Do you feel like you make the same decisions when you are tired, or hungry, or angry, as you do when you aren’t those things? Do you ever feel a disconnect about what you wish you would do and what you actually do? (E.g. exercising more, eating better, spending more time doing x, or anything else) Have you ever had trouble kicking a habit, or starting a new one you want to have?
I am not talking about direct control in the sense of “I want to move my hand here and then I make my hand move”, but more in the sense of “there is sometimes a disconnect between the choices I want to make and the choices I actually make”. That difference ebbs and flows, and I am sure some people are better at living exactly how they want to live than others, but I don’t think anyone ALWAYS makes the decisions that are perfectly in line with what they want to choose to do.
> Do you feel like you make the same decisions when you are tired, or hungry, or angry, as you do when you aren’t those things?
Yes, unless those prescribed emotions are causing my body to care more to tend to survival than the normal state of chilling
> Do you ever feel a disconnect about what you wish you would do and what you actually do?
How does the ability to exercise one's will have anything to do with whether or not one has the will?
> Have you ever had trouble kicking a habit, or starting a new one you want to have?
Partial control of my complex meat machine from subconscious levels of my mind do not invalidate the idea that I have complete control over select scenarios. For instance, you have decided to make an argument based on the idea that your meat machine and you share more of a collaborative existence than you would assume a creature with free will would share with its meat-or-otherwise machine, whereas I hold that existence is naturally inextricably tied up with the act of acquiring energy via eating and alleviating whatever burdens sleep is designed to lift and these facts should not be confused as indicating we are slaves to our vessels. Quite a weak argument to me.
> do not invalidate the idea that I have complete control over select scenarios.
I was not trying to say you NEVER have complete control. I am saying we don’t ALWAYS have complete CONSCIOUS control. I am saying we often make decisions for reasons that we are not fully conscious of, or even aware at all. In fact, we will sometimes tell ourselves (and actually believe) we are doing something for one reasons when we are in reality doing it for another reason we aren’t fully aware of. Our subconscious controls a lot more of what we do than we realize, is my point.
I am not saying we can’t choose to, at moments, take more full conscious control for a while. I am also in no way arguing against free will. I am just saying that we are only aware of a part of what goes into our choices of actions.
> I am not saying we can’t choose to, at moments, take more full conscious control for a while. I am also in no way arguing against free will
Okay, perhaps it is useful to be more judicious in your language then. After all, the top-level parent of this comment chain is saying this:
> Most people believe [...] that they choose how they act and behave. Any serious introspection, however, quickly shows how foolish [this belief is].
This comment is not exactly showing the nuance in a statement such as more reasonably arguing "we are only aware of a part of what goes into our choices of actions".
I am not talking about direct control in the sense of “I want to move my hand here and then I make my hand move”, but more in the sense of “there is sometimes a disconnect between the choices I want to make and the choices I actually make”. That difference ebbs and flows, and I am sure some people are better at living exactly how they want to live than others, but I don’t think anyone ALWAYS makes the decisions that are perfectly in line with what they want to choose to do.