Will - what has will

Everything living has a Will.  As the number of inputs is reduced the sophistication and complexity of the decision making process reduces.   If we reduce the number of inputs from the ones we as human beings have :

1. Objectives and their priority
2. Personality – for example aversion to risk, timidity or boldness
3. The results of the reasoning process – possible courses
4. Emotional input from perceptions
5. The original perceptions [threat, opportunity, obligation]
6. Input from composer – inspiration, intuition, guidance, love etc

To

1. Objectives  - own
2. Personality
3. 3.      [The results of the reasoning process]– reduced
4. Emotional input from perceptions
5. The original perceptions [threat, opportunity, obligations gone]
6. Input from composer – inspiration, intuition, guidance, love etc

You eventually get to the level at which an animal or small child makes decisions.  The objectives become their own, the results of the reasoning process are reduced only because their mental models are not as complex, the reasoning process itself may be working well.  And the obligations would have no meaning to them – animals and children don’t have obligations

If you then further reduce the input to

1. The original perceptions [threat, opportunity]
2. Input from composer – inspiration, intuition, guidance, love etc

You have reached the level of the lower life forms – plants, amoeba and so on,  whose decision making system is largely that of avoiding threats and probably exploiting the opportunities that come along – food for example or in the case of a Portuguese-man-of-war a favourable wind!

Observations

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• Hume, David - Decision making and what influences the Will
• Spinoza, Baruch - Ethics - Will and free will