The place of rage and hate

[bennyboy]

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...

Is this real randomness, or is it just unfathomable complexity? If true randomness, then how would it be generated, and by what mechanism or process would a person making a decision access that true randomness?

Also, with regards to being out-of-character: if you are faced with a dilemma so perfectly balanced that only the injection of a random element can tip the balance, then I'd say there are two possibilities: 1) that both choices are highly resolved in the person's unconscious, but are in conflict (love of sex vs. a sense of honor, for example); 2) that neither choice has a "program" to deal with it-- for example, if I had to choice between two floral-patterned wallpapers for my wife's study.


I'd say that BOTH elements of the first dilemma are in-character, and BOTH elements of the latter are out-of-character in a sense. However, I'd argue a kind of meta-character, in which the careful consideration of some kinds of dilemma, and the lack of consideration for other kinds of dilemma, are still under that umbrella of will.

In other words, I'd say nothing is truly random, and no decision can ever be out-of-character. Rather, they are out-of-expectation, i.e. they are surprising albeit inevitable.