<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body dir="auto"><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); white-space-collapse: preserve;">Today I wondered what William James had to say in "The Principles of Psychology" about free will. Are there parts about free will? </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); white-space-collapse: preserve;">Volume 2 has a Chapter XXVI "WILL"...</span></p><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/Principles/prin26.htm</span></p><br dir="auto"><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">...where William says "The essential achievement of the will, in short, when it is most 'voluntary,' is to ATTEND to a difficult object and hold it fast before the mind"</span></p><br dir="auto"><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr">He continues <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); white-space-collapse: preserve;">"though the spontaneous drift of thought is all the other way, the attention must be kept strained on that one object until at last it grows, so as to maintain itself before the mind with ease. This strain of the attention is the fundamental act of will."</span></p><br dir="auto"><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">William James suggests that the act of will is fundamentally an effort of attention because minds wander and thoughts drift, like particles who are subject to random movement or who drift away due to increasing entropy. Our ability to focus attention, especially in the face of competing distractions, is therefore central to our experience of exercising free will.</span></p><br dir="auto"><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Free will is according to James related to the question what are the forces that increase or influence our attention. If I understand him correctly this means to identify the forces that reduce our "entropy of thought", and thereby our freedom of choice, correct? For example in the case of addiction the entropy of thought is reduced to 0, because the addict is only able to think of one thing, the object of desire, and one action, to get more of it. In this sense free will would mean a high entropy of thought.</span></p><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br></span></p><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">-J.</span></p><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br></span></p><br dir="auto"></body></html>