Do Humans Have Compulsary Will? Which best describes your take on 'will'?

[The Grand Nudger]

I'd like to add to this a point about the evolutionary narrative.  For selection to work, a trait, or at least a trait precursor, must exist in an individual in order to be tested statistically against the environment.

Of course.  How would selection act on a non-existent thing, eh?  

So let's go to the beinning of mind, and ask a question-- is there a minimal "spark" which constitutes mind?  Some will argue that there's a smooth transition between dumb matter and thinking systems, but I think tha's a semantic cop-out-- either there is a subjective perspective, no matter how simple, or there isn't one.  That means that while the NATURE of mind may have evolved with the complexity of organic brains, the EXISTENCE of mind was necessarily spontaneous.

I think I would agree with the statement, that mind - the "spark", the lowest common denominator of mind, if you will..is a subjective perspective.  I'm not sure what the options are, regarding the last bit.  Spontaneous as opposed to what?  Spontaneous as differing from.....?

What does this mean for the idea that the mind is a product of matter?  In evolutionary terms, that first existence of mind must have been exactly simultaneous with the first existence of the structure supporting it: for if the system preceded the effect, then you'd have to posit some kind of magic light switch whereby a system capable of mind didn't actually have a mind-- and then it did.

Your statement regarding what must proceed what is demonstrably incorrect - particularly so regarding evolutionary biology.  The system that -is- your ceiling fan existed long before it produced any effect, and the system that -is- your ear existed before any human being ever hear with one.   Magic?  I don't think that there is -ever- a requirement of proposing magic in explanation of -anything-.

So it must be said not that the brain evolved, and that mind is a byproduct of the brain, but that mind and brain must have co-evolved.  In other words, there has never been a living thing, with a functioning nervous system, in which some degree of mind wasn't one of the determiners of subsequent evolutionary events.  So this preference of looking at physical structures as dominant, and mind as a byproduct, isn't really correct: mind is ubiquitous in the evolution of all living systems including that of the brain-- this is the opposite of "byproduct."

Stating that mind and brain co-evolved does not, in any way, make a contradictory claim to the statement mind evolved as a byproduct of brain.  In fact, mind evolving as a byproduct of brain explains both -how- and -why- the two co-evolved (course, there are some ways we could take the phrase "mind evolved" to be nonsense......I'm just trying to run with it). That the tissues we use now for mind haven't always been engaged thusly seems pretty clear from both living representatives possessing that tissue, and what we can put together of evolutionary history.  After all, jellyfish's neurons (never quite made it to "brains", poor bastards....) are and have been evolving - and yet we (in the general, perhaps you and I might?) don't credit them with an evolving mind.  I'm not sure what you mean with the bit about mind being a determiner of subsequent evolutionary events.  I don't think that pathogens are interested in this mind business - they'll kill you and all your buddies with, without, and in spite of....for example.  In evolutionary biology -survival- is -always- the determiner.  It is the only "determiner".   Do we think that creatures with mind/brain have a survival advantage yes (precisely in the same way that lungs or teeth may confer advantage), but we don't think that mind is a magic bullet which can be influencial in any selective scenario (and we certainly -know- that our minds do not have this sort of power).   There's no room to budge here or you aren't commenting on evolutionary biology -at all-.   Mind/brain can be a modifier for survival - but they are not determining the survival even of creatures that have them, either wholly or touching upon every aspect in some way, as you seem to be implying.  Minds or brains aren't -always- a factor, or even a saving grace...sometimes the other guy is just a badass motherfucker and our days are numbered, but they're sure nice to have.  

I would think that, though...wouldn't I?