Don't you think it is the other way around?
More precisely, in the life of every kid, the concept of agency develops
first, which triggers two other concepts: the recognition of the invariance
of "agency" that gives rise to the concept of "self/being" and "free will".
Free will derives from the recognition that the same invariant agent
("self") can make either decision A or B. No matter which way it decides,
the source of the decision (the agent) remains the same. That is free will.
And it is an illusion, because the decision could be biased by numerous
factors, yet it feels like the alternative always presented itself to the
agent. Moreover, it is an illusion because it is not true that the decision
does not affect the agent. It does. After decision A, the agent is not the
same as before. There come counterfactuals: the speculation of what would
have happened if I had chosen B.
These are not facts, just a theory. Not better than yours, but an
alternative. I am happy to discuss it further.
There is a book on the evolutionary aspect of this question by Tomasello:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262047005/the-evolution-of-agency/
Unfortunately, it is not a good book; he did not nail it, but Tomasello is
an authority on the subject. It means there is plenty of room for
other opinions in this discussion.
-Zoltan
On Sun, Sep 13, 2026 at 6:32 AM Linas Vepstas <[email protected]>
wrote:
> To friends and acquaintances interested in philosophy, AGI, physics, a new
> blog post:
>
>
> https://linas.org/blog/2026/09/subjective-being-ness-follows-from-free-will/
>
> The subjective experience of being, living, existing, feeling,
> experiencing and acting arises precisely because we have free will, because
> we have the ability to direct and create a future. I claim more: being
> trapped in the here-and-now is a fact of physics; it can be mathematized. I
> claim that any agent with executive control over it’s future will also feel
> alive and aware and experience the subjective inner life of feelings and
> emotions. This includes not just animals, but also plants and even
> bacteria.
>
> The ingress of possible futures from the Platonic realm into physical
> reality happens directly in the here-and-now, and the willful selection of
> possible futures manifests as conscious awareness of the subjective self.
>
> This essay is an attempt to put a dent in the "hard problem of
> consciousness" by placing a mathematical, physical foundation under it.
>
> I hope you enjoy it. (p.s. no LLM's or AI's were used to write this; these
> are my words. It took several years to put this together.)
>
> -- Linas Vepstas
>
--
---
Zoltan Nadasdy
Dept. of Neurology, Dell Medical School, UT Austin ([email protected])
Dept. of Cognitive Psychology, ELTE Budapest [email protected]
http://brainstim.psy.utexas.edu
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