy complex moderately coupled to another
much less complex (lunar) system and a highly energetic one (sol) and
virtually independent otherwise of the other matter and energy fluxes
swarming the solar system and orders of magnitude less closely coupled
with the galactic/intergalactic context.
The cognitive processes around my woodstoves (are simultaneously) are
those of the home/stead itself, trying to maintain human-comfort (and
plumbing-friendly) temperatures (with the help of humans who light and
feed and damper the fire) in the dead of winter while consuming
household trash and prunings from the trees growing on-property. They
are also involved in the problem/opportunity solving work of humans who
want to be comfortable, want to be soothed by flickering flames and want
to heat/cook/dry various foodstuffs, etc.
If my conscious (and unconscious proprioceptive) self touches the stove
surface it it is for various reasons most. relevant to itself (test the
temperature, attempt to flick a bit of burnt food off the surface,
recondition the steel surface with stove-polish, catch my balance if I
have lost it nearby... but it is my neural-dominated sensory-motor
feedback system whose "cognition" is causing my "jerk back". In a
larger context (organs scale) gut biomes, glucose/insulin couplings,
blood-pressure/heart-rate/vaso-C-D, etc are very "busy" solving problems
which are their primary/singular "job" which are *tuned* to the
scope/scale-centric problems my conscious self, my id, my ego, my
socio-cultural-political-economic embeddings, and from below, the
tissues/cellular processes are trying to solve.
My conscious *awarenes* overlaps all of these to different degrees.
After many cycles of Ketogenic dieting, occasional wearing of a
Continuous Glucose Monitor, various exercise and meditation regimes, I
feel my awareness my personal *cogitation/cognition* has spread
*downward* a bit while my engagement in sociopoliticaleconomic regimes
and awareness of geo-hydro-atmo-biospheric processes (mostly through
theoretical/experimental writing/reports rather than direct
apprehension) have shifted/spread my locus of awarenesess in the other
direction.
My free "will" seems to be a slippery (often post-hoc) apprehension of
the coupling between all of those levels. When I reach out to test the
temperature of the surface of the stove, I am trusting that my lower
level sensorimotor feedback system will protect me from anything greater
than a 1st degree burn (unless of course I've raised the temperature to
the stove into orange-hot, when 2nd is very likely).
I've probably just stirred my own brand of mud into this conversation
but my (free?) will was weak today and my compulsive slop-generator was
apparently overstoked this morning?
- SteveS
EricC wrote:
Good point!
The "scale" at which we view a given event does seem to affect whether
we see it as an example of free will or not.
Personally, I would (contra Claude) say that the reflexive pulling of
hand away from the hot stove which it touched was "zero" free will,
not "low" free will.
Choosing the steak seem like a high free-will example, under (my)
normal circumstances, but I could certainly imagine various
social-and-cultural pressures modifying my view of someone else's
choice of steak. For example, if you could show me that Bill chose
steak every time, without fail, that the three people before him
ordered steak, and that he never ordered steak otherwise, I would be
less confident in my "free will" attribution. Maybe it was literally
beaten into him at some point in his life? Maybe he's just likes to go
with the crowd?
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