The place of rage and hate

[Surgenator]

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2) "Out of character" decisions exist. I'm not the cases when others would consider the decision out of character, but only when the person that made the decision considers it out of character. In these cases, they seem very contrary to any battle of the wills. It seem like the decision was random, and when asked why they made such a decision the answers range from "I don't know" to "just felt like it."

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If people don't know why they do things, then this seems to support the idea that the human will is not a possession of the conscious self, but rather a greater force underlying the conscious self.

Not necessarily, the decision could be picked at random. Lets say you have 5 choices where each have a certain likelihood of being choosen decided by your reasons and wants. A choice can be picked at random. If one of your choices has a significantly higher likelihood than the rest, it will be the most likeliest to be picked i.e. the obvious choice. If two of the choice have about the same likelihood and greater than the others, you can easily flip between the two choices everytime you reexamine the situation. And so on. This setup does allow an out-of-character choice to be choosen because the picking is ultimately random.

I should mention that in my setup the picking is random, but the likelihood distribution is not. The likelihood distribution will be based on the persons character, current avaliable knowledge, rational, emotional state, etc...

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I don't buy this argument for 2 main reasons:

1) It assumes that once one will wins, the others are discarded. I remember plenty of experiences where I kept on changing my mind on what to do. In one case, I was deciding on whether or not to take a job or go to school. I changed my mind back and forth for days until I hit the deadline to respond. Only then did was my decision was forced. If no deadline existed, I would of spend a lot longer deciding.

2) "Out of character" decisions exist. I'm not the cases when others would consider the decision out of character, but only when the person that made the decision considers it out of character. In these cases, they seem very contrary to any battle of the wills. It seem like the decision was random, and when asked why they made such a decision the answers range from "I don't know" to "just felt like it."

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You should definitely read Schopenhauer's Prize Essay on the Freedom of the Will. To summarize, he would (and I largely agree with him regarding determinism from a philosophical standpoint) counter 1) by suggesting that you're confusing wishing with willing. Human beings may possess a variety of conflicting motivations that result in inconsistent behavior but that's not to say that your will, granted your freedom to act as you see fit isn't prohibited, won't ultimately prevail. When a different option becomes more desirable and you change your mind, you're not changing your will as it is properly understood, you're changing your stance towards the motivation that previously won out; new information comes into view that lessens that desire or strengthens an opposing one. Your example, when a "decision was forced" and you couldn't exactly determine what your will was or would be, demonstrates that it is often only after the fact that we come to realize our character and to think to ourselves, for better or for worse, "I did that?!"

As for 2), regarding "out-of-character" behaviors, I'm not so sure I agree given the mosaic nature of personality and the many layers of causation beneath thoughts and actions. When a person does something absent of any apparent reason, or acts uncharacteristically, that doesn't mean a reason doesn't exist, or that they didn't act according to their will. They simply didn't understand what their will, which is their empirical character, actually entailed. That will can be influenced by reason, however, is what fundamentally separates us from other primates, and introduces the concept of morality.

I hate reading philosophy books from their original authors. There is too much jargon and run on sentences. So, thank you for summerizing.

Schopenhauer position would say any re-examining of your choices will always lead to the same conclusion unless something caused the desires to change. Lets say say, for argument sake, we controlled for the emotion state and the any addition of knowledge but still got different conclusions. Schopenhauer would state some other factor changed the desires. This makes Schopenhauer position unfalsifiable.

I can think of another selection process where the decision is made at random. (see my responce to BennyBoy)