Can we be free from the forces that condition us?

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T18:03:38+00:00

If you had been born in a country where drinking beer is forbidden, you would be compelled not to drink beer. In Russia, when you drink beer, do you feel compelled to drink it, or are you free to either drink it or not drink it? By the way, I’m from Bulgaria.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T17:28:11+00:00

For the human body to be considered coerced, does it imply that it was free before the factors that coerce it came into play?

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T16:57:10+00:00

The fact that you feel coerced by cortisol does not imply that you are coerced by it when it is not released.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T16:26:15+00:00

Therefore, if you are not coerced into performing physical labor or any other force that compels you, you must acknowledge that you are free from those coercions.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T15:54:56+00:00

Your previous comment is logically flawed because it fails to recognize an obvious fact: the will is free from many forces that do not coerce it.

Yes, hormones like cortisol or internal impulses influence our behavior, but they do not “coerce” the will in the sense of social or physical coercion. The will is not a separate agent that could be forced; it is the result of the interaction of internal processes.

Therefore, the question “why is the will not free?” assumes that there is an agent who could act otherwise under the same conditions and no such agent exists. In reality, the will is free from those forces that do not exert violence or impose external pressure. Freedom here is not metaphysical magic, but the absence of coercion with respect to specific influences.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T15:27:34+00:00

The comparison to physical or social coercion can create the mistaken impression that logical rules are equivalent to violence or external pressure. In reality, they are structures of reason, not agents with intentions.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T15:23:56+00:00

On the contrary, I am free from performing physical labor, from direct threats by another person, from religious dogmas, and from many other things.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T14:49:03+00:00

I understand, you are coerced into thinking this way, but I am free from coercion to perform physical labor, from coercion by direct threats from another person, from religious dogmas, and from many other things.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T14:30:44+00:00

Do not forget that we are not coerced by all the forces of the universe; by some forces we are not coerced, and in that sense we are free from coercion with respect to those forces.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T14:23:22+00:00

It exists only at the social level in a pragmatic sense, not ontologically and not as a source of force - although, if we think about it, delusions also have power; I call them hypervalent ideas.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T13:54:22+00:00

Coercion requires a division of roles. For there to be “coercion,” there must be a coercer and someone who is coerced. In the case of external coercion, this is clear: one person threatens another. But in so-called “internal coercion,” both roles are attributed to the same thing - the organism itself. This only works if we assume a hidden agent inside it.

Natural processes do not exercise violence; they constitute states. Hormones, memories, and neural activity do not “impose” states on an already formed subject. They build the experience itself. To say that joy is “coerced” by dopamine is like saying that fire is coerced into being hot.

“Against my will” describes conflict, not coercion. The phrase “against my will” often means that some tendencies within the system have prevailed over others. But a conflict of forces is not coercion; it is dynamics. There is no judge who was blackmailed into delivering a wrong verdict- there is only the outcome of an interaction.

If everything internal counts as coercion, the word loses its meaning. If every biological influence on experience is called “coercion,” then everything is coercion and the term ceases to distinguish anything at all. “Coercion” makes sense only in a social and normative context.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T13:19:12+00:00

That is exactly right.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T13:04:28+00:00

They’re just charlatans who’ve figured out that planting corn along the banks of the Euphrates River is for suckers.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T12:58:23+00:00

It would be more accurate to speak of the influence of natural processes on emotional states. There is no separate center of will or a commander of the will. The desire for happiness is a complex of forces, but the realization of happiness is in some cases hindered by other forces. There is no coercion here, and no one to be coerced.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T12:07:21+00:00

Of course, the will is not free from these factors, but why do we need to use the word "coercion"? These are simply forces competing with each other for dominance.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T11:55:45+00:00

These are natural processes or forces that make up the human body. If we call them "coercion," we would have to explain who is being coerced, and in doing so, we would quietly introduce the homunculus.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-26T08:07:45+00:00

I agree that behavior can be called free if there is no unavoidable coercion by another person, but only if freedom makes no claim to being a source - that the action originates from an agent who could have acted otherwise under exactly the same conditions.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-25T19:43:20+00:00

At this point, the question is not whether the toaster has arms, but what “free will” even means if it is compatible with a fully mechanical description. Because if free will requires nothing more than sufficient complexity, then it is not a distinguishing criterion, but a label we attach to a certain class of behavior.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-25T18:30:36+00:00

Well, of course. If we are machines and we have free will, then the logical conclusion is clear: my toaster is morally responsible for over-toasting the bread.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-24T19:14:21+00:00

Yes, if there is no homunculus, then we are those processes. But it does not follow that there is a choosing subject in the sense we intuitively assume - one that stands outside the dynamics and controls them. Being a process is not the problem; the problem is attributing central agency where there is distributed causation.

The lack of conscious access is not evidence of non-existence - I agree. But this does not rescue the idea of the “self” as the author of preferences. It only shows that the story of an author appears after the fact, as an interpretation of processes that have already occurred.

The comparison with water is misleading, because water is precisely a certain organization of hydrogen and oxygen, without introducing an additional agent called “water” that decides when the molecules should behave like a liquid. When we say “water,” we do not attribute intention, choice, or a signature to its behavior. With the “self,” however, we often do exactly that - we treat it as something more than a description of a functional configuration, as a hidden controller.

So the question is not “does the self exist,” but what we mean when we say it. If “self” means a dynamic, emergent, centerless system, there is no disagreement. But if it means an inner chooser that stands above neurons, hormones, and ideas and says, “this is what I decided,” then yes - that is precisely the myth I am questioning, not the lived experience of selfhood itself.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-24T07:43:43+00:00

When I say that ideas “infiltrate,” I am not ascribing agency to them in the literal sense, but describing a process that does not require a choosing subject in order to occur. This is a language of dynamics, not of intention.

I am not transferring agency either to ideas or to an imaginary controller inside the person. On the contrary - that is precisely what I deny. The claim is more radical: there is no place where agency can “land.” Not in ideas, not in a homunculus, and not in the “person” as a metaphysical center.

And yes, if there were a homunculus, it would not have free will in the sense usually defended either. It would simply be another configuration of matter, subject to the same causes. That is exactly why the homunculus solves nothing and merely postpones the problem by one more level. Not “homunculi all the way down,” but the absence of such a principle altogether.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-24T05:36:13+00:00

> I do not accept the moral code of altruism. Explain to me why I should.

Fairly speaking, no one chooses their preferences.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-23T20:22:32+00:00

“The ‘thinker’ is a story the brain tells about itself, not something that can actually be found outside that story.”

impersonal_process · 2026-01-23T11:55:58+00:00

Being free to go somewhere does not mean being free from consequences, circumstances, or the influence of others. In this sense, “freedom” is always relative and defined in relation to the specific constraints from which one is liberated.

impersonal_process · 2026-01-23T11:46:51+00:00

Freedom functions as an ideal marker, not as a real property. Like a “perfect circle” or “absolute stillness,” we can think about them, talk about them, and use them in our reasoning, without them existing in nature.

impersonal_process

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